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Comcast Facing Lawsuit Over Set-Top Box Rentals
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Dec 27, 2008 08:19 AM
from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.
from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.
Multichannel News reports that a woman from California has initiated a potential class-action lawsuit against Comcast for making customers rent a set-top box without giving them the option to buy it outright. Quoting:
"The action, on behalf of Comcast Corp. customer Cheryl Corralejo, alleges that the set-top rental practice represents an 'unlawful tying arrangement resulting in an impermissible restraint of trade.' In addition to violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the suit alleges the practice violates business and professions codes. ... [It also notes] that premium video and the set-top descramblers are two distinct products, yet the cable providers require that the hardware be rented from cable companies, rather than permitting consumers to purchase the set-top hardware in the open market.
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Even if they do decide to sell it (Score:3, Interesting)
they'll still tie you to their service; and then they can ask a ridiculous price for the box.
It's a shame CableCard never caught on - then companies like TiVO could have offered a viable alternative to a set top box. Yes, I realize I'd pay an additional monthly fee; but Tivo2go is worth it to me. Plus; real competition might force cable companies to offer similar products for less.
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unfortunately, while they are using the cable card in their cable boxes for access, there is still software in their cable boxes that is doing 2-way communication and other functionality, so while cablecard gets you access, it won't be until tru2way until there is true 2-way support where you can get On-Demand, etc. There are tuning adapters which are an external device to allow something like Tivo to support switched video, but of course, because their boxes use cablecard _and_ bi-directonal communication
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From what I've read, the FCC is forcing the cable companies to "eat their own dog food" by mandating the use of CableCard in new set-top boxes purchased by the cable companies. With that mandate, the cable companies might finally start fixing their screwed-up internal processes for supporting CableCard devices.
I hope so. Calls to my cable company's tech support on how to get a cable card for my cable card ready PC are met with a either "Huh?," "a what?," or "you don't need to insert a credit card in your cable box."
I imagine the last response's tech support person probably has a new luser story - "guess what a luser asked about today? and doesn't even realize who the real luser is.
Re:Even if they do decide to sell it (Score:5, Informative)
It's a shame CableCard never caught on - then companies like TiVO could have offered a viable alternative to a set top box.
Um, companies like TiVO do [tivo.com] offer alternatives. I'm using a TiVO HD with cableCARD right now, as a matter of fact.
Parent
Suit violates the Sherman Anti-Trust Act? (Score:4, Funny)
I think the plaintiff had better clean up her Sherman Anti-Trust Act violations first.
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To the extent that any agreement between the cable provider and the manufacturer prevents the sale of the box directly to the public, there is a violation going on. Comcast is not in the business of selling hardware, so they should not be required to do the selling. But they must not be allowed to interfere with the selling of such boxes by any means. The manufacturer must sell them to anyone willing to buy in the minimum quantity they will sell (e.g. at least as many as the smallest cable company has bo
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If your idea of a free market is a company can arbitrarily discriminate against customers, then I don't want to get your idea of free market at all. And where monopolies exist, there is no freedom. I'm more in the the "fair market" system, if you need a name for it.
call me a cynic but .. (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder just who she is fronting for? reading on
"the claim is nearly identical to one filed on behalf of Missouri consumer Matthew Meeds
Aw, go on
Re:call me a cynic but .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Streaming Media is a huge hog of bandwidth, as the ISPs in the UK are discovering with the iPlayer [wikipedia.org] and other services. The ISPs and the content providers are currently in disagreement [theregister.co.uk] as to who should pay to upgrade the network infrastructure
In the good old days, people minded their own business. If you had a hot dog stand where you sold the best hot dogs at a busy intersection, the butcher didn't come to your stand to whine and moan about how he can't produce more hot dogs unless you bribe him. He just took all the money he earned from his supply business and reinvested it to increase capacity, and you kept on selling hot dogs without worrying about anything else.
If there is more demand on ISPs to deliver bandwidth to support their customer's usage, it is their responsibility to increase capacity to meet demand. If they cannot afford to do so, then it is the business model that is flawed. If they failed to account for future upgrades and the rather obvious explosion of telecommunications, that makes them poor businesspeople. It most certainly is not the fault of the customer nor anyone else.
Parent
Every state/city in the U.S.A. should file!!! (Score:2)
This is obviously a violation of the Sherman Act, and now that the DOJ has a chance of being on the side of the law and not big business after Bush leaves, its time to start filing them. I say legally NUKE comcast to oblivion.
As Americans, we need to retake control of our communications systems. That USED TO BE the job of the FCC!
Re:Every state/city in the U.S.A. should file!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Every state/city in the U.S.A. should file!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
While it would be antitrust if their monopoly were one formed by conglomeration, cable is a bit different; in this case, each local city grants the company its monopoly.
There is no such distinction in the law. In fact, back in the 70s and earlier, you HAD to rent your phone from the phone company and it remain the property of AT&T. This ran afoul of the same laws.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They're too busy policing boobies & f-words.
TiVo shows that they are separate products (Score:3, Insightful)
All Comcast has to do is show that cable TV and set top boxes are not separate products, and *poof* the antitrust suit disappears.
TiVo and other companies that sell CableCARD-compatible set-top boxes to retailers have already shown in the U.S. market that set-top boxes are a separate product. So I don't see Comcast being able to pull off such a defense.
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We are in a bit of a Catch-22 here. Because all of the cable companies (not just comcast) require you to rent a box from them in order to have their digital or high definition service, technology companies know that there is very little money to be made in making a standalone box. Then, because there are few alternatives, cable companies can claim that the hardware is part of t
I would not mind renting the box ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... if it weren't such a piece of shit.
Comcast needs to demand that their box manufacturer let a real geek program the box and shoot the managers (though I would really much more prefer that they suffer a horrible lingering painful death) that try to interfere.
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So leave Comcast and get some decent hardware. Might I recommend Dish Network and the DVR722 receiver?
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So leave Comcast
And pay for cable TV that I'm not using, in order to maintain my Internet connection? (Comcast makes its high-speed Internet customers subscribe to at least "lifeline" TV.)
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#1 is not something I could see a large fraction of customers wanting, so don't hold your breath. It may not be hard to code, but it will make it more difficult for Joe Consumer to set up favorites and to change favorite sets; so actually doing it may end up driving customers away rather than bringing them. Therefore it is a very bad value proposition for the cable company, even if it takes 5 minutes to code.
As for #2...well, Comcast just uses shitty cable boxes. The Scientific Atlanta box that I have (o
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#1 is not something I could see a large fraction of customers wanting,
What do you mean?
Joe Sixpack has his favorites (FSN, ESPN, SciFi).
Jane has hers (Oxygen, FoodTV, WE).
Little Johnny and Susie each have theirs as well (Nick, Disney, etc..).
Re:I would not mind renting the box ... (Score:5, Informative)
Comcast box is even more crappy.
Do discreet on and off IR codes, no RS232 control port in back. PIP does not work, etc... as a high end theater integrator I hate it when my $50,000 theater install turns into a $25.00 piece of crap home theater in a box when it comes to the cable box control. The POS has video out on all ports if on or off, so I cant do a video detect. It uses the same power on or off so I cant use a current detect, and they have so many useless led's always on on the face I cant use a indicator detect. No ir in port in theback means running a ugly bug to the front.
Even their newest box is utterly a festering pile of dog crap. AND they try and rape customers by telling them that it's a $900.00 box. It's barely worth $49.95 on the open market and they know it. Oh and finally most HDMI boxes give "USECURED VIDEO PATH" errors on many TV's causing people to revert to Component in instead of HDMI.
There is not one box available from comcast that is not a total piece of junk that is not worth the cardboard box it was shipped in. This is the fault of Motorola making low end boxes (no cooling on the hard drives so they fail all the time in the DVR boxes)
Problem is there is not other choices. DISH and DirectTV both have really crappy hardware, and all other cable companies have the same motorola or Scientiffic Atlanta crap.
Parent
Lawsuit is missing the real issue (Score:3, Informative)
Who wants to BUY a cable box they force you to use? The real issue is that the cable companies want to force you to use THEIR SELECTED equipment. Since there is little or no competition with cable, what consumers need and want is freedom to use the EQUIPMENT of their own choosing. THAT would make a far better lawsuit.
I have a TiVo HD. Let me tell you, it was a nightmare trying to get it to work properly with Cox Cable. You think that CableCard solved the issues? Think again. There are different versions of the card and issues with resetting them and the techs are CLUELESS. But then Cox activated SDV (Shared Digital Video) the week after I FINALLY got everything working. Poof- I could then not access 2/3rds of the HD channels. Cox couldn't tell me WHY I couldn't get the stations, and kept sending out useless techs. Then they tried to charge me for the service calls. After many hours on the phone, I FINALLY got someone who actually knew what they were doing.
They activated SDV without telling any customers or even training their techs what they were doing and instantly made it impossible for anyone not using Cox equipment to get many channels. It completely ruined the whole concept of CableCards. And Cox was not the only cable company doing it, either.
Well, it was my great fortune that after a few weeks of that hell, Cox suddenly stopped using SDV and then everything worked again. I heard through my inside connections that Cox was having problems with some of their own equipment and SDV, so they temporarily stopped using it. It hasn't been a year yet, but rest assured that Cox will start using SDV again, and then every customer with an HDTV + cablecard, or TiVO + cablecard, or any other type of non-Cox equipment will be out in the cold yet again.
This is why... (Score:3, Interesting)
...the congress should change the law to prohibit any infrastructure provider from also selling service over that infrastructure. If the cable, telephone, electric, etc. utility plants were required to be run as an independent, stand alone business from the content provided (electrical generation, content sourcing, telecommunication connection backend) there would be fewer tying problems.
Now, that said, there might still be other issues over interfaces and who's problem it is when things break, but physical
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd buy the Scientific Atlanta DVR I have now if it were available for sale - it's a great DVR and handles switching aspect ratios and upcale settings very nicely. If it were available for outright purchase it would probably include more functionality, i.e., recordings would be available even when cable is out (in my town cable goes out more than power), I'd be able to manage files more easily, and transfer them to any firewire device, and would probably not be blocked from recording on demand video. The ca
There's already non-rental options (Score:2)
From 11 months ago [cnet.com]. Panasonic already has a tru2way television on the market already.
They should make all boxes rent to own (Score:2)
They should make all boxes rent to own with a cap on how much over there price they can bill you as rent fees. Also only have 1 HD and or DVR fee per house. Also they should let you buy it outright with them being forced to let you port it to other networks. Also they should let you put bigger hd in the with out being locked out for doing that.
The Cable guard, Protection Plans and others cover replacing them at no cost , no rent time reset, and no 2 year re lock in.
also mirroring fee / outlet fees / card fe
The future of Cable (Score:5, Informative)
This will be a little hard to explain, so I'll try and be as sensible as possible. There are "must carry" regulations that control what Cables can and can't scramble. They have to Carry local channels and they have to carry stations like TBS in an unscrambled/unencrypted format. (my significant other and I have had many arguements about this.) "Scrambling" is an Analogue concept that applied to Analog NTSC Cable. Cable companies don't do this any more, they simply stick it on the "Digital Teir" and encrypt the shit out of it. Digital Cable" uses QAM. (Quadurature Amplitude Modulation.) QAM gets encrypted heavily by cable companies.
Now, most Digital Televisions, and Digital VCRs (but not those cheap DTV Converters) have QAM tuners (call this "Digital Cable Ready") in addition to ATSC Tuners (Digital Terrestrial Tuners.)
Now must of these "Digital Cable Boxes" that the cable company provides, output ONLY Analogue RF NTSC out, (at 480p) or Composite out. (also 480p.) if you want 720p or 1080i, you have to get one of their "HD" packages to get a "box" with Component or HDMI output. (so its the digital cable boxes that prevent just everyone subscribing to get "HD".
Here is the problem. The Cable companies consider their QAM tier to be entirely Premium channels all 100+ of them. So they feel entitled to encrypt the whole thing. Not only that, they are moving regular NTSC Channels to the Digital Teir and encrypting them. Save the ones that under the US's must carry Rule. (I think Canada is as variation of the way.)
Now here is the killer, while there is no hard and fast date for this like the Febuary 17th 2009 switch, its expected the Analogue Cable teirs will go dark some time in 2012 or 2013. So what we are likely to see sometime in that year, is a situation where maybe 20 local channels and must carry nationals are in Clear QAM, and virtually everything else is Encrypted. And there is no Analogue Teir at all. Without a set top Box rental, you will be better off watching OTA ATSC, and not subscribing to cable at all.
That is the future of Television.
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Yes, Comcast is already trying to screw us in our area.
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/315949.aspx [thegreenbutton.com]
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I would go quite a bit further than that... Even now, you're simply far better off with OTA ATSC than Cable/Satellite. End of story.
With the advent of high quality OTA broadcast TV, inexpensive DVRs, and DVDs, what purpose does cable TV serve?
I haven't yet seen one cable/sat provider who isn't re-compressing the broadcast signal to hell and back, so OTA is now the choice with the highest picture qua
Crazy Idea (Score:2)
I just had. Why in hell can't I simply rent/buy a cable card for my PC that not only gives me CTV with Digital Access but also Broadband Modem Capabilities? Talk about finally getting some digital convergence as they've talked about for the last decade. How many people would be willing to pay for this kind of service/product and when you combine it with Vista/Windows 7, all of the DRM lovers would actually have a win situation in front of them. Producers would be able to draconically control media access (r
The (coming) end of Comcast ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It wasn't until the 1968 Carterfone decision that AT&T was forced to give up this monopoly and allow other devices to be connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network. RJ-11 jacks followed, as did the flood of third parties making telephones. Today you can buy a phone very cheaply. You wouldn't be very happy if AT&T were charging $5/month for each phone and had the exclusive right to rent them.
Comcast is following the old AT&T monopoly model, the only difference being that the manufacturing of the boxes is outsourced. Cable boxes are available only from them. You can't buy them, and they arbitrarily decide on the monthly rental charge. (For simplicity, we'll let Comcast represent the entire cable industry here.)
Someday, perhaps soon, we will have a Federal Trade Commission that will use its enforcement powers to declare this arrangement to be illegal. Comcast will fight it in the courts, as did AT&T, but eventually they will lose, and will be forced to separate the cable box business from the television service. We consumers will then have the right to either continue renting our boxes or to buy it, with or without a service contract.
The bigger threat to Comcast, however, is the competition for delivery of content, where they don't have a complete monopoly. (They do own some of the cable channels, though.) Today, we can legally receive programs over-the-air, by cable, satellite, and Internet. As more and more of us go to the Web for our video entertainment, Comcast and the other cable companies may become increasingly irrelevant and lose more and more of their market share. The Obama Administration is talking about universal broadband service, which would be a big blow to cable TV. When that happens, I'm guessing that HBO and Showtime will decide to sell monthly subscriptions to their shows over the web (or through the iTunes music store). If they are successful, it's not long until Game Over for the cable companies.
The Obama telco bailout (Score:3, Insightful)
What I'd like to see the Obama administration do is demand that the 200 billion already given [pbs.org]to the telco's for 'universal broadband' be actually put into place. Force them to go forward with the plans they had originally stated before taking those billions of tax credits, fees, etc that they never delivered upon. If the monopolies are unwilling to play than force them to pay back their 200 billion to another entity that will do what was promised for that money.
Otherwise the universal broadband is just fe
Re:CableCard? (Score:5, Interesting)
CableCARD exists. TiVos use it. The failure of it to take over has nothing to do with the open market. It's because cable is not an open market. CableCARD was forced on the cable companies by the FCC and they didn't want it, so they responded by doing the worst possible job in supporting it.
Friends who have TiVos mention having to wait almost two weeks for a CableCARD "install" where a guy shows up with a card and just puts it in your TiVo. When they easily could have just given you the card on the spot.
Parent
Re:CableCard? (Score:5, Informative)
At least with Comcast here in Florida, you can install it on the TiVo's yourself so you don't have to wait. I did it with two TiVo HD XLs. I went and picked up two mstream cards from Comcast (one was free, the second $1.99/month) and got home and stuck it in. You do have to then call them up and give them some information from the card like its serial number and a network ID. It took about 20 minutes on the phone with them to do both cards. Then the lady sent the information off to someone to "activate" it. About an hour later it was working and they called back to let me know and have me check 2 or 3 channels on each TV.
Ideally you should plug it in and it would work. The process would be too complicated for many people, my aunts, grandparents etc. Making it plug and play is an important step for adoption.
The other problem is that it does not support "OnDemand" which I know a lot of people enjoy.
Parent
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I feel like griping.
I have a Tivo with two cablecards. When I first got the Tivo, one of the cards that Comcast gave me was bad. It was an insanely painful process to figure this out. The one card wasn't just "bad" it would work, then not, then work. Call after call to "troubleshoot" the problem was a complete waste of time. I finally pulled one out, ran the Tivo for a few days, then repeated. My hell, finally. Comcast happily replaced the bad card, and to their credit, it has worked fine ever since.
Moral?
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We got a Series 3 TiVo, and have had no end of problems with HD channels.
We've been forced to use an additional adapter provided by Cox that manages "switched digital video", an interesting extension that seems like it ought to be handled by the CableCards themselves. Thanks for the KISS, buddies.
Intermittently, a channel will drop out. Usually comes back in a day or so.
Tired of the nonsense, we're Frankly Investigating Other Ser
Re:CableCard? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Re:CableCard? Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was a happy user of a cable card (M-Card) from Comcast until just recently. I just switched to Verizon FIOS and am using their cable cards now. No problems installing with either company so yes, they are offering them. Neither knows what an M-Card (multistream cable card) is when you call although Comcast installers had them.
This doesn't address the point here though as both providers require you to rent the cable cards. Even if you already own one, you cannot use it with their network unless you are
Re:CableCard? Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm going though this headache now. I called up Comcrap to order an m-stream CableCard, and the idiot sales person had no idea what I was talking about. I asked for a supervisor, who claimed that they only had m-stream cards in California. I told her to put on my work request that I wanted an m-stream card. I called sales later in the day, and she even called down to dispatch to verify that my work order had a request for an m-stream card. Very nice and knowledgeable installer comes out with 2 s-stream cards. He says, of course they have m-cards. His dispatcher made a note on my account saying that I requested an M-stream card and they should have delivered one. They had suggested that hopefully Comcast would just not charge me for the second card, but after talking with their billing department, the person said while they could do that, I would be better off getting an m-stream card so that I don't have problems every month, so now they are bringing out a m-stream card.
Of course, Comcrap is now charging you the same monthly fee as a stupid damn box, because they are calling it a "digital outlet" fee.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty much all of which are in similar boats. Even the ones who offer to sell it to you don't if you read the fine print. They are REALLY still leasing for a one time lifetime payment.
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Most places, you are only leasing the land for 99 years.
Define most places. It is certainly not true for my property.
Yes, and get off MY lawn.
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Now that I have satellite, I also rent my PVR. Its been going strong for almost 2 years now, and once my 2 yr contract is over, I get
Re:perhaps IBM will be next (Score:3, Interesting)
No really, I have to wonder why IBM is not guilty, when they control 90% of the mainframe market and force you to rent the mainframe from them, with no option for purchase. Is this not a violation of the Sherman act?
Re:The problems are... (Score:4, Informative)
That's not at all how cable works. All channels are always available on cable, because it is shared with everyone in your neighborhood. A cable technician installs filters at your demarc point, which screen out the channels you are not paying for. If you were to break into that box and remove the filters, you would receive all channels.
The 2-way communication features are indeed useless to you, as I'm assuming your never consume pay-per-view programming, but they are critical for digital cable where a significant portion of the content is delivered on-demand, and access is governed not by physical filters but by software. In general, any functionality that is unique to you must be transmitted via this 2-way link, otherwise everyone else will get them too.
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