Judge approves $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner deal

[TSwizzle]

Uh-oh;

A federal judge handed AT&T a sweeping victory on Tuesday and approved its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, a deal that promises to reshape the media industry. After a six-week trial, Judge Richard Leon ruled that the government had failed to prove that the deal violates antitrust law. Using unusually strong language, he discouraged the Justice Department from asking him to put the ruling on hold while they consider an appeal. He said such a request would be "manifestly unjust" because it would have the effect of killing the acquisition.

CNN

I don't think I like this at all. AT&T are pretty shit to begin with.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, all of the other massive consolidation has made things so much more competitive and cheaper. *crickets*

 

[braces_for_impact]

Don't worry, it's that paragon of virtue from the corporate world, AT&T. You know the ones that bribed, er, persuaded Michael Cohen to an advisory role to guide AT&T to a soft landing with regards to Trump. They're in charge of CNN now. No worries.

 

[Opoponax]

AT&T provides shit products at a higher price. And then when you pay your bill, pay the early termination fees, and turn your equipment in personally, a funny thing happens a few months later.

You get a letter from them saying you didn't close your account, didn't pay your bill, and didn't turn your equipment in. If you don't have your receipt, you're not totally fucked---you think. You still have your bank records. So you call, spend two hours, prove that you paid your bill, and then they insist that you didn't.

AT&T is the only ding on my credit. I refused to fucking pay them, and I refused to settle for anything less at arbitration than having to pay them zero and forcing them to take that shit off my record.

They also insisted I had a landline that I had cancelled like two years prior, but then only began charging me for again once I refused to pay for the Direct TV bill and equipment I'd already paid for.

Sorry for the rant. I'm still pissed about it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

AT&T is oddly good in my area, NE Ohio, where we received upgraded DSL quicker, compared to the average city, and then fiber optic. I have the option 1 Gb/sec. And the price is actually relatively low.

But this consolidation is getting out of hand.

 

[ZiprHead]

AT&T is oddly good in my area, NE Ohio, where we received upgraded DSL quicker, compared to the average city, and then fiber optic. I have the option 1 Gb/sec. And the price is actually relatively low.

But this consolidation is getting out of hand.

100 Gb/sec, $29.95/month here. 400 Gb optional.

I liked DirecTV when we had it. Worked quite well, the DVR was excellent, and customer service was actually quite good.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

AT&T is oddly good in my area, NE Ohio, where we received upgraded DSL quicker, compared to the average city, and then fiber optic. I have the option 1 Gb/sec. And the price is actually relatively low.

But this consolidation is getting out of hand.

100 Gb/sec, $29.95/month here. 400 Gb optional.

I liked DirecTV when we had it. Worked quite well, the DVR was excellent, and customer service was actually quite good.

100 Gb/sec?! That sounds like corporate bandwidth, not residential.

 

[Elixir]

I know zilch about this, other than that Cheato opposed the merger. So... good.

 

[JohnG]

There was probably nothing in it for Cheato. Nothing else mattered.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There was probably nothing in it for Cheato. Nothing else mattered.

CNN is a Time Warner property, and Trump was very anti-CNN.

 

[ZiprHead]

AT&T is oddly good in my area, NE Ohio, where we received upgraded DSL quicker, compared to the average city, and then fiber optic. I have the option 1 Gb/sec. And the price is actually relatively low.

But this consolidation is getting out of hand.

100 Gb/sec, $29.95/month here. 400 Gb optional.

I liked DirecTV when we had it. Worked quite well, the DVR was excellent, and customer service was actually quite good.

100 Gb/sec?! That sounds like corporate bandwidth, not residential.

Sorry. That was supposed to be Mb/s.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

100 Gb/sec?! That sounds like corporate bandwidth, not residential.

Sorry. That was supposed to be Mb/s.

Okay, not so crazy then. My area is priced about the same. I had 100 Mb/sec, but really didn't need that level of speed. Also, my laptop tech was 802.11g, so it wasn't even capable of downloading that fast, though close.

 

[RVonse]

This has to be bad. In my area you only have 2 choices for internet, either ATT or Charter Communications. So take your pick, they are both crap.

We need more competition not less.

I heard today that Disney is going to merge with 21 Century Fox so they can further monopolize the media.

If government cant break some of these corporations up, it is time for the people to start breaking our elected leaders from office.

 

[SimpleDon]

... But this consolidation is getting out of hand.

Yes, this is another undesirable benefit of directing as much of the nation's income to corporate profits as possible. The corporations end up with vastly more money than they can possibly ever invest in building their business. Corporate profits right now are about seven times the amount of corporate investment. Stockholders are happy with the inflation capital gains in their stock valuation so they aren't demanding that the excess profits be distributed as dividends. That is, stockholders are looking for high levels of inflation capital gains, not dividends. After a while, even the most jaded CEO gets jittery (double points for using two words in a single sentence starting with the letter "J") holding onto too much cash, it makes a corporation an inviting target for a hostile take-over. So after they buy back their own stock, after they stuff as much as they can in the bank in the Caymans, their thoughts turn to buying another company.

Very few mergers and acquisitions work out to produce a stronger company than the two companies were before the merger or acquisition.

My short time in the C suite was spent as Director of Research and Planning. Any time we got a little money ahead, which for us was tens of millions euros, my CEO's thoughts turned to aquiring another company. It fell on me to research this.

 

[Playball40]

This has to be bad. In my area you only have 2 choices for internet, either ATT or Charter Communications. So take your pick, they are both crap.

We need more competition not less.

I heard today that Disney is going to merge with 21 Century Fox so they can further monopolize the media.

If government cant break some of these corporations up, it is time for the people to start breaking our elected leaders from office.

Comcast has just come in and made a larger offer. This will also pave the way for an easy merger of CVS and Aetna.