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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.
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I think the plaintiff had better clean up her Sherman Anti-Trust Act violations first.
"The action, on behalf of Comcast Corp. customer Cheryl Corralejo"
.. :)
.. one of the attorneys in the California case also filed the Meeds case"
.. I think it's understandable for Comcast to want to rent boxes as, if the end-users buy directly from the media providers, what's in it for Comcast. Streaming Media is a huge hog of bandwidth, as the ISPs in the UK are discovering with the iPlayer and other services. The ISPs and the content providers are currently in disagreement as to who should pay to upgrade the network infrastructure ..
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
davecb5620@gmail.com
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 renting it from them. Ok, so the cards rent at a lesser fee, neither company here will sell it to me. A card is just a smaller box in this regard.
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.
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. They chose to eliminate the competition; I don't think they have any ethical leg to stand on (though they may have a legal one) in claiming that there's no competition when it was deliberately eliminated by someone other than the cable providers.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
They're too busy policing boobies & f-words.
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.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
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.
... 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.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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.
...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 connections are pretty easy to check.
I see it like the long distance telecom market. 30 years ago you had Ma Bell. You paid through the nose for anything you wanted. Then deregulation came to being, and as a result the long distance market - since it was content only and no infrastructure - became a seriously competitive area. We went from $0.25/min, minimum, for any LD call to a couple of cents a minute, and the price has been pretty stable.
Unfortunately, the "government is bad" mantra we've been fed by the right misses the point that standardization (open, IP unencumbered - or at least compulsory licensed) is good for consumers. Sure NTSC wasn't great, but it WORKED, for everyone. ATSC was an absolute abortion, and was the result of the FCC having no backbone whatsoever.
Unfortunately, we need more regulation of telecom, not less, but it needs to be GOOD regulation. Invalidation of all local monopoly contracts would be a good start. If you keep these companies from dipping their fingers into all the pies, you'll find they will play much better. They will kick and scream and throw money at lobbiests, but the best solution is a fixed standard. Hell, the gov't might as well commandeer IP for the purpose - the common good, you might say.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
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.
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.
They have the same policy. The fact that I could not purchase an IBM z10 mainframe was the reasons I chose not to sign.
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?
Palm trees and 8
So far so good with my CableCard. Didn't have to wait 2 weeks, called them on Weds and they were here Friday. Now having said that, least here in California, Comcast won't let you install them yourself. I looked on their Web siteand then called them (the local office and the 1-800 number) the answer was the same "We have to do it". After watching the tech do the install, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, I was pissed. It took him 40 mins, 35 of it was being stuck on hold with the office to get the thing activated. He did absolutely nothing extra that someone who can read couldn't do. I mean I could have down this, anyone could have if they had a 6th grade education, why did you have to roll a tech out to do this....cause its the cable company. Seriously, I kinda hope this case shines some light on Comcast, TimeWarner and their ilk.
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.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
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.
I used to work with TiVo and I must admit, if you guys think the cablecards were frustrating for you to get working, imagine the TiVo techs that had to get phone calls about those cards constantly (past tense since I used to work for them that is) and then proceed to actually call Comcast or insert random cable company here and tell them that they were legally bound to activate and support those cards when they were outright refusing to give those cards to their customers. It was a serious pain in any TiVo HD tech's rear.
I think it's outright silly that cable companies lie to their customers saying "Oh sorry we can't give you those" only to back down the moment someone at TiVo had to call them to yell. I could not tell you the amount of times I sat on the phone with Comcast (with a TiVo customer) for 2 hours on end trying to get the poor guy's cards activated, or in some cases even sent to them.
Personally this post doesn't have a lot of use, but I thought I'd give you an insight on the poor TiVo techs hassle with the stupid cablecards and the cable companies horrid adoption of them.
What I'd like to see the Obama administration do is demand that the 200 billion already given 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 feeding more money to the telco monopolies. Going with a Universal Broadband sounds great but I only see it as a telco bailout, those big companies are just like all the other election donors with their hands out. Do a campaign finance search for every member of congress dealing with Telco in any fashion. They've loaded the deck to make sure they get their way.
My Charter HD box has an M-Card plugged into the back of it. It doesn't look like CableCARD is dead at all - it's just that they don't want you to use any set-top box other than their own.