Comcast Facing Lawsuit Over Set-Top Box Rentals

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.

Comments

I'd like to see this guys...

[jskline]

Face it. The only person standing to make any money back out of this class action suit, is the suit!! The lawyer his/her self. Everyone else stands to collect nothing but a bunch of grief and hassle from all of this.

Why not approach it this way. You now know what you are up against. Nothing spells it more loudly than to disconnect from cable providers and go with alternatives; ie Dish Network, RCA, etc.. When they have to resort to out right lies on their advertising trying to get people to come back, then they get sued for false advertising to boot. They'll loose their market simply by loss of customers. Everyone knows already that Comcast's cable internet is a joke. They bring you in for $30 a month for 3 months, then you get zapped for $70 a month after that and for service that many times is not any better than DSL in download. Then ever notice how Comcast NEVER talks about upload speed??!!! There's a reason for that! My DSL has a fairly symmetrical 1.0mb upload to the download 1.5mb. Comcast will never ever talk about that. I can get up to 5Mb here on DSL and others can get even higher.

Comcast's TV has always been a joke and they haven't changed a thing. What makes them think after Feb 17th, I'm going to call them??? Their TV ads here all represent a concept to the consumer that there is no other alternative but Comcast when TV goes digital. I wonder why they haven't been called on the carpet for that.