Charter Communications could announce as early as tomorrow its intention to acquire Time Warner Cable for nearly $55.1 billion in cash and stock and Bright House Networks as part of a separate transaction worth north of $10 billion to create the country’s second largest cable operator under the Charter Spectrum brand.

Bloomberg News reports Charter will offer $195 a share — $100 in cash and the rest in Charter stock for Time Warner. The deal will load down Charter in debt. Several Wall Street banks spent more than two weeks assembling a large financing package, but even that would not be enough to seal a deal. Dr. John Malone’s Liberty Broadband, Charter’s largest shareholder, has agreed to inject $5 billion in Charter stock purchases to help fund the deal.

Unlike the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, this one includes a $2 billion deal breakup fee, payable if the merger falls apart. Analysts predict a possible rival bid for Time Warner Cable by Drahi’s Altice SA as well as antitrust concerns.

The deal would quadruple the size of Charter Communications overnight and would represent a massive change for Time Warner Cable customers. Charter uses a simplified pricing approach with fewer choices for Internet and television service, but that could come at a significantly higher price than what Time Warner Cable customers are used to paying. Charter is now advertising “no data caps” which is good news, although how long that lasts is anyone’s guess.

The future of Time Warner Cable’s Maxx upgrade program is in doubt if Charter successfully buys the company. Charter’s proposal to acquire Time Warner Cable in 2014 offered a more modest upgrade plan.

Stop the Cap! will go into more detail about what subscribers can expect as more details become available.

Bright House Networks customers in central Florida are not excited by the news Charter Communications is still pursuing Bright House Networks, and both companies recently agreed to extend the deadline by 30 days for a final deal to be placed on the table.

Charter had bid $10.4 billion to acquire Bright House, which serves customers mostly in the south, including the cities of Tampa and Orlando.

“We look forward to completing the transaction as planned, and our teams are working together to make that happen,” Charter chief executive Tom Rutledge said. Reuters had recently reported Bright House was preparing to “abandon” the Charter deal, believing it was better off with sn existing cooperation agreement with Time Warner Cable.

Bright House Networks, the sixth largest U.S. cable operator, will abandon its preliminary $10.4 billion deal to be acquired by Charter Communications, according to a report from Reuters.

The deal with Bright House was contingent on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger getting completed. With that merger deal dead, Bright House’s owners – the Newhouse family – now believe they are better off remaining independent, at least for now.

Reuters reports discussions between the two companies are ongoing, but are likely to run out without a deal in about two weeks. That will leave intact Bright House’s agreement with Time Warner Cable to share volume-related discounts on programming and technology. With that agreement in place, there may be little interest from Bright House’s owners in another merger deal with a different company in the near future.

In the last week, executives from both Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable have talked to the Newhouse Family, controlling owner of Bright House Networks, about an acquisition of the cable company.

Time Warner may hold the stronger hand. In addition to being a much-larger and wealthier cable company, Time Warner has the advantage of a long-standing partnership dating back to the early 90’s with Bright House in which Time Warner shares its volume discounts on cable programming and technology with Bright House in return for an annual fee. As part of that arrangement, Time Warner has the right of first offer if Bright House ever chose to sell. If Time Warner matches or beats a competing offer, such as that now on the table from Charter Communications, it wins Bright House for itself.

Bright House decided it had to sell to someone after the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger threatened to end its arrangement with Time Warner. Bright House would pay substantially more for programming and equipment without the volume discounts Time Warner received. With the Comcast deal off the table, Time Warner remains an acquisition target.

Bright House is coveted by Charter as a stepping stone to a much larger acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Charter’s balance sheet is loaded with debt and its stock isn’t worth as much as that of Time Warner Cable. Combining Bright House’s two-million subscribers with Charter’s own five million customers strengthens Charter’s balance sheet and increases its borrowing capacity as it prepares to acquire Time Warner Cable for a second time.

Time Warner Cable’s interest in Bright House would make life more difficult for Charter, preventing the company from leveraging a quick deal for Time Warner. It also would make Time Warner Cable considerably more expensive (and complex) to acquire. In January 2014, Charter offered $132.50 a share to Time Warner Cable shareholders to acquire the cable company. Time Warner Cable executives immediately recommended shareholders reject the deal as undervalued. Today Time Warner stock is worth around $156 a share, meaning Charter would have to offer at least $160 a share, and probably more than that, to interest Time Warner executives.

The Newhouse family is sitting in a lucrative position as it is courted by the two larger cable operators. One of those familiar with the talks suggested Time Warner was offering the Newhouse family influence in a combined Bright House-Time Warner Cable, because its offer would leave the Newhouse family as the largest individual shareholder of the combined company. Charter’s offer would hand power to John Malone’s Liberty Broadband, and leave the Newhouse family with little, if any voice.

Based on that, the Newhouse family may gravitate towards Time Warner Cable unless Charter significantly sweetens its deal and Time Warner drops out. With the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger in tatters, both sides have a 30-day “good faith” period to renegotiate and tweak their respective offers.

Despite all that, Bright House may decide not to sell after all, at least until after the bigger players settle their own deals and acquisitions. In that case, Charter may have other targets in mind. At the top of the list are Mediacom and Suddenlink.

A week after its deal with Comcast collapsed, Time Warner Cable may be in the buying mood.

The Wall Street Journal reports the cable giant approached privately held Cox Communications about a deal. Cox told them they weren’t interested.