[gorner]

It doesn't violate anti-trust laws to buy another company you do not compete with. And there are very few, if any, territories where Comcast and TWC directly compete at present – depending on where you live, you can subscribe to one or the other (or some other cable company), but not both.

[mgkimsal]

but... they only don't compete because of govt sanctioned monopoly status in the first place, no?

[gorner]

Originally (and perhaps still in some specific areas), yes. Most regions have deregulated though, which is why FiOS, U-Verse and Google Fiber TV are able to exist.

But the infrastructure costs for Comcast to build out a brand new network in TWC territories (or vice-versa) on a mass scale would be pretty high.

For the sake of comparison (Google Fiber): http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/1810244/nationw...

[mgkimsal]

"pretty high" but they've got $45b to 'invest' in buying out competition, instead of spending a fraction of that to compete head to head in specific markets, then eventually more markets?

If it's deregulated, then they can enter the market and compete on service and price, not buy up the competition so there's no chance of anyone else ever being able to enter. TWC has been pretty active in trying to prevent municipal fiber in NC, and I suspect with even more money/muscle/lobby power behind them, it will be easier to squash any semblance of competition in any form.

[gorner]

It's an all-stock deal though. Comcast isn't actually paying any money (in fact I believe they still have a significant amount of debt from buying NBC), instead they're proposing giving TWC shareholders the equivalent of $45B in new Comcast shares in exchange for giving up their collective ownership of TWC.

But yeah, Comcast and TWC's recent lobbying efforts in general sound pretty suspect. Not defending that aspect by any means.