[opendtv] Re: AT&T is hiking the price of DirecTV Now, despite promising lower consumer prices in the Time Warner trial
- From: "Craig Birkmaier" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "brewmastercraig" for DMARC)
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2018 06:44:34 -0400
On Jul 3, 2018, at 8:27 PM, Manfredi (US), Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As the article points out, and as I suspected at the time of the trial, the
courts were most likely unacceptably myopic and clueless. They treated this
like any merger, e.g. Disney and Fox, and didn't grasp the significance that
one of the parties merging is a giant ISP network.
No Bert. They did not treat this like a vertical merger, like the just approved
Disney/Fox merger. THe AT&T/TW merger was a horizontal merger - AT&T did not
own an existing content company.
As for the significance of one of the parties being an in the ISP business, it
was, and still is, irrelevant. This has nothing to do with the pricing of
content bundles. As the article points out, AT&T raised prices in response to
the “industry trend” - it followed Hulu and Sling, and Netflix for that matter.
This is the exact reality I have spoken of for several years - that the content
congloms would migrate to Internet distribution using lower priced packages,
then increase those prices, just as they did with facilities based MVPD
bundles.
A guarantee of net neutrality would have mitigate the chances for funny
business, but the &%$^* in charge at the FCC is doing his best to ensure,
even encourage, funny business.
This is not a Net Neutrality issue Bert. Get over it.
But the FCC did have the “opportunity” to control the rapid prices increases
of MVPD bundles under the 1992 Cable Act. Unfortunately, the industry took
advantage of exceptions in the law, and kept raising prices anyway, while the
FCC did nothing, To be fair, it was Congress that did nothing - in terms of
closing the loopholes in the law.
Then again, Congress created this monster, and has propped up the media
monopoly for more than a century.
Since these geniuses missed the obvious again, the idea should be that the
neutral (**and monopolistic**) ISP should play no part in determining the
content, or the price of the content, running over the "common carrier"
telecom service it is providing. That is what telecom neutrality has always
been about. Anyone who thinks that the Internet is just another frivolous
cable TV service needs to be put in a position of being harmless. Not in a
position of making these far reaching decisions.
Nobody thinks the Internet is a frivolous cable TV service Bert...
Except YOU.
The fact is, that we left the “Common Carrier Telecom” era where it belongs -
IN THE LAST CENTURY.
Good riddance, it was an expensive regulated monopoly that failed to deliver on
both technology and economic value.
The Internet is not a telecom network Bert. In fact it is many networks that
interconnect to provide an open, affordable means to get bits from point A to
Point B.
The fact that it is now capable of delivering VMVPD services, as well as
e-commerce, e-mail, messaging, and all of the other applications that we now
rely on is lost on YOU.
It is not the governments role to determine the cost of services offered via
the Internet. But the government COULD stop subsidizing big media via
regulations designed to pro up their monopoly.
Regards
Craig
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