High speed broadband internet and cable television are key pieces within today’s modern society. In recent news, there has been a push towards a merger between two of the most prominent companies in these respective fields. Comcast Corp., the largest provider for both cable television and broadband internet, put forth a $45 million bid to purchase Time Warner Cable, the second largest placed competitor for cable and broadband services in the nation, as of February and then formally in April to the FCC, Federal Communication Commission, this year. Since then, the proposed merger has been under careful scrutiny by both the DoJ, Department of Justice, and FCC on whether or not it’s violating antitrust laws and crossing the line into becoming a monopoly. The transaction is claimed to fortify Comcast against new and emerging…show more content… Inside of Comcast’s 180 page .pdf that was submitted for the FCC’s approval in April, Comcast pushes a very specific point to verify that the merger is not threatening horizontal competition by merging with Time Warner Cable. As quoted from within the .pdf Comcast that the company supplied to the FCC (2014), “the transaction presents no ‘horizontal’ competitive concerns because... Comcast and TWC’s service areas are distinct and the companies do not compete in any relevant market” (p. 127). Therefore, the argument is that because Comcast and Time Warner Cable are so geographically distinct in their service areas, they cannot be called competitors. However, it was previously stated back in 2010 during a hearing of Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal that they acknowledged Time Warner Cable as a competitor and cited them specifically for one of the reasons to approve the Comcast-NBC merge. According Senator Franken during the hearing in April