On Feb. 13, 2014, the news about Comcast's plans to merge with Time Warner Cable became known to the public. Known as the largest cable and broadcasting company in the United States, Comcast's TWC acquisition is reportedly worth $45 billion.
However, the Comcast-TWC merger is still under the intense scrutiny of the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As Sacramento Bee reported, the regulators aim to look for ways to control these companies because of their bad customer service reputation.
According to Ars Technica, Comcast's acquisition seemed to be unstoppable. In New York, the city council is requesting the Public Service Commission (PSC) to make sure that tough conditions will be ordered on the merger.
Furthermore, NYC Public Advocate Letitia James said in an interview that she is concerned on creating monopolies, poor customer service and high cost of other services. And if the merger will push through, James additionally requested that Comcast should offer a $10, 10mbps Internet service to all New York residents regardless of income status.
Meanwhile, PSC postponed the voting for the Comcast-TWC merger to April 20 after the reviews were done. The delay was brought about by FCC's recent decision on Net Neutrality, which will prevent the company or any other Internet Service Provider from using market power to block content from reaching the customers.
In California, the merger has not been receive positively as well. The company has been tagged as being inefficient since they had a very bad reputation on their Internet services. Fresno Bee reported the consumers also feared that the merger will bring inefficient service on a greater scale.
In the event the Comcast-TWC merger will be enacted, Comcast will surely become more powerful as the company will be able to use its market power to control the mass media industry. Hopefully, the consumers, regardless of social and financial status, will benefit from all of these changes.
