Wall Street Journal is reporting that Time Warner and Comcast might have the winning bid for bankrupt cable provider, Adelphia. The two giants are said to have offered about $18 billion. That’s a billion-and-half dollars more than what CableVision had offered. It is one of the bigger deals in the cable world, and many were talking about it at the NCTA show.

Many thought Time Warner – Comcast combine would win the deal, but were worried about the rapid consolidation in the MSO space. Smaller companies were particularly worried about this consolidation phase. One wonders if this consolidation shifts the power away from equipment providers to the cable operators. Motorola’s $1 billion deal with Comcast might be an indicator of things to come, perhaps? I wonder how this deal affects guys like Arris who supply gear to Comcast and Adelphia.

Anyway as part of the deal, Comcast will kick-in about $2 billion and swap its 21 percent stake in Time Warner in exchange for 2 million of Adelphia’s 5.3 million subscribers. Time Warner will get 3.3 million subscribers and will be able to take its cable unit public. I wonder how the companies will slice up about 1.33 million broadband subscribers at Adelphia.