Also I wasn’t saying satellite is always an option. I’m familiar with the apartment situation. There are cases however that you can install a satellite dish in an apartment. I believe the laws changed (in the U.S. at any rate) 5 or 10 years ago requiring landlord to allow satellite dishes as long as they weren’t attached to the building (i.e. they can be in a post in the ground or on a balcony, etc.). Again, that doesn’t work everywhere and I’m not saying it’s an excuse to abuse because you have “competition”.

To the contrary of what Brion said above, satellite TV is NOT a viable option everywhere!! What if you live in an apartment building or complex, and that complex states in its lease agreement that you are NOT allowed to own a satellite dish?? What THAT means is that that option is now CLOSED to you, and unless you are lucky enough to live in an area that DOES offer either Verizon’s FiOS TV, AT&T’s U-Verse, or another cable overbuilder such as RCN, WOW, or Knology (which I have here in Storm Lake, Iowa), you’re now STUCK with that ONE Cable provider, and you’re “at the mercy” of that ONE Cable provider’s whims…this means that, if you don’t like their quality of service, or you have problems with picture-quality, reception, or your service goes out frequently, and they don’t offer the channels YOU want, you’re faced with the idea of “Take It or Leave It”!!

And if you live in a smaller community in the Midwest, you might not even HAVE Cable TV for an option, let alone Broadband High-Speed Internet, for an option!! In the nearby community of Newell, for instance, their incumbent cable TV provider NEVER upgraded their cable system, sticking with a PALTRY 21-CHANNEL capacity system built back in the early-1980′s. The result was that, once direct-broadcast satellite TV service such as DirecTV and Dish Network came along, MOST homes in Newell dropped that cable system for the more advance satellite TV options. As a result of this, the cable TV provider in Newell went “belly up” and folded, leaving cable TV viewers with ONLY satellite TV for an option. But I still wonder about the few TV viewers who live in apartments in Newell? Are they now relegated to just receiving what they can get over-the-air?

Satellite TV, while a viable option for single-family homes and rural farm homes, IS NOT a viable option for apartment-dwellers!!

THIS is the reason WHY Cable companies MUST be limited in how much of the marketplace they can own!!

It’s HIGH TIME to bring REAL, HONEST-TO-GOD COMPETITION to subscription TV viewers and Internet users nationwide!!

There is a third reason this is not good – vulnerability. Large conglomerates can fail and when they do entire industries can go with them. Look at newspapers these days. The Tribune Company starts to fail and takes the Cubs with them. WTF? Why does a newspaper company own a baseball team? Why does the shaky finances of the Wall Street Journal jeopardize the Boston Globe? One word: conglomeration.

Not only is competition reduced within a particular market segment, but those acquired businesses now run the risk of failure at the hands of a company outside their control.

Your suggestion that competition will still exist from satellite is true enough for now, but it’s not competition on the same playing field. That’s like saying DSL Internet is competition for cable Internet. In some cases that may be true, but in most cases its not – they’re not even close. They’re completely different technologies with different limitations and requirements. That’s like saying if I don’t like my phone company, I can just get a cell phone. Maybe it’s true, but maybe I can’t get a signal at my house or the cell plan costs just as much as the one phone company. What I need is competition between phone companies – both trying to wire my house and THEN I’ll see real competition and price drops.

Strictly speaking, when you purchase a competitor, there is less competition by virtue of the fact your acquisition doesn’t compete against you anymore.

They’ll still have Dish, DirecTV, the MSO (Comcast) and, now ore than ever, either TelcoTV (U-Verse or FiOS) or a cable overbuilder (RCN, WOW, Grande) to pick from for TV service.

For internet, Comcast has the most aggressive DOCSIS 3 program out of anyone other than Cablevision, though Charter edges out Comcast with 60 Mbps service versus 50 Mbps and Cox charges less for 50 Mbps in some markets than Comcast does. Plus you have either xDSL, fiber and/or wireless in some cases, though not all.

For voice, you’ve got cellular providers, POTS, VoIP running over your internet connection and the cable voice service itself.

So while Comcast buying out other companies isn’t going to magically increase competition, it won’t decrease it unless they actually buy out RCN, WOW or whoever else (highly unlikely). Plus, most people will actually get a better internet connection for their money, particularly if they’re in TWC territory (we-don’t-do-DOCSIS-3 land), and to a lesser extent in Charter territory (we’re-too-debt-saddled-to-upgrade-other-markets-to-DOCSIS-3 land).