Mountain Cablevision becomes part of the Shaw Cable family with the approval of the CRTC

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has given approval to Shaw Communications for its acquisition of Hamilton-based Mountain Cablevision, Ltd., a small independent cable operator in southern Ontario.  The $300 million dollar transaction brings 41,000 cable customers, 29,000 Internet subscribers, 30,000 digital phone lines, and 135 Mountain Cablevision employees into the Shaw family, making the Calgary-based cable company Canada’s largest.

“This is a great move for us to come in there and be able to start being around that market. We always said that […] we want to be in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario,” Shaw chief executive Jim Shaw said Friday.

“Rogers had passed on the acquisition so we decided to go in there,” Shaw told analysts. “This is a great move for us, being around that market.”

Mountain Cablevision serves a small part of Hamilton and surrounding communities in southern Ontario

Shaw’s entry into Ontario upset Rogers Communications, eastern Canada’s dominant cable provider.  Rogers sued Shaw in an Ontario court, claiming the purchase violated a near-decade long agreement made personally between Ted Rogers and Jim Shaw to stay out of each other’s territories — Shaw stays out of eastern Canada if Rogers moves no further west than Ontario.

Canadian courts aren’t compelled to recognize handshake deals made over dinner, and the court ruled against Rogers.

With the agreement swept away, some analysts predict Rogers will investigate acquisition opportunities in western Canada, probably in the more populated regions.

Shaw claims it will upgrade Mountain Cablevision’s small cable footprint, which serves only a portion of greater Hamilton – Hamilton Mountain and East Hamilton, as well as the communities of Mount Hope, Caledonia, Hagersville, Jarvis, Dunnville/Byng, Cayuga and Binbrook, all in Ontario.  The company promises better broadband, cable, and telephone service after the upgrades are complete.  Shaw also says it will expand the Mountain Cablevision system into several unserved neighborhoods and townships.  That’s an important distinction, because it indicates Shaw has no intention of competing head to head with Rogers or Ontario’s other dominant cable company Cogeco.

The deal comes during challenging times for Shaw, who announced a 6% decline in profits in the fourth quarter, with gains only from new digital cable additions.  More than 110,000 Shaw customers signed up for digital cable in the third quarter, up from 23,000 in the third quarter a year ago.

In other areas, Shaw lost customers — 5,000 canceling broadband, 4,500 dropping Shaw’s direct to home satellite service, and nearly 9,000 disconnecting their Shaw digital phone line.

Shaw’s next product introduction will likely be its new cell phone service.  The company spent $190 million dollars last year acquiring 18 airwave licenses in northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.

Mountain Cablevision's concentrated service area in the city of Hamilton (click to enlarge)

But Shaw is taking a “very cautious approach” to wireless mobile services, according to the company.  It has refused to set a timetable when service would begin.  Shaw faces a growing number of wireless competitors introducing service in Canada late this year and into early 2010.  DAVE Wireless, Wind Mobile, and Public Mobile are all poised to launch in major Canadian cities, expecting to put competitive pressure on pricing and bring about lower priced, more generous service plans.

Shaw claims it’s not concerned, telling The Financial Post, “If they’re in there, we don’t really care. We already have a relationship with customers and they have zero,” Shaw said. “We have 3.4 million customers we have a relationship every month with.”

Telecommunications companies are increasingly concerned with offering customers “bundles” of telecommunications services from video, broadband, wired phone lines, and now increasingly wireless data and mobile phone services.  Customers purchasing bundles tend to remain loyal to the companies offering them.

LUS Fiber - Lafayette, Louisiana's public utility municipal broadband provider, offers fast speeds with great rates

Frustrated communities across America, take note.

If your town or city government starts making serious noises about constructing your own, municipally-owned broadband network (especially one built with fiber optics to the home), existing providers who have repeatedly said “no” to requests for faster service at more reasonable prices have a track record of quickly turning around and saying, “yes — why didn’t you ask us before?”

Big existing telecommunications players loathe the thought of facing a new competitor in their midst.  They are accustomed to the usual arrangement of one cable operator and one phone company.  Cable companies provide cable modem service, phone companies mostly provide DSL.  In smaller cities, and where a competitor is missing (or provides a lower quality service), there is almost no drive to upgrade.  Cable will set speeds just above what the phone company is offering, and both will co-exist happily ever after.

For communities being bypassed by the fiber revolution now underway by Verizon, and to a lesser degree AT&T, requests from civic leaders, businesses, and consumers for upgraded service fall on deaf ears.  ‘What you have now is good enough for this market, so be quiet and be lucky we give you what you’ve got now.  Oh, and we’re raising rates, too.’

In Rochester, the one upstate New York city not on the “to-do” list of Verizon (which is merrily wiring urban and suburban communities across their service areas with fiber optic cable FiOS), Time Warner Cable sees little incentive to raise speeds or upgrade to DOCSIS 3 with a phone company competitor that has no apparent plans to move beyond traditional old school DSL service.  Where FiOS does threaten, Time Warner Cable is in a hurry to provide “wideband” broadband as quickly as possible.

In Wilson, North Carolina, years of pleading from local officials to provide something beyond anemic broadband in their community was met with yawns from Time Warner Cable and Embarq, the local phone company.  Wilson decided to build their own municipal fiber network, offering faster speeds at better pricing.  Time Warner and Embarq did what most existing competitors do — they moved through the Four Stages of Telecommunications Competition Grief:

1) Behind the Scenes Threats and Anger: Companies work the phones with local officials trying to browbeat them into dropping the plans to construct municipal broadband, try to gin up partisan opposition, issue overinflated cost estimates, issue warnings about the trouble they’ll cause local politicians who support such initiatives, and snow a blizzard of documents illustrating how wonderful and reasonable their existing service is;

2) Stall Tactics Through Negotiation: Once home office is notified, a series of negotiations to attempt to forestall the project begins, such as throwing crumbs for incrementally better service, offers to build showcase mini-projects that represent a “win” for local politicians, or “looks good on paper” concessions that end up amounting to far less.  Most of these discussions are designed simply to stall to allow the company to prepare for stage three.

3) PR and Legal Blitzkrieg: Assuming local officials haven’t been discouraged away from their idea, or dropped it after starring in a company-sponsored press event – ribbon cutting a small wi-fi or school connectivity project, the next stage is a multi-front battle involving company legal teams filing lawsuits to delay or kill projects, public relations and astroturf lobbying efforts to distort issues and build public opposition, legislative maneuverings to make such projects untenable through industry-friendly laws, and often vague promises about impending upgrades making the entire project unnecessary.

4) Acceptance, Competition, and Better Service: The final stage is the realization consumers don’t always get suckered by astroturf groups and company scare tactics.  They accept the project is moving forward, and send out the press release saying they welcome the competition and are announcing their own significant service upgrade because “customers asked for it.”  Price increases slow, speeds increase, and service improves, all because of the reality that an aggressive competitor is in their future.

Wilson city officials tried negotiations for better service, got nowhere, and had to fight back against a blizzard of nonsense from the telecommunications industry trying to legislate such projects out of existence with changes to state law.  Americans for Prosperity, an astroturf group, even hassled residents in other nearby communities with robocalls to try and stop similar projects.

The arrival of Wilson’s Greenlight service, which offers speeds far faster than Time Warner and Embarq ever did, at lower prices, was a shock to Time Warner’s call centers.  As customers canceled, representatives taking those calls were in denial residents were actually achieving the speeds Time Warner failed to deliver.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Chattanooga Builds Fiber Network.flv[/flv]

Chattanooga’s public power utility fought back against telecommunication company propaganda to construct fiber to the home service across the city, which launched this year. (5 minutes)

In Monticello, Minnesota, local telephone company TDS had spent years refusing requests to improve service in the city.  Speed and access issues plagued the community, northwest of Minneapolis.  Local officials had enough and voted to construct their own fiber to the home municipal network.

Enter the four stages.  TDS started by telling city officials the company’s network was state of the art for Monticello, and couldn’t be immediately improved because there was insufficient return on investment.  Companies want to be assured they are paid back for investments they make, and because Monticello is a relatively small city, there were questions whether the costs for a fiber network would be paid back quickly enough through revenues.

When that didn’t work, the company sued the city as a stalling tactic.  Despite the fact Monticello won case after case, TDS kept filing.  A full assault by large telecommunications interests also began, trying to gin up public opposition.  While the project was approved by voters, and Monticello was tied up in court, TDS quickly moved to stage four and started rapidly building their own fiber network in Monticello, actually putting down fiber the city was prohibited to wire themselves as the lawsuits dragged through the courts.

The company told Ars Technica that despite its earlier refusals to provide fiber service, TDS didn’t act earlier because it didn’t actually know that people really, really wanted fiber; once the referendum was a success, the company moved quickly to give people what it now knew they wanted.

Then, in June, the company said with the advent of its own fiber network, the city of Monticello should back away from constructing theirs, because its economic viability report was partly premised on the fact TDS refused to provide that service.

To underline that, TDS’ new fiber network doubled customer speeds to 50Mbps, trying to keep customers from taking their business to  FiberNet Monticello.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Vote Yes on Fiber.mp4[/flv]

Lafayette staged a multi-year battle with Cox and other providers to bring municipal fiber broadband to it’s corner of Louisiana.  This 30 second ad promoted a “yes” vote on the project.

In Louisiana, Cox Cable is facing accusations it’s engaged in predatory pricing to kill Lafayette Utility System’s fiber to the home network and EATel’s fiber network in Ascension Parish.  Cox Cable froze rates and moved in with DOCSIS 3 upgrades, delivering up to 50Mbps service.  Cox chose to upgrade Lafayette before any other Cox-served community.

The Lafayette Pro-Fiber Blog found this EATel billboard taunting Cox

EATel, an independent phone company that wired fiber across Ascension Parish, also faced down Cox.  When the cable company began promoting cut-rate pricing in Ascension, EATel took out advertising promoting Cox’s special prices — in other cities, much to Cox’s consternation.  EATel’s ads, much like those run by Novus against Shaw in British Columbia, tell Cox’s customers to call the company and ask for the lower price they are advertising elsewhere.

“Cox came in with an incredibly aggressive promotion for TV service with every bell and whistle you could imagine. We couldn’t figure out how they could even make money on it. So we took out an ad in the Lafayette newspaper that basically said, ‘Hey Lafayette, look at the great prices you are going to get from Cox.’ Cox was not amused,” Trae Russell, communications manager for EATel told Telephony Online.

<

p style=”text-align: center;”>Joey Durel, Jr., president of Lafayette parish, testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Lafayette’s municipal fiber network on February 27, 2008. (7 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

<

p style=”text-align: center;”>

Lesson learned — just threatening to bring in a municipal competitor is often all it takes to turn a persistent “no” from the local cable and phone companies into “yes, Yes, YES!”

Of course, not every project is successful.  Some, such as Burlington Telecom Stop the Cap! reported on yesterday face political and cost challenges.  Others are killed through stage managed opposition and astroturf campaigns paid for by the telecommunications industry before they even get started.

In North St. Paul this year,  “PolarNet,” a planned fiber optic broadband network to stimulate the local economy was killed by an astroturf propaganda campaign undertaken by Qwest, Comcast, and other telecommunications companies that would have to deal with PolarNet as a competitor.  The telecommunications companies claimed it would result in higher local taxes and “more government” where it wasn’t needed.  Citizens defeated the proposal 67-33%.

Windom, Minnesota faced similar challenges and their fiber project was shot down in 1999, but with lessons learned, proponents brought it back up and won in 2000.  To this day, the community of 4500 in western Minnesota face considerable envy from adjacent communities — they want service from the fiber-to-the-home system as well.

Almost universally, opponents to municipal broadband systems claim they are financial failures and saddle communities with debt.  In reality, most have forced those opponents to provide improved service in their competitive communities, or those companies will become the financial failure.

[flv width=”427″ height=”240″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Terry Huval of Lafayette Utility System April 2009.flv[/flv]

Terry Huval of Lafayette Utility System talks with the Fiber Revolution blog about the challenges Lafayette experienced building their own municipal fiber network.  Huval offers excellent advice for other municipalities exploring similar projects.  (April, 2009 – 10 minutes)

<

p style=”text-align: left;”>Thanks to Stop the Cap! readers Tim and Matt who suggested this story idea.

Burlington city officials are mired in controversy over the legality of a recently revealed $17 million dollar unpaid loan given to Burlington Telecom, an apparent violation of the terms of its license issued by the Vermont Public Service board.  While the municipally-owned fiber optic network is permitted to borrow money from the city, it must be repaid within 60 days, because the city charter insists that Burlington Telecom be an independently financed venture that does not become a taxpayer liability.

Dubbed by some as TelecomGate, it has become a major media story in Vermont’s largest city.  Some taxpayers are upset by the perceived “bailout” of Burlington Telecom after the company exhausted its commercial loans of almost $34 million dollars to construct a fiber network serving homes and businesses.  The Burlington Free Press has reported the city began quietly funding Burlington Telecom as early as late 2007, for both capital expenditures and some operating costs.  As of today, Burlington Telecom has an accumulated debt of $50 million dollars, $17 million of which is owed to the city.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCAX Burlington Telecom Controversy 10-16-09.flv[/flv]

WCAX-TV in Burlington breaks the story about the funding controversy on October 16th. (3 minutes)

Burlington officials admit they underestimated construction costs, in part because they failed to complete a comprehensive engineering study prior to construction.  Installing underground fiber cabling has literally hit a rock ledge, part of the geological character of underground Burlington, that will require an additional $10 million to cope with.

The fact the public is just finding out about it now is a major reason for the controversy.  Jonathan Leopold, the city’s chief administrative officer, said he learned that the financing violated the company’s license terms last November.  The Free Press reports he only informed the city council responsible for overseeing the operation in May of this year, six months later.  The city council itself waited four months until late September before it notified Vermont state officials about the apparent violation, which led to the matter finally going public.

State officials publicly criticized the Burlington city government for the apparent transgression and for what some have called a cover-up, and State Auditor Thomas Salmon called on Burlington Telecom to have greater openness and transparency.  State Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien called the funding irregularity a potential violation of law and that Burlington Telecom was “in debt beyond their ability to recover,” a charge which brought a hot response from Burlington mayor Bob Kiss:

“Commissioner O’Brien’s statements as quoted in today’s Burlington Free Press are inaccurate, inflammatory and totally inappropriate given there is a present proceeding before the Vermont Public Service Board in which his Department is supposed to be representing the public interest. Commissioner O’Brien knew or should have known of the City’s use of pooled cash to fund BT’s capital expenses and start up costs for almost a year. His comments only serve to undermine the confidence of BT’s customers, the interests of whom his Department is charged by statute to protect.”

O’Brien responded that Kiss was “shooting the messenger.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCAX Burlington Burlington Telecom Scandal 10-20-09.flv[/flv]

WCAX-TV reports Burlington city council members had tough words for Jonathan Leopold at a meeting on October 20th, but Burlington mayor Bob Kiss is standing by Leopold. (3 minutes)

City council members have scurried for cover after the local press revealed they approved Burlington Telecom’s funding 13-1 at a city council meeting held October 5th.  That may serve to back up Leopold’s position that he never hid any details about the loan arrangements — city officials and lawyers were well aware of these transactions, he says.  Several public venting sessions were rapidly scheduled to allow constituents to express their concerns.

The Burlington Free-Press editorialized that the city can no longer keep information about city-owned Burlington Telecom’s problems and violations from residents by saying the secrets are necessary for business reasons and is calling for an independent investigation and audit.

State and local politics have also become deeply ingrained into the debate, with accusations flying between political parties that the flap has now become more about undermining the current administration than ferreting out and resolving issues with Burlington Telecom.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPTZ Plattsburgh – Taxpayers Give City Council Piece Of Their Mind 10-22-09.flv[/flv]

WPTZ-TV in Plattsburgh covered the public venting session on October 22 set up by the city council to allow residents to speak their minds.  (2 minutes)

Leopold, whose administration duties involve Burlington Telecom, and who has been the most visible figure in the middle of the dispute, called attacks on him by some local politicians part of a scapegoating witch hunt.

City council voted 8-6 at 1:30am this morning approving a resolution to ask for the suspension of Jonathan Leopold anyway.  So far Mayor Kiss won’t hear of it.  At a press conference he reiterated his full support for Leopold, saying his suspension is “not warranted by the facts and is not in the best interests of the city. As mayor, I will not suspend the CAO from his service to the city.”

Caught in the middle is Burlington Telecom and its 4,600 subscribers.  The provider is in apparent violation of its license for its loan arrangements, needs additional money to complete its buildout, and will likely also be cited for not completing that buildout on the schedule it committed to as part of its license to operate.

Commentary: Our Take

Too often municipal broadband projects end up as political footballs kicked all over town, especially when controversy erupts.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPTZ Plattsburgh State Demands Repayment 10-20-09.flv[/flv]

WPTZ-TV covers the political repercussions and damage control operations in full force after news of the controversy erupted. (10/20/2009 – 2 minutes)

Burlington Telecom made a crucial mistake when it failed to undertake a detailed engineering study to determine the true costs of wiring Burlington with fiber optics, something incumbents Comcast and FairPoint have not been willing to undertake.  A true picture of the start-up costs would have resulted in a better understanding of initial construction costs and the financing required to pay for it.

City officials also erred in how they began funding some of the costs to administer the system after initial financing ran out.  Good intentions or not, the fact there is a perceived cover-up makes things much more attractive to a media that often ignores or buries telecommunications stories on the business pages.

A frank and open discussion explaining the challenges and resolutions to them might have brought about temporary city loans with the consent of the community, without melodramatic political theater.  Residents have a unique buy-in with Burlington Telecom because it’s municipally-owned.  Many would be more than willing to see that and some additional investments pay off instead of collapsing with a complete shutdown.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCAX Burlington Mayor Defends Administration Over Telecom Issue 10-26-09.flv[/flv]

WCAX-TV covers Burlington mayor Bob Kiss who held a press conference yesterday to defend his administration’s role in Burlington Telecom (3 minutes)

When the story broke, the usual and very predictable campaign of finger-pointing, ducking for cover, and scapegoating began.  This time-honored political damage control method is voter approved, if you stick your finger to the wind and see where voter sentiment seems to be blowing.  That’s precisely what state Commissioner O’Brien did, only he overplayed his populist hand.  This is, after all, the same commissioner who initially made excuses on behalf of FairPoint and seemed all too willing to give that company the benefit of the doubt, right up until it became politically untenable.  You cannot be a credible torch-bearer in a populist mob if you helped build the castle you now seek to burn to the ground.

Mayor Kiss was correct in calling O’Brien out, not just for his convenient criticism, but for trying to win the Self-fulfilling Prophecy Award by predicting Burlington Telecom’s demise.  Vermont residents should ask him where his clairvoyance was when he was publicly stating FairPoint was doing “pretty well” a year ago.  O’Brien needs to be part of the solution for a change, not part of the problem.

Leopold appears to be a classic scapegoat.  As he struggled to keep Burlington Telecom afloat, it is inconceivable he was cutting loan deals without the knowledge and consent of others in the city administration.  The same city council now demanding his suspension seemed all too willing to go along just a few weeks ago when it voted almost unanimously with going forward.  That speaks volumes.  But when the media lights fire up, and angry residents start writing and calling, the complete turnaround is a site to behold.  A series of self-serving, concern trolling speeches followed, along with complaints they were never given enough information or were confused by what they heard.  If that is the kind of leadership Burlington has, perhaps residents need to consider making some changes.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCAX Burlington City Council Undecided About Burlington Telecom 10-26-09.flv[/flv]

Late last night, WCAX reported city council was still undecided about what to do about the Burlington Telecom controversy.  (3 minutes)

The public has a right to be upset, but are all too often satisfied with the political theater designed to quickly “resolve” the problem by expelling the designated scapegoat from their midst.  Mayor Kiss has remarkably withstood the usual pattern very well thus far.

While the politicians play “not my fault,” Burlington Telecom customers need answers to know if their provider is endangered.  An independent audit and review, free of political know-nothings would be a start.  How about bringing in those with actual expertise in deploying municipal networks.  How about excluding involved, self-interest-protecting elected officials, especially those who had any hand in the FairPoint debacle.

It’s also time to fund that engineering study for the unwired portions of Burlington to get a true cost analysis.  A review as to why Burlington Telecom is not attracting a larger segment of the market is also needed.

In broadband, at least, that’s a no-brainer.  Burlington Telecom’s speeds on the download side are too slow and too expensive.  Comcast offers faster downstream service at lower prices, so why would anyone want to switch?  Burlington Telecom is trying to market their synchronous speed network (your downstream speed and upstream speed is the same), which would normally be appealing to a segment of Internet customers frustrated with cable and DSL shortchanging them on upload speeds.  But the customers who understand and appreciate the difference will not accept a broadband service that tops out at 8Mbps for an enormous $71.80 a month.  That’s far too slow and too expensive when Comcast is offering 12Mbps/2Mbps (upload speed with PowerBoost) for $42.95 per month.  Service for 16Mbps/2Mbps is $10 more, still twenty dollars less than Burlington Telecom is charging for half the speed.  Burlington Telecom can attract a larger base of broadband customers by accelerating speeds on their network beyond what Comcast provides.

Municipal broadband projects can be successful, but should be based on a true and honest appraisal of the costs, a complete understanding of the competitive landscape, a flexibility to respond to changing markets, and a good reason why they should exist in the first place.  Fulfilling the needs residents want, but incumbent providers will not provide is always the best answer.  Customers don’t want anemic broadband at high prices.  Provide that and a municipal broadband project will fail, even without political grandstanding and finger-pointing.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WPTZ Plattsburgh Kiss Refuses To Punish Leopold Over Telecom Flap 10-27-09.flv[/flv]

This morning Burlington residents learned Burlington mayor Bob Kiss was still standing behind Jonathan Leopold, despite their calls for Leopold to be suspended. (WPTZ) (2 minutes)

Below the jump, find a one hour video interview between The Burlington Free Press and city officials on the Burlington Telecom matter.

… Continue Reading

Is the Comcast-NBC deal the result of media moguls playing with cable monopoly money?

A few weeks after word broke that Comcast was sniffing around NBC-Universal some on Wall Street are wondering whether a deal is more trouble than its worth.  The deal, valued at $27 billion dollars, would wed the nation’s largest cable operator with NBC-Universal, which owns a broadcast network, a Hollywood studio, and several cable networks.

Bernstein Research, which has favored cable stocks for years, has been the source of considerable unease about the deal.

“Media moguls see it almost as a birthright to buy and sell assets, but most of it clearly has not worked out,” said Craig Moffett, who covers the cable industry for Bernstein. “The value of the deal is the conceptual value of vertical integration, and most of it is against the law as a regulatory matter.”

Moffett’s comment was part of a piece in The New York Times raising questions about whether a Comcast-NBC deal would create more problems than it would solve.

David Carr, writing for the Times, suggests the heady days of media moguls building celebrated giant corporate empires might be behind us, particularly in telecommunications.  Carr, among others, raised memories of the AOL-Time Warner deal, when an upstart pre-dot.com-crash online service  managed to build enough value to buy a content mega-company like Time Warner for $164 billion dollars in 2000.  Just nine years later, AOL has become a forgotten relic, a shadow of its former glory.  Even if the idea of wedding AOL’s online network with Time Warner’s content sounded like a good idea at the time, in the end it just didn’t work out, and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is devoting plenty of attention spinning AOL away, right down to peeling the letters “AOL” off the front of the building.

Deal proponents suggest Comcast’s cable systems combined with NBC-Universal’s content would give Comcast diversity in its business model, which relies almost entirely on its cable systems.  Opponents say it will preoccupy Comcast with trying to integrate its focused cable-oriented business with a Hollywood studio and a legacy television network and the distractions that come with both.  The deal also comes with a 30% stake in Hulu, which is good and bad according to Carr.  It’s good because it gives the cable operator some control over a video distribution channel that could directly challenge its cable interests.  It’s bad for precisely the same reason, practically begging for regulatory hurdles from a more sensitive-to-antitrust Obama Administration.

Carr suggests if Comcast is in the acquiring mood, it might want to keep its focus on the remarkably stable cable industry in a downturned economy.  One such company, Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second largest cable operator, is a candidate according to Carr, and like Comcast is almost entirely focused on the cable television business.

Of course, such a deal would also certainly attract regulatory attention because of its size and scope.