In April 2005, Comcast and Time Warner Cable announced plans to buy the assets of bankrupted Adelphia Cable. The two companies paid a total of $17.6 billion in the deal that was finalized in the second quarter of 2006—after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) completed a seven-month investigation without raising an objection. Time Warner Cable became the second largest cable provider in the U.S., ranking behind Comcast. As part of the deal, Time Warner and Comcast traded existing subscribers in order to consolidate them into larger geographic clusters.