AtHome also serves cable systems owned by Cox Communications, Comcast and Cablevision Systems.
A partnership among Microsoft, Motorola, Sony Corporation of America, Warner Music Group, EMI Music and a half-dozen cable TV providers, including Time Warner Cable, it serves 1,050 cable systems across the United States, reaching roughly 85percentt of the current digital-cable market.
They had proposed such steps as a new national pricing plan, to make sure that subscribers in rural areas and other places not served by cable would pay no more than customers in areas where cable competition kept prices moderate.
The lawyers said the antitrust division had opposed the deal because in many markets it would reduce competition from three companies -- the two satellite providers and a cable television company -- to just two, while in rural areas not served by cable it would eliminate competition.
Mr. Baker said Earthlink's cable agreements give it access to about 25percentt of the homes in the United States that are served by cable.
On Thursday, Cisco Systems announced its intention to pay about $5 billion, including assumption of debt, for the NDS Group, a British software company that serves the cable television industry.
Of the roughly 73 million United States homes served by cable television, about 15.2 million subscribed to digital television at the end of last year.
"At best, this merger would create a duopoly in areas served by cable; at worst it would create a merger to monopoly in unserved areas," Mr. Powell said.
For a start, they are unimpressed by her claim that women are badly served by cable television: Disney's Lifetime, they point out, is one of the most widely carried networks.
And now, more than ever, CNN serves as cable news's best antidote to the solipsistic ranting of histrionic and proudly biased evening hosts on Fox News and MSNBC.
