Originally Posted by :
AT&T, DirecTV announce $48 billion merger
By Cecilia Kang, Sunday, May 18, 5:16 PM E-mail the writer
AT&T and DirecTV on Sunday announced an approximately $48 billion merger that would create a new telecom and television behemoth to rival cable firms — while raising fresh concerns over competition and options for consumers.
AT&T would gain DirecTV’s 20 million U.S. subscribers, a company with strong cash flows and an ability to fatten its bundle of offerings. The combined firm would be able to offer phone, high-speed Internet and paid television subscriptions to more customers — packages only cable firms such as Comcast have been able to sell.
It is the latest mega-merger to be announced this year in a dramatically shifting telecommunications industry. The titans of the industry have recently rushed to bulk up — in overall size and in diversity of service offerings — as their legacy phone and television businesses fray and consumers turn to the Internet for communications and entertainment.
The deals, which must be approved by federal regulators, have prompted new concern that consumers could be left with fewer options and even higher prices after years of creeping increases in monthly bills. Last year, U.S. cable television prices increased 5.1 percent to an average $64, triple the rate of inflation, according to a government report.
“The industry needs more competition, not more mergers,” said John Bergmayer, a senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “We’ll have to analyze this one carefully for potential harms both to the video programming and the wireless markets.”
After a failed attempt three years ago at buying wireless provider T-Mobile, AT&T had been searching for alternative acquisitions. But its choices were limited, with regulators expressing great concern that the wireless and high-speed-Internet markets were not competitive enough.
The Dallas-based company said it would gain broad strategic benefits from buying the nation’s second-largest paid-television provider. The phone giant would have greater power with television programmers to bring down licensing costs. And as the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier, it could use its new prominence in the television industry to bring videos to its mobile customers. El Segundo, Calif.-based DirecTV has an exclusive contracts with programmers, including NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows football fans to watch their favorite teams even if they live outside the local television markets serving the teams.
Originally Posted by BryanBusby:
afaik it pretty much has. They're still branching out in towns they already have agreements with, but they aren't entering new towns or cities.
There was a big stink over it after Hurricane Sandy when they refused to replace the trashed copper or roll out fiber optic lines to heavily hit areas.
My understanding of the situation with Hurricane Sandy is that there was a problem between some of the cities and Verizon, they had trouble getting approvals or something.
And "not entering" new cities is not the same as halting deployments. They're not currently signing new agreements but they're still actively expanding the network in areas where they already have agreements. That has more to do with telecom regs than with Verizon simply not wanting to deploy anymore fiber. [Reply]
I didn't say they were halting all installations, but they certainly aren't expanding into new places.
As for the other part, the issue was they were cramming their HomeFusion shit on people. Why roll out fiber optic line when you could pimp out a much more profitable wireless service? [Reply]
Originally Posted by BryanBusby:
I didn't say they were halting all installations, but they certainly aren't expanding into new places.
As for the other part, the issue was they were cramming their HomeFusion shit on people. Why roll out fiber optic line when you could pimp out a much more profitable wireless service?
Because wireless doesn't allow them to deliver the video services they want to deliver in the future.
Plus, like AT&T, Verizon doesn't want to throw away the money they invested in wireline infrastructure. Old habits die hard. [Reply]
It might blow up. I guess they have the right to bail if they do not keep sunday ticket. And it is past negotiations. So maybe the NFL learns their lesson and branches out to more than one distributor.
Shit pisses me off, they cram their shit nfl network saying it is required, but will not give up sunday ticket. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Valiant:
It might blow up. I guess they have the right to bail if they do not keep sunday ticket. And it is past negotiations. So maybe the NFL learns their lesson and branches out to more than one distributor.
Shit pisses me off, they cram their shit nfl network saying it is required, but will not give up sunday ticket.
Originally Posted by Valiant:
It might blow up. I guess they have the right to bail if they do not keep sunday ticket. And it is past negotiations. So maybe the NFL learns their lesson and branches out to more than one distributor.
Shit pisses me off, they cram their shit nfl network saying it is required, but will not give up sunday ticket.
Just got done reading the NFL is very close to a new deal with Directv. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
The deal will help AT&T pay down a massive amount of debt that it accrued from expensive deals over the years, including DirecTV and Time Warner.
Layed off tens of thousands of core employees and thousands more of Warner employees to be able to afford the merger only to get rid of them a couple of years later. What a great company. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Spott:
Layed off tens of thousands of core employees and thousands more of Warner employees to be able to afford the merger only to get rid of them a couple of years later. What a great company.
It happens all the time, in lots of industries.
Verizon spent the last 4 years buying media companies like Yahoo and is now selling all but a minority stake. They didn't have layoffs to finance the purchase and they didn't take a huge loss like AT&T but business priorities change quickly, especially in tech.
The biggest problem with AT&T is that everybody knew satellite was dying when they bought DTV. They got into the business when it was already too late and paid peak price for it as well. [Reply]