Charter makes a bid to buy Time Warner Cable for $78.7B ($56B without debt) - Polidicks

[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/26/us-twc-m-a-charter-communi-idUSKBN0OA15L20150526[/url] [quote=Reuters]Charter Communications Inc's $56 billion bid to remake the U.S. cable television industry by acquiring larger rival Time Warner Cable Inc will try to skirt the regulatory obstacles that helped sink Comcast Corp's earlier bid for Time Warner Cable. The combined company would control a big swath of the cable and Internet markets, marking a huge step toward industry consolidation, long advocated by cable pioneer John Malone, Charter's biggest shareholder. The transaction faces a close review from the Federal Communications Commission, whose chairman Tom Wheeler said the FCC will "look to see how American consumers would benefit if the deal were to be approved." The agreement is the latest sign of how cable companies are grappling with declining subscriber numbers as viewers shift to cheaper and more flexible streaming services offered by Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc, and Hulu. Even Time Warner Inc's HBO, long a premium channel offered by cable operators, recently started a standalone streaming service.[/quote]

God, I love zero competition and having no choice between service providers.

As somebody whose only ISP in my area is TWC, I really hope this turns out good.

Well... Hm. Is Charter better or worse than Time Warner? I know they've got a reasonable business tier, which is what I'm using, but I've never really looked at the residential side of things.

Charter internet is... descent. They sometimes throttle you after you download a bunch of crap even though they say they won't do that.

[QUOTE=Maas;47810991]As somebody whose only ISP in my area is TWC, I really hope this turns out good.[/QUOTE] Apparently the base speed for Charter residential is 60/4 for $30 a month, with a 250GB soft cap. Business tier 1 is 75/4 with no soft cap for $80. Is that better than what you're getting now?

[QUOTE=woolio1;47811007]Apparently the base speed for Charter residential is 60/4 for $30 a month, with a 250GB soft cap. Business tier 1 is 75/4 with no soft cap for $80.[/QUOTE] I'd take the business tier 1... I pay $70 right now for 50/5 on TWC. 4 up is a bit low though.

[QUOTE=Levelog;47811023]I'd take the business tier 1... I pay $70 right now for 50/5 on TWC. 4 up is a bit low though.[/QUOTE] For a little reference, this is mine today. It's not full speed, but I'm behind three routers budging wifi around my house. The iMac we've got in the office, hardwired to the main router, gets 65 down almost all the time. [img]http://i.imgur.com/jnCoSkAl.png[/img]

We've been on Charter for probably 15 years, by and large we've had few problems. We're long standing customers so we get 100/5 no cap. Don't think its available anymore but you could certainly try to ask. Usually our download is consistently between 95 and 105.

Honestly all I want is more upload, but that does worry me because TWC basically doesn't ban be from having any kind of server except for enterprise ones. Dunno about Charter.

More monopolies in the land of freedom, what could possibly go wrong.

[QUOTE=PirateMax;47811145]More monopolies in the land of freedom, what could possibly go wrong.[/QUOTE] Don't you know? Monopolies ARE freedom, businesses should be able to do what they want afterall. :rolleyes:

they're loaded

The deal was announced, the purchase is not final. At this point they have gotten as far as Comcast did when it tried to buy TWC. Try to make your title less misleading next time.

For a person that has both ISP as a option, Charter is by far the best ISP around me. TWC is absolute crap compared to charter. Keep in mind Charter is still far from perfect but Charter for me is the least evil. For western NC its Charter >>> AT@T > TWC > Verizon Overall this is bad news for everyone. We need competition more in the ISP world. Google Fiber needs to be more accessible to the East Coast

[QUOTE=PelPix123;47811254]A relatively honest company buys twc. Interested to see what happens.[/QUOTE] I wouldnt go as far as a "Honest" Company. Charter still treats customers like shit, no communications to tech service (Had to call charter about the Route from my house to valve servers, They had no idea wtf i was talking about and told me to restart the computer and the modem, that doesnt fix charters shit routes) and they throttle you at peak times. Also they use outdated modems and routers for their internet.

Honest until they have the entire area and can do what they want. All these large ISPs that have a monopoly today started out as honest. Hey, we're faster than 56k by a lot, and cost the same, if not less, why don't you swap on over. 5 years later. We have everyone, we're jacking the prices up. What's that? You stream on Twitch? We don't like you using that much data because data is finite. It's not like we can either support the capacity or not, we have to generate this shit by making fairies fuck. So if you want to continue streaming, we'll take the cap limit off of you for only $300 a month. But that's just Tier 1 so your speeds are going to be 5 down 10 up. It'll be $350/mo if you want faster speeds. (TWC) Now suck our mega dick or go back to 56k

[QUOTE=woolio1;47811007]Apparently the base speed for Charter residential is 60/4 for $30 a month, with a 250GB soft cap. Business tier 1 is 75/4 with no soft cap for $80. Is that better than what you're getting now?[/QUOTE] Base price for charter here in St. Louis is $40-50 i think.

[QUOTE=GeneralSpecific;47811228]The deal was announced, the purchase is not final. At this point they have gotten as far as Comcast did when it tried to buy TWC. Try to make your title less misleading next time.[/QUOTE] The purchase has been approved by all companies involved though, just waiting on FCC. The Comcast-TWC took a LOT longer in this aspect.

[QUOTE=Levelog;47811370]The purchase has been approved by all companies involved though, just waiting on FCC. The Comcast-TWC took a LOT longer in this aspect.[/QUOTE] You can't compare how long they both took because one of them is not done.

[QUOTE=GeneralSpecific;47811382]You can't compare how long they both took because one of them is not done.[/QUOTE] I'm talking about how long they both took up to the point that this one is now. That's completely fair to compare.

Yeah my router kept going out so they bought us a new one and upgraded our speed to 5 Mbps

wicked, this is a crap fucking thread title and you know it. The deal hasn't happened yet, it's being looked at by the FCC before it can be validated and says so in the article quote you posted [I]and[/I] the headline if you click the link.

Had charter for around 20 years. Wayyy. Better. Than Comcast. I had charter, then Comcast, now fiber through the city I live in. Obviously fiber is the best but charter was actually really good. I means it's still a huge company but they didn't harass me like Comcast did. Also was faster and more reliable

[QUOTE=Banned?;47811580]wicked, this is a crap fucking thread title and you know it. The deal hasn't happened yet, it's being looked at by the FCC before it can be validated and says so in the article quote you posted [I]and[/I] the headline if you click the link.[/QUOTE] Oh FUCK. Let me get Crap to alter the title... [editline].[/editline] Okay there, Crap fixed it all up. Now to go slap myself...

I haven't had any issues with Charter, and from what I heard TWC is awful so it could probably only be good coming from this

[QUOTE=mralexs;47810997]Charter internet is... descent. They sometimes throttle you after you download a bunch of crap even though they say they won't do that.[/QUOTE] I have charter, can confirm throttled speeds, supposed to get 60 mb/s down, lucky if I get 2mb/s

[QUOTE=woolio1;47811007]Apparently the base speed for Charter residential is 60/4 for $30 a month, with a 250GB soft cap. Business tier 1 is 75/4 with no soft cap for $80. Is that better than what you're getting now?[/QUOTE] [img]http://u.cubeupload.com/Paramud/3Sw3Fd.png[/img] At this point I'd take a couple of tin cans connected with fucking strings if they were uncapped.

[QUOTE=woolio1;47811007]Apparently the base speed for Charter residential is 60/4 for $30 a month, with a 250GB soft cap. Business tier 1 is 75/4 with no soft cap for $80. Is that better than what you're getting now?[/QUOTE] Getting 50/5 for over 100$, so that's nice

[QUOTE=Paramud;47811625][img]http://u.cubeupload.com/Paramud/3Sw3Fd.png[/img] At this point I'd take a couple of tin cans connected with fucking strings if they were uncapped.[/QUOTE] Good lord... That's terrible.