Why is Verizon in bed with Time Warner and Comcast?

[Commentary] Stop by a Verizon Wireless store in California and about two dozen other states, and you may encounter a sales pitch not for Verizon's own land-line phone, Internet and TV services but for those of a competitor such as Time Warner Cable or Comcast. You may be hard-pressed to even know that parent company Verizon Communications offers such services. The three telecom heavyweights involved call this a mere marketing partnership and say it has no relationship to Verizon Wireless' pending $3.6-billion purchase of wireless spectrum from the cable industry. They also say the competitiveness of the marketplace won't be affected by rival service providers cozying up to one another and that consumers won't be disadvantaged in any way. Sure. Because any time a market is dominated by only a handful of companies, and they all climb into bed together, that can only mean consumers will benefit. How could it be otherwise? "The question is whether this is good or bad," said Jeff Kagan, a telecom industry analyst. "All I see is bad."