One of the arguments that Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) makes in support of its $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) is that wireless broadband is a legitimate competitor to the wireline behemoth that the merger will create. And if you believe that, you probably also believe in the tooth fairy.

At least that’s what consumer website consumerist.com thinks. Consumerist is produced by Consumer Media LLC, a not-for-profit subsidiary of Consumer Reports.

To prove its point about the proposed merger, Consumerist did some math:

• 62 45-minute episodes of the hit TV series “Breaking Bad” totals 46.5 hours of viewing
• An hour of streaming HD TV uses about 3 GB of data
• Running the entire “Breaking Bad” series would use about 139.5 GB of data

According to Consumerist, every cable company it looked at that included a download speed of at least 5 megabits per second and a data cap of 300 GB would be able to stream the entire series for whatever a customer pays for monthly service. Consumerist figures a price range of $30 to $100 for one billing cycle.

That’s not the case for mobile wireless or satellite-delivered broadband. Not counting the unlimited data plans still available but that could be hampered by throttling the download speed below 5Mbps, Consumerist figures it would cost between $1,200 and $2,200 if the entire “Breaking Bad” series were to be viewed in a single billing cycle.

Will this be enough to slow down the Comcast-Time Warner juggernaut? Probably not. It is also worth noting that given the way that the cable industry has developed over the decades in the United States, local monopolies, of which Comcast will be the largest, will still hold an effective stranglehold over broadband delivery for some time to come.

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