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Don't worry about the Comcast deal. Be happy.
Yes, the cable giant's $45 billion bid to take over Time Warner makes an uncompetitive cable industry worse. Yes, Comcast will now have a disproportionate control of Internet service in major U.S. markets. And yes, Comcast appears as willing as anyone to begin heading down a path that has net neutrality advocates terrified.
But in the media arms race, the acquisition of Time Warner Cable brings Comcast another step closer to what the media industry needs — a competitor that will push Google and the U.S government to get serious about broadband internet in the U.S.
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There is woefully little investment in U.S. broadband as highlighted constantly by various studies and news stories.
But with the proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, Comcast has taken a major step on a path that leads toward increased competition and attention for U.S. Internet access.
Here are three scenarios going forward in which the proposed deal could benefit consumers:
Buried in page three of the "Public Benefits Summary" provided by Comcast to defend its bid for Time Warner Cable is a bullet point that illuminates the motives behind the deal as well as where the company is headed.
• A number of online businesses like Apple, Google, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, and a host of smaller companies are entering the online video space and trying to position themselves as competitors. While we view online businesses as complementary to our business, previous antitrust concerns about further cable consolidation are truly antiquated in light of today’s marketplace realities.
What is Comcast telling us? That this deal is not about the cable industry. It's about competing in a modern media market in which cable is a small part. The company even goes so far as to list their competitors and they all have something in common — they all live on the Internet and most of them have a bigger consumer base than Comcast.
Comcast doesn't just need the reach to compete with the likes of Google and Apple; it also needs the money to invest in areas in which it lags behind.
"As they migrate from simply being deliverers of TV signals to these advanced technologies, whether it's video on demand over cable or its streaming over things like Streampix, those kinds of things just require greater capital investments. Capital investments like that require greater scale to pull off," the report continues.
This is why Comcast needs to do things like acquire Time Warner Cable. If it’s going to compete with the likes of Google, which is very slowly rolling out its own fiber network (more on that later), it needs to get bigger and be able to invest in modern infrastructure that will keep it appealing to and at the same time competitive with the likes of Google and Verizon, but also Apple, Hulu and Netflix on the content side.
The end result is Comcast taking it upon itself to improve its broadband access as well as its quality. Years ago, it didn't need to do that. Now its clearly facing a new breed of competition, and the investment may be necessary.
Comcast, of course, is not under any requirement to improve its broadband. But with increased regulatory and media scrutiny will be greater calls for government regulation in how Comcast operates as well as discussion of broadband’s place as a public utility.
Comcast has ownership of the pipes that distribute media online, and it could be that competition from Google et al is simply not enough to cause it to invest in its network.
However the proposed acquisition of TWC does not change the reality of Internet access for most U.S. consumers. The latest Pew report showed that while 70% of households have "broadband," the average speed of the services is not equipped for modern demands.
Most people have two options — cable- and telecom-based broadband — and they are not very good.
“The vast majority of U.S. households have two options for broadband Internet,” said Gregory Crawford, a professor of economics at the University of Zurich and former chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission. “This merger doesn't change that. In any market you're still going to have two.”
Comcast does have a cap on data, while TWC does not, but otherwise there is little reason to think service will become markedly worse if the deal goes through.
Meanwhile, the deal itself will generate significant regulator scrutiny. Although net neutrality was struck down, Comcast has an agreement, put in place by regulators as a condition of its deal to buy NBC, not to favor or throttle particular content through 2018.
Mary Kelly, an associate professor economics at Villanova University that has studied competitiveness in the cable industry, said she believes that regulators will put in similar conditions if they approve the deal.
“If this deal goes through, I am sure regulators will put strings attached to it along those lines to make sure the content in particular is not held up in any way,” she said.
And as the National Journal’s Ben Sasso notes, the move only amplifies the voices of Net Neutrality advocates.
The calls for greater government involvement in building broadband infrastructure have also already begun. In a Bloomberg op-ed, Harvard professor Susan Crawford laid out the downsides to the deal and highlighted the need for the government to step in if Comcast did not improve its network.
If regulating these guys is too difficult, let's allow mayors to build alternative fiber-optic networks such as the one in Chattanooga, Tenn., that has lured businesses and spurred economic growth. We can't allow our future to be captured by the short-term cash flow desires of Comcast's investors.

Image: Reddit/prezuiwf
Google has a massive stake in ensuring that Internet access is fast and affordable. If Comcast starts trying to throttle or gouge in a significant way, you can bet Google Fiber, or some other project like its wi-fi-equipped balloons, will pop up.
Previously, Google has not had a particularly good reason to push out its superfast Internet and TV service. The current situation works just fine for them.
If Comcast began upping the price on web access, lowering the data caps or favoring its own content, suddenly Google would have motivation to begin pushing its fiber product.
Fiber is currently only available in two cities — Kansas City and Provo, Utah — and is branching out to Austin, Texas.
The rollout has been slow, but as Jason Calacanis noted on Pando Daily, Google has the capability of making it ubiquitous in major cities — Comcast’s primary markets — and has shown interest in doing so.
Of the three scenarios, this is maybe the most likely and most appealing. Google could become a viable competitor to Comcast in the broadband space on both price and quality of service — something Comcast did not have before the TWC deal.
Of course, there's a chance that none of these scenarios could come to pass, but more likely the playing field will shift dramatically. Years ago, AT&T was considered so dominant in telecommunications that the government felt the need to split the company up. Now, Ma Bell's old business — landline telephone service — is fast becoming a relic. In the meantime, Comcast's Time Warner bid might shake up a broadband industry that has continued to lag.
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