Comcast has argued there should be no antitrust concerns over their merger with Time Warner Cable because the two companies do not directly compete with each other.

That is precisely the problem. Nothing has ever precluded Comcast from applying to provide service throughout New York in direct competition with Time Warner Cable, but that has never happened. If one accepts Comcast’s logic, nothing should preclude it from acquiring every cable company in the United States because in almost no cases do cable operators compete head-to-head for customers.

Comcast must not be convinced of its own argument, because it has voluntarily agreed to limit its television market share to less than 30 percent by selling groups of Time Warner Cable customers to Charter Communications.[1]

The lack of competition is profound in New York, particularly upstate, and will only grow worse if this merger is permitted.

While sections of the state enjoy competition from Verizon FiOS fiber to the home service, enormous regions, including metropolitan Rochester and Binghamton have no prospect of widely available fiber broadband speeds consistently above 10Mbps because Frontier Communications almost entirely relies on DSL and its variants in Rochester and Verizon suspended its fiber expansion before even contemplating upgrading Binghamton.

The cities of Buffalo and Syracuse can only find FiOS in wealthy suburban areas, while inner-city residents are left either choosing Time Warner Cable or Verizon DSL, if offered.

It is also critical to note both cable operators fiercely compete with each other for sports programming rights and advertising dollars, both of which have major implications in a large metropolitan market like New York. Both Comcast and Time Warner Cable have records of withholding sports programming from competitors or charging excessively for access.[2]

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[1]http://time.com/79053/comcast-time-warner-cable-charter/

[2]http://judiciary.house.gov/_cache/files/665684a1-49d4-4aca-9bc1-79ae9ad387b9/grunes-testimony.pdf