Comcast, AT&T Broadband Merger Official

from the now,-explain-to-me-how-this-is-different-from-EchoStar,-DirecTV dept

Okay, maybe I'm a little bit slow on this one, but now that the AT&T Broadband, Comcast merger has been approved by the FCC, I'm curious as to how that deal is any different than EchoStar's attempt to buy DirecTV? The FCC says that the "harm" will be negligible, and the increased scale will let them roll out services faster. Wouldn't the same be true of a combined EchoStar/DirecTV? The reasoning on killing the EchoStar/DirecTV deal was that it would create a monopoly in satellite TV. Well, now there's a monopoly in cable access. Of course, I think that the two sides (cable and satellite) clearly compete against each other, so there really isn't a monopoly issue. I'm just wondering why the FCC is being inconsistent?

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