Time Warner Cable Box Rental Inspired Antitrust Lawsuit 291
EmagGeek writes "Matthey Meeds, a real-estate agent, was so irritated about having to pay the monthly rental fee that on Tuesday he filed an antitrust suit against Time Warner Cable and its 84 percent owner, Time Warner Inc. The suit alleges that, by linking the provision of premium cable services to rental of the cable box, the companies have established illegal tying arrangements. 'Time Warner's improper tying and bundling harms competition,' Meeds' lawsuit states. 'Since the class can only rent the cable box directly from Time Warner, manufacturers of cable boxes are foreclosed from renting and/or selling cable boxes directly to members of the class at a lower cost.' I pay Comcast over $25/mo for my two DVRs. I'd love to just be able to buy them or build my own. I can't wait to see how this unfolds."
As an Ex cable industry insider.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I really hope this goes a bad way for cable companies. They have had a tight lock on cable boxes for too long, we have been stuck with the crappy quality cable boxes from motorola and SA for too long.
Choice is there, he just doesn't like it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
Would a consumer-positive result (IE: Time Warner loses) also have any kind of side-effect on the issues surrounding the cable "Broadcast Flag" controversy and digital T.V. cards for PC's? Admittedly, I stopped following that entire scene a year or two ago when the flag came to life, so it may have already been resolved, but it does make one wonder what far-reaching effects a positive ruling in a case like this might have.
To quote the great philosopher, Fezzik: "I hope we win."
I can think of an interesting parallel in the UK (Score:3, Interesting)
Way back in the mists of time, the UK telecoms market was a government-granted monopoly - initially granted to the Post Office, later spun out into a separate company.
Go back far enough, and anyone who wanted a telephone was obliged not only to rent the line but also the telephone itself (which was listed on the bill as a separate item that you rented). Someone did take the telco to court over this and won - and today there are any number of telephones on the market you can plug in.
Furthermore, the cable company (another monopoly...) always goes to great pains to stress that the cable box (and/or cable modem) is free, you're just paying for the line it connects to. I don't doubt that these two are related.
Re:What's more disturbing to me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Excellent point, I always found it odd that even the quite expensive "premium" channels have advertising.
Define premium.
Around here, we define premium as HBO, ShowTime, Starz, etc. The only commercials I've ever seen on these channels are adverts for themselves... like "Tune in next month for a new season of Dexter, everyone's favorite serial killer" or "The Tudors are returning this fall." I find that completely acceptable.
Then again I don't watch any premium Sports channels so I don't know much about them.
Don't get me wrong, I find it annoying that there are so many adverts on basic cable.
He should be able to choose his hardware (Score:2, Interesting)
It's *not* alright for the company to charge me to rent the hardware, and then to charge an "Access fee" that corresponds with the technology the hardware utilizes. On my bill, I pay a rental fee for my HD box, a rental fee for my SD box, and then I pay for the channels I subscribe to. But wait, since I'm an ignorant consumer and don't understand that digital capability allows you to deliver a greater number of differentiated services over the same network and with less hardware (which lowers the cable company's costs), they're going to charge me not only for those channels I subscribe to, but again based on the "class" of the service I'm getting. So I pay a "DVR" fee. And a "Digital Access" fee. And more totally and utterly made up bullshit.
Indeed. I think every modern service should remind me of the old saying, "Ma Bell's got you by the calls."
Re:Choice is there, he just doesn't like it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Better solutions are out there.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, I can say truthfully that comcast's billing system is HAPPY to run on a VT100 terminal... They just make a snazzy front-end to it for the "normal" reps to use. Only supervisors and above can go in and "manually" change things.
Re:Choice is there, he just doesn't like it. (Score:3, Interesting)
The whole cablecard thing has fouled that all up.
Before "digital TV" you could use the same equipment on both
landline and sat cable. Now you are stuck with a limited
selection of equipment that will ONLY work on landline cable
systems and not at all with satellite cable systems.
If everything was just going through component, or some
channel on ATSC on the coax line, this situation would
not exist.
This entire "lack of replaceability" is due entirely to
this misguided cablecard idea and the notion that the
cable signal has to be encrypted ANYWHERE inside the
consumer's residence.
That's just bogus. The signal should be free and clear
once it gets into the home just like it was for old
school SD cable.
An "evil cable" box with coax in the clear would be
a dramatic improvement over the current situation.