One ring to rule them all...

One thing that's come out this week is that Comcast is making a $45B play to buy Time-Warner Cable.  I don't know what's going to happen, but I sure hope that federal regulators smack down the deal.  Broadband and cable TV are both perilously close to monopolies in any given area (I'm luck to live somewhere where I have at least three options; most places have one).

Because their service areas overlap very little, I'm not sure how much difference this makes in any given spot, there are already too few players in the space.  There's just no way this works out well for consumers.  I was listening to the latest ATP podcast, and agree with much of what they've had to say.

Comcast's phone support is basically useless.  The techs in the trucks are decent or better, but the ones on the phones have no clue what they're doing.  FiOS' people, on the other hand, are reasonably good (unless you have a billing problem.  Then grab your ankles and bend over).

Comcast does not need more customers; they're just a terrible company (I had their service for several years, until FiOS became available).  More competition in the space is definitely needed, so I really hope the deal is shot down.

Tech In-vanity

Just listened to the latest Accidental Tech podcast, and there were a couple of interesting notes.  One is that my experience has also been that Verizon's tech support is very good (you don't get dead silence when you ask about their DHCP server; something I've had to do a couple of times).  Compare that to Comcast (of whom I used to be a customer), where calling their tech support was basically only useful for having them send a tech out to the house.

Also compare it to what happens if you need to deal with their billing department (say, if they lose your payment); that's an absolute nightmare.  The one time it happened, it took me over twenty hours on the phone to track down.

The other note I had was the note about the Honda CVT and paddle shifter.  Apparently, that's not just something on the Acura ILX, like I noted.

Why is this legal?

I don't care who you are, or what party you're in. This sort of compromise of the democratic principles of this country should not be legal. That revolving door needs to close, or at least be slowed significantly. Anything less than five years delay between regulating a company, and working for that company, is absolutely unacceptable. And yes, that applies to Congressmen and Senators, as well.

A caller on one of the NPR shows earlier today called the US a plutocracy. I think he overstated the case a bit (sadly, not a huge amount), and he failed to mention how recent a phenomenon this is, but this is the sort of action that enables the transformation from democracy (or representational republic; it doesn't matter which term you prefer) to plutocracy to occur.

Now, to be clear on this particular issue, I don't think this particular issue is a big deal. I don't have any huge problems with comcast/nbc; frankly, I think they'll largely become irrelevant in the not-too-distant future. But this sort of back-room deal really frosts me. People like her were trusted to act as public servants, and she didn't just spit on the hand of that trust, but damned near bit it off.