{"id":13073,"date":"2014-04-13T17:41:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-13T22:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/?p=13073"},"modified":"2014-04-13T17:42:20","modified_gmt":"2014-04-13T22:42:20","slug":"the-comcast-merger-isnt-about-lines-on-a-map-its-about-controlling-the-delivery-of-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/?p=13073","title":{"rendered":"The Comcast Merger Isn\u2019t About Lines On A Map; It\u2019s About Controlling The Delivery Of Information"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The joy of being a vertically integrated company is being able to exercise something called vertical leverage. Basically, the bigger Comcast gets, the more extraordinary financial power they wield. The terms they can negotiate upstream and downstream are more likely to be favorable to them, and not to anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>A report [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.consumerfed.org\/pdfs\/CFA-Comcast-TW-Merger-Analysis.pdf\">PDF<\/a>] from the Consumer Federation of America calls these \u201cbottleneck points.\u201d And the bigger Comcast gets, the more of them they have \u2014 as in their recent peering dispute with Netflix.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/2014\/04\/12\/the-comcast-merger-isnt-about-lines-on-a-map-its-about-controlling-the-delivery-of-information\/\">The Comcast Merger Isn\u2019t About Lines On A Map; It\u2019s About Controlling The Delivery Of Information \u2013 Consumerist<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the end, making Comcast bigger only gives it more leverage \u2014 a company that would control the lion\u2019s share of to-the-home information for this country. Until such a time when (and if) wireless and fiber providers begin offering a service that competes with cable Internet on speed, availability and cost, consumers are only going to see the walls around Comcast\u2019s sandbox grow taller, while bottlenecked Internet businesses face higher and higher tolls for access to a huge portion of American homes and offices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The joy of being a vertically integrated company is being able to exercise something called vertical leverage. Basically, the bigger Comcast gets, the more extraordinary financial power they wield. The terms they can negotiate upstream and downstream are more likely &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/?p=13073\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1091],"tags":[580,635,620,47],"class_list":["post-13073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-acquisitions","tag-comcast","tag-last-mile","tag-monopolistic-practices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13076,"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions\/13076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bucktownbell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}