Time Warner Cable Box Rental Inspired Antitrust Lawsuit

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."

Comments

Re:As an Ex cable industry insider....

[Crazy Taco]

If consumers would grow a pair of balls and realize that TV isn't really worth this much money Time Warner would eventually have to lower their rates or be content with less subscribers. I remember when basic cable (roughly 40-50 channels back in the day) cost $20/mo around here. That was as recent as nine years ago before the local cable company got bought out by Time Warner. Now it costs $60/mo for the same number of real channels and about a dozen home shopping channels that weren't available before.

Agreed. The reason most things cost so much in this country is because consumers are cowards and are afraid to negotiate on prices, and won't walk away from things that are too expensive. I find it ironic that now most families have gone to the two working spouses model because they say they want "higher quality of life" (read: they want to buy more). But then they can't actually buy more, because all these two spouse families make more money, and none of them are willing to walk away from high prices, so prices just rise until it now takes two people working to afford what one person used to be able to buy. A case in point is all these things in the services sector, like cable, cell phone and internet plans.

And the other thing I find ironic is all these people who say they are living paycheck to paycheck. That is also a result of consumers being spineless and having no discipline. I think the numbers are around 70% of people say they are living paycheck to paycheck, and 90-95% have cable or satellite TV. They get on the air and whine about the economy and how there is too much month left at the end of the money, and I just want to scream, "Drop the darn cable package already!!!!" That right there would save most people 100 bucks a month, and if everyone did it prices would have to come back down.

But I'm not holding my breath for that. I wanted standard cable, but I'm not paying 60 per month for it. I've bought my 5 dollar a month broadcast basic package from Time Warner, and I'll stick with that until prices come down or I move to an area that has a TV transmitter (2 hours away from the nearest city here).