I currently have Time-Warner Internet service. The price is reasonable for the level of service I've got (as reasonable as you'll find around here anyway). There's a convenient office about 5 miles away that I can go to if I need to talk to someone. And for all the complaints I've heard about Time-Warner, my customer experience has actually been pretty good.
I've heard a little about Comcast. Like that it's slow, censors certain web sites, deliberately throttles bittorrent (which contrary to popular belief is not used exclusively to commit online piracy – it's how I download my Linux distributions) and crashes at the worst possible moments (there's even a word for that – Comcastration).
We already have a "cartel" of a handful of corporations who control access to the Internet, fix prices, stifle technological progress and so on. If this media behemoth swallows up Time-Warner, how high will the cost of Internet access go up? Would the convenient local office be replaced by an offshore back-office? Would sites like this one either be censored entirely or moved to the back of the metaphorical bus? In short, what would happen to Internet access under the biggest monopoly seen since the breakup of The Bell Telephone System? (Ma Bell was at least regulated to some degree. Comcast won't be.)
I've heard a little about Comcast. Like that it's slow, censors certain web sites, deliberately throttles bittorrent (which contrary to popular belief is not used exclusively to commit online piracy – it's how I download my Linux distributions) and crashes at the worst possible moments (there's even a word for that – Comcastration).
We already have a "cartel" of a handful of corporations who control access to the Internet, fix prices, stifle technological progress and so on. If this media behemoth swallows up Time-Warner, how high will the cost of Internet access go up? Would the convenient local office be replaced by an offshore back-office? Would sites like this one either be censored entirely or moved to the back of the metaphorical bus? In short, what would happen to Internet access under the biggest monopoly seen since the breakup of The Bell Telephone System? (Ma Bell was at least regulated to some degree. Comcast won't be.)