Comcast Announced A $65 Billion Bid For Twenty First Century Fox

Comcast announced a $65 billion bid for Twenty First Century Fox units that are currently in agreement to be acquired by Disney.

The bid announced Wednesday represents a 19 percent premium to Disney's offer. Comcast, the parent of CNBC offered $35 a share in cash.

Disney agreed in December to buy the majority of Fox for $52.4 billion in stock. The deal included Fox's movie studios, networks National Geographic and FX, Star TV, stakes in Sky, Endemol Shine Group and Hulu, as well as regional sports networks.

"These are highly strategic and complementary businesses, and we are in our minds the right buyer," Comcast's CEO Brian Roberts said on a call with investors.

In a letter to Fox's board and members of the Murdoch family released earlier, Roberts said, "We were disappointed when Fox decided to enter into a transaction with The Walt Disney Company even though we had offered a meaningfully higher price." He went on to say, "We are pleased to present a new, all cash proposal that fully addresses the Board's stated concerns with our prior proposal."

Comcast is planning for an increased bid from Disney that may include a cash component according to people familiar with the matter. Comcast believes it is better suited to offer cash because the market allows for a higher leverage ratio from a cable company with strong cash flows than a media company like Disney, which is accustomed to carrying lower leverage ratios the people said. A Disney bid with cash will also diminish the tax benefits for the Murdoch family, which controls Fox.


Source: The Verge

Charter, Comcast In Talks With Sprint For MVNO Deal

Comcast and Charter working with Sprint is a two way street. Sprint could also try and negotiate its way into using the fiber cable that Comcast and Charter have both laid throughout the US where these Comcast and Charter are in the top three for ISP’s in the US.

Having access to that fiber would help Sprint add more capacity to its network, as well as more coverage. It would also help in the 5G department in the next few years seeing as 5G is using quite a bit of fiber cable, making a deal with Comcast or Charter would be much cheaper and easier to deploy then building out the infrastructure needed.

A complete buyout of Sprint by either Comcast or Charter is not actually off of the table yet, according to recent reports. 

Sprint is still in exclusive talks with both Comcast and Charter, so it’s very possible that one might have enough interest in Sprint to buy a significant portion of the company. SoftBank does still want to be part owner but it is looking for a way to bring in more cash to help Sprint expand and keep up with the rest of the industry.


Source: The Street

AT&T Completes Purchase Of DirecTV

The FCC gave AT&T and DirecTV the green light to complete there $48.5 billion dollar merger. The deal had been under review since May of last year and now makes AT&T the largest pay TV company in the US by taking on DirecTV, AT&T is now ahead of Comcast with more than 26 million customers. 

Source: AT&T

Comcast Agrees To Buy Time Warner Cable For $45 Billion

Analysts say the consolidation could help Comcast to compete with satellite providers like DirecTV, wireless phone companies like AT&T and new streaming services like Netflix.

"This isn't about TV anymore it's about controlling a fatter, more intelligent pipe for multiple services that emanate from it", including broadband Internet, phone and home security monitoring, said Tim Hanlon, the founder of the Vertere Group, an investment advisory firm that focuses on media and technology.

Time Warner Cable owners will be offered 2.875 Comcast shares for each share they own, valuing Time Warner Cable at about $158.82 per share. The two companies expect the merger to take effect by the end of the year, but regulators are likely to take a close look at the potential impact on consumers.

To address those concerns, Comcast said it was prepared to divest about 3 million subscribers. But it would still have about 30 million subscribers. The proposed deal ends months of jockeying for control of Time Warner Cable, the second biggest U.S. supplier of cable television with about 11 million subscribers.

Smaller rival Charter wanted to buy Time Warner Cable, indicating last month it was ready to pay about $130 per share. Time Warner Cable called that price "grossly inadequate" and countered with a suggestion of $160 per share, very close to Comcast's offer.

But Comcast had cast a shadow over the negotiations, and had reportedly held talks with Charter about how to split up Time Warner Cable's territories. Now, Comcast will gain even more leverage over the country's marketplace for television, broadband Internet and phone services. Comcast has about 23 million television subscribers.

Sprint Raises Clearwire Offer

Sprint today raised its bid for Clearwire from $3.40 per share to $5.00 per share, besting Dish Network's offer of $4.40 per share by 14%. Following the raised offer, Clearwire's board of directors has accepted the new bid and recommends that Clearwire's shareholders vote in favor of Sprint's proposal and not Dish's. In addition to the raised offer, Sprint also agreed to pay Clearwire a $115 million termination fee if the deal falls through under certain circumstances. According to Clearwire, Sprint's offer has the backing from a significant percentage of Clearwire's shareholders, including Comcast, Intel, and Brighthouse Networks, among others. Sprint hopes this final offer will give it the approval it needs among Clearwire's remaining investors. Earlier this week, Sprint filed a lawsuit against Dish seeking to prevent it from acquiring Clearwire after Clearwire's board recommended Dish's proposal be accepted. Dish has yet to respond to this latest move from Sprint.


Source: Clearwire

Sprint Improves Clearwire Bid, Says Its 'Best And Final Offer'

Sprint entered into an agreement to buy the remaining 50 percent of Clearwire that it doesn't already own for $2.97 per share, or around $2.2 billion. This morning Sprint announced that it's decided to up its bid to $3.40 per share, putting Clearwire at a value of $10.7 billion. Sprint says that this is its "best and final offer" for Clearwire and that it's bid is the "best strategic alternative" for Clearwire and its shareholders.

This improved Sprint bid bests the offer that Dish Network made for Clearwire in January 2013, which was set at $3.30 per share. While it remains to be seen which offer Clearwire will ultimately take, things definitely appear to be leaning in Sprint's favor. Not only does Sprint now have the higher bid, it also has the support of Clearwire's Special Committee and its board of directors. What's more, Sprint says that it's been told by Comcast, Intel and Bright House Networks that they all plan to vote their shares of Clearwire in favor of Sprint's merger. Those three companies own a total of approximately 26 percent of Clearwire.

Source: Sprint

Cable Internet Providers Team Up For CableWiFi Initiative

If you’re looking to enjoy Wi-Fi access wherever you go, it looks like that may become more of a reality in the near future if you subscribe to the right provider.

Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable have announced that a new coalition has been formed between the five companies that will be called “CableWiFi.” If you subscribe to any of these providers you will soon be able to enjoy using over 50,000 company owned Wi-Fi hotspots through out the nation.

The first coverage areas will include New York City and the surrounding area, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando and Philadelphia with more cities expected in the future. You’ll be able to find where the hotspots are located by visiting your providers hotspot locator or going to CableWiFi.com.

While this is certainly not an end-game solution that will allow you to dump your mobile data on your phone, it definitely raises some interesting questions for the future. Could the U.S. finally get to a point where you could wander from one Wi-Fi hotspot to another and no longer worry about the speeds of your mobile data or your bandwidth camp?

Check out the official website for more details

Verizon Partners With Comcast

Verizon Wireless acquired 122 AWS spectrum licenses late in 2011 from a JV of cable companies including Comcast, and the partnership between the two has quickly grown. Now, the two companies are ready to launch their new product bundle - wireless, cable-TV, landline, and residential Internet in Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

The marketing effort will continue and spread this year, and by 2013 it’s expected to cover major US markets. Verizon Wireless will promote Comcast’s Xfinity in its stores, while Comcast will in turn promote Big Red services on the phone and online.

But the most exciting aspect of the partnership - the new products that the two companies are developing will only show later on. Verizon and Comcast are working on bringing seamless streaming between wireless devices and cable TV.

In the last month, both Verizon and Comcast have been training call-center staff to take calls for the new products and bundles.

"Are we ambitious? Absolutely, we are ambitious," Catherine Avgiris, senior VP and general manager of communications at Comcast said.

Comcast to sell Verizon Wireless products in 4 markets in early 2012

Comcast president Neil Smit confirmed during a UBS investor conference on Monday that his company will begin to bundle Verizon Wireless products with its services in early 2012. Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks announced late last week that Verizon Wireless had agreed to purchase spectrum from SpectrumCo, joint venture created by the three firms, for $3.6 billion. Verizon Wireless will use the spectrum to build out its 4G LTE wireless network and agreed to allow each company to sell its products and services through wholesale channels. Smit told Reuters that Comcast will still compete head-to-head with Verizon Wireless’s parent company, Verizon Communications, which owns the 55% of the carrier in a joint venture with Vodafone. Time Warner Cable CFO Irene Esteves said Time Warner Cable will also sell Verizon Wireless’s current products very soon but she was not specific which products TWC plans to sell.

Cox Communications abandons wireless service

Cox Communications said it will abandon its wireless service offering by next March, effectively killing a year-long experiment by the MSO to provide wireless as part of a quad-play bundle. The decision is another blow to cable companies' attempts to make inroads in the mobile market.

Cox said that starting today it will stop selling wireless service but continue to offer support. On March 30 Cox will discontinue the service. Earlier this year Cox abandoned plans to build its own wireless network and has been operating as an MVNO of Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) since November 2010.

To help ease the transition to other carriers, Cox said all of its wireless customers will receive a $150 credit on their bill for every line of wireless phone service disconnected. The company said customers can keep their wireless devices and that all early termination fees will be waived.

In a statement, Cox said it was killing its wireless service for several reasons, including "the lack of wireless scale necessary to compete in the marketplace, the acceleration of competitive 4G networks as well as the inability to access iconic wireless devices." privately-held Cox never revealed how many wireless customers it had. The service was bundled with its other offerings and the company had launched wireless service in less than 50 percent of its total footprint. Cox said none of its other services, including TV and broadband, will be affected by the move.

Cox isn't the only cable company to fail to make inroads into the wireless market. Time Warner Cable and Comcast which are wholesale customers of Clearwire's (NASDAQ:CLWR) mobile WIMAX network, have repeatedly said that wireless has been an exceedingly small part of their overall business. Indeed, Time Warner has said that wireless demand is tepid at best.

It is unclear what will become of Cox's wireless spectrum. In 2006, Cox teamed with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Sprint as the SpectrumCo joint venture to bid on AWS spectrum licenses during the FCC's Auction 66. (Sprint exited SpectrumCo in 2007.) SpectrumCo in 2006 spent $2.4 billion on licenses covering most of the populated areas of the United States. Then, in March 2008, Cox separately purchased around two dozen 700 MHz licenses in parts of Florida, Virginia, the southwest and elsewhere for $305 million as part of the FCC's 700 MHz spectrum auction, dubbed Auction 73.

In an interview with FierceWireless in June, Kelly Williams, Cox's vice president of wireless products and operations, said that having spectrum gives the company options other carriers without spectrum do not have." [S]o we're taking a look at a whole variety of potential approaches to providing 4G service," he said. "That being said, we're still really in the middle of a lot of discussions with a lot of different entities, and doing strategic work internally, so it's difficult for me to really comment beyond that. But [our] spectrum could play a role in how we bring 4G to market."

"We don't believe this decision has any new impact on our 700 MHz and our AWS spectrum. We remain in full compliance with FCC spectrum requirements," Cox spokesman Todd Smith told FierceWireless. "We understand the importance of wireless to the customer experience and are looking at several options to fulfill this need. We will share more information at a later date."

Is a Comcast or Google buyout in Sprint's future

I happened to have an interesting conversation with a Sprintengineer today. This gentleman had a very interesting point.

His point was what if the T-Mobile/AT&T merger does gothru (by some odd chance)? That would put Sprint still as the number threecarrier, but far behind the likes of Verizon and AT&T.  

Not to mention the $15.5M iPhone deal Sprint just inked, networkvision's estimated cost of $7B, and don’t forget the $13B Lightsquared deal. Now withall of this said, Sprint has made it known publicly that they will have to raise$5B-$7B in cash flow to be able to fund the three deals they have committedto. 

Does this make Sprint a prime candidate for asale/buyout.

The first candidate that was tossed around in ourconversation was Comcast, the point that was made Comcast has beenlooking to venture out into the mobile world for some time now.

The second being Google, mind you Google has its ownoperating system Android that has been nothing but a success; just boughtMotorola mobility all Google needs now is a phone manufacture.

The question that come up…. Will Sprint be a prime candidatefor Google or Comcast if the T-Mobile/AT&T merger goes thru?

Sound off, leave us your comments. What do you think? Could there be any truth the the meaningless talk?