While Charter Communications’ $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox Communications took the industry by surprise last week, the deal certainly makes sense. The industry has had much consolidation in recent years, and now two of the three largest communications companies are combining to oppose the leader Comcast. Charter and Cox are also adding scale to take on the streaming services that have eaten into their businesses.

That doesn’t mean we won’t have any surprises in the time it will take for the merger to complete and the companies begin operating as Cox Communications within a year after close. Acquisitions this big always face complications, and this one will be no exception.

Here are five things to watch for in the coming year (or years) as the merger inches close to completion – or maybe fizzles before it gets there:

When will it close?

The Charter-Cox deal will take more than a year to close, and that’s if all goes smoothly. Deals of this size must clear regulatory obstacles that can slow down and even derail them. The Charter-Cox merger would leave only two Multiple System Operators standing, which could cause concern in the market. The Trump administration has told corporations it will scrutinize deals, such as HPE’s proposed $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks. Before Verizon received FCC approval for its $20 billion Frontier Communications acquisition, Verizon committed to ending its DEI policies. T-Mobile did the same before its Lumos deal closed. Will Charter and Cox face similar scrutiny?

Charter may have been looking to head off regulatory issues when it included this line it its announcement press release: “Proposed transaction puts America first by returning jobs from overseas and creating new, good-paying customer service and sales careers.”

Can it make impact vs. streamers?

The combined companies will have approximately 38 million customers and reach around 70 million homes, compared to Comcast’s 64 million U.S. homes and businesses at the end of last quarter. But Charter and Cox have more to worry about than Comcast

Streaming services have eaten into cable and broadband companies’ customer base. T-Mobile had 6.4 million high-speed internet customers at the end of 2024, and Verizon finished the year with about 4.6 million fixed wireless subscribers. The stream services do require broadband, so we will see increased coopetition there. Charter already combines its pay-TV service with the ad-supported tiers of streamers such as Disney+, Peacock, Max AMC+ and Paramount.

What will Comcast do?

The Charter-Cox merger can cause M&A ripples in the telecom space, and Comcast may not stand pat. Comcast has made its own acquisitions, picking up Masergy in 2021 and Nitel this year. There has been speculation for years that Comcast – among others – is interested in buying cable rival Altice. That would make even more sense in the wake of the Charter-Cox merger.

What will channel leadership look like?

After the deal closes, Charter CEO and president Chris Winfrey will hold the same positions at the new company and will have a board seat. Cox chairman and CEO Alex Taylor will become chairman and Charter’s current chairman Eric Zinterhofer will become lead independent director.

But what about channel leadership? Michelle Kadlacek, VP of partner channel program for Spectrum Business (part of Charter), has been a Spectrum channel leader for more than 13 years and Cox VP of channel sales John Muscarella has been a channel fixture at the company for more than 11 years. Channel partners will be watching closely to see what roles they play at the new Cox.

How will it impact partners?

Channel partners will also watch to see the role RapidScale plays in the new company. Cox acquired RapidScale in 2018, and its cloud services are popular among technology advisers (TA).

For the most part, Charter and Cox have enjoyed good relationships with TAs. According to Channel Futures’ James Andeson, “In an industry where the relationship between agents/advisors and service providers is tenuous at best, Spectrum Enterprise and Cox Business have maintained relatively strong reputations. Spectrum Enterprise, for example, topped Avant's connectivity providers in 2023 in terms of NPS.”

Avant vice president of engineering Chip Hoisington told Anderson said the deal “makes a lot of sense given the technology landscape.” Telarus chief commercial officer Richard Murray said the combined company would initially benefit from scale in its residential and business units. BB Telco partners with both companies, and its president Craig Bullock told Anderson the deal “could be a big win for both partners and customers” if the merger leads to a unified fiber platform that operates similarly to Spectrum.