AT&T promised lower prices after Time Warner merger—it’s raising them instead

What AT&T told a judge

Just two months ago, AT&T said in a court filing that buying Time Warner would allow it to lower TV prices. The US Department of Justice tried to stop the merger, arguing that it would raise prices for consumers, but a federal judge sided with AT&T. The merger was completed on June 15.

AT&T scoffed at the Justice Department's argument that the merger would raise prices. The telecomm giant wrote in its post-trial brief that the merger will "enabl[e] AT&T and Time Warner to reduce consumer prices."

"The evidence overwhelmingly showed that this merger is likely to enhance competition substantially, because it will enable the merged company to reduce prices, offer innovative video products, and compete more effectively against the increasingly powerful, vertically integrated 'FAANG' [Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google] companies," AT&T told US District Judge Richard Leon in the brief.

AT&T is raising the base price of its DirecTV Now streaming service by $5 per month, despite promising in court that its acquisition of Time Warner Inc. would lower TV prices.

AT&T confirmed the price increase to Ars and said it began informing customers of the increase this past weekend.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/att-promised-lower-prices-after-time-warner-merger-its-raising-them-instead

What a surprise

Again, literally everyone saw this one coming. Just like our beloved tax cuts. Sold as one thing, resulted in another.

They raised the prices of their tv packages earlier this year too. After the football season, I switched

Would it be possible to force them to separate again? Because they haven't delivered as promised, instead done the opposite.

@mattbbpl: Are you surprised, Matt?

AT&T just got a major market share and in many places a monopoly, so why would they not fill their pockets.

They could potentially use the Antitrust laws but I highly doubt now that the acquisition is done that anyone would do that.

Capitalism is working out so well for consumers. Employees too for that matter. Especially now that if AT&T chooses to lower wages employees will be able to do something about, but that would never happen, AT&T said so.

@Jacanuk: Not at all. This isn't shocking in the slightest

Predictable but still disappointing...

It didn't work out as intended. The competition wasn't raised/increased. Isn't that reason enough?

-Horgen

Nope, as seen with Microsoft it has to be pretty serious before the laws are used.

Weren't MS hit with some anti trust laws in EU some years ago? Something with their media player.

Yup and their browser

Which is why in windows today you get the browser choice.

Once again we expect the greediest of organizations to do the right thing when allowed to do what they wish.

Hell, it's not even about greed. That's a human attribute; saying it's greed makes them sound fallible to things we can empathize with. That's not true. These corporations exist solely to profit, which we can't blame them for; we can, however, control and regulate the shit out of them. We can be cautious of them, allow them to prosper, but never at our expense.

Anyone know the old American Indian story about the snake and the woman? Lady was walking down to the river to get some water when she comes across an injured snake. The woman, having a kind heart, takes pity on this otherwise dangerous creature and takes the snake with her on her way home. There, she nurses it to health over the span of a few days. When the snake was all better...it bites her. As she lies there, poisoned and dying, she looks at the snake and asks "Why did you do that? After all I did for you?" to which the snake replies "You dumb bitch, I'm a snake. What did you expect?"

When are we going to see the snakes for what they are, and stop helping them? When are we going to stop being surprised when they turn around a bite us?

Human attribute is greed though...........

Can't remember this. but I upgraded from win 7.

Never a fan of big mergers. Less competition usually means higher prices.

The consolidation of power is rarely a good thing for anyone outside of the people gaining said power. It's true in business and politics.

And also in starcraft.

@sonicare: lol

Duh. That's how a monopoly works.

I totally would. We should be wayyy stricter on mergers.

yup.

the leaders of these companies have to be greedy if they want to keep their jobs.

1) if they're not greedy, their competitors will be and the loss in market share will cost them their jobs.

2) if they're not greedy their inability to produce every increasing revenue / profit for shareholds will cost them their jobs.

just the way the system is structured. whatever good a corporation does for its customers is merely a symptom of their desire to earn. it just happens to be that generally doing good for your customers allows you to earn more, but that is not always the case.

@Serraph105: At&t raised wages by nearly 2 dollars an hour. I use to work for them. Say what you will about them but they pay well and give great benefits i just couldn't stand retail anymore. And yes Capitalism is by far better then Socialism or Communisn.

When? And how long did you have to work there for it to happen to you?

@horgen: I worked there 7 years and was making over 17 dollars an hour with full pension, 401 k contribution and health insurance. You also get commission which adds another $1000 to $1500 a month to your earnings on average. You start getting the contributions to your 401k after the third year. You do need to be a fulltime employee for all the benefits but even PT employees get a nice wage. If i would have stayed there id be at nearly $20 an hour now plus comission

Well at least now you don't get a choice have to decide on a service provider in my area.

There's only one and it's shit :) even the gigabit fiber is shit sometimes. Thanks AT&T, I'm sure this merger will really help you guys fix up the infrastructure.

Those jobs tend to pay well......

I worked there as a contractor and they paid the bare minimum for IT work (in the area anyways) with no benefits and only allowed people on our team to work 36 hours a week as opposed to the full 40 and no way to become full time unless you used another job offer as leverage. So yeah, different experiences. They did have a union though for real employees, which is something that has been weakened by the SCOTUS recently.

I'm surprised so many people that voted trump for his promises of helping the "little" people are okay with his party eroding their protections.