On May 11th, I relayed that SBC should have choosen a city like Cleveland, or Buffalo, or Los Angeles to start their IPTV beta in. Why? Because Adelphia had messed up those markets and consumers might be receptive to IPTV as an alternative.

Well, right on cue: Comcast and Time Warner Thursday spelled out in a filing why the FCC should approve their plan to carve up bankrupt Adelphia Communications. In the filing were these juicy tidbits:

For starters, the two companies said the deal would allow Adelphia subscribers to receive advanced services such as cable telephone, high speed Internet and high-definition television.

Adelphia systems lag in delivering new cable products because of the company's financial woes. The Coudersport, Pa. company declared bankruptcy in 2002.

For instance, Adelphia has no voice customers while Comcast and Time Warner serve 1,725,000 between them. Only 14.4% of homes passed by Adelphia systems subscribe to high-speed Internet whereas 21% in Time Warner franchise area subscribe and 18% in Comcast areas.

Among Time Warner subscribers, 5.3% buy high-definition packageswhile 6.7% of Comcast subscribers do. Adelphia, by contrast, sells HD service to only 2.8% of subscribers.

The companies also said the deal will set them up to better compete with regional Bell phone companies by boosting the size of their regional clusters.