Does Ma Bell want a DISH?
There are rumors that AT&T may bid for EchoStar. Speculation seems premature but a deal makes sense. — NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Cable companies and telecoms are at each other's throats. — Cablers Comcast (Research) and Cox are trying to steal customers …
Context & Ripple Effects
The rumor that AT&T may bid for EchoStar — reported by CNN and explicitly flagged as premature, with no bid confirmed — lands in the middle of an open war between cable and telephone companies. On the same day's reporting, Comcast and Cox are described as actively trying to steal customers from the telecom side, meaning each camp is reaching for the other's core product: cable moving into phone and internet, telcos needing a video asset of their own. An unconfirmed AT&T-EchoStar tie-up matters because satellite distribution is the fastest way for Ma Bell to answer cable's bundles without rewiring a single home.
First-order effects
- A confirmed AT&T bid for EchoStar would hand the telecom a national satellite-TV footprint to counter the triple-play bundles Comcast and Cox are using to pull away phone and internet subscribers.
- As CNN's own reporting notes, the talk is premature — no bid exists yet, so both companies' immediate positions are unchanged until an offer actually materializes.
Second-order effects
- Cable operators would answer a combined AT&T-EchoStar by leaning harder into discounted video-phone-internet packages, making bundle pricing the decisive weapon in the customer-poaching fight.
- Rival telephone companies watching the talks would face pressure to lock up video distribution of their own rather than cede the bundled-subscriber market to cable.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the regulatory and market boundary between cable and telephone companies erodes into a single broadband-and-video distribution market, driving consolidation around whichever player controls the pipe-plus-content package.
The trend: Telephone companies are pursuing video distribution assets like EchoStar to match cable's triple-play bundles, collapsing two once-separate network industries into one subscription fight.