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Court of Appeals Rejects FCC's Cable Subscriber Cap
olsmeister writes "The US Court of Appeals Friday threw out the FCC's cap on the number of cable subscribers one operator can serve, saying the FCC was 'derelict' in not giving DBS its due as a legitimate competitor. 'We agree with Comcast that the 30% subscriber limit is arbitrary and capricious. We therefore grant the petition and vacate the Rule,' said the court, which concluded that there was ample evidence of an increasingly competitive communications marketplace and that cable did not have undue control on the programming pipeline. The FCC commissioner's statement (PDF) is available online."
"an increasingly competitive communications marketplace"
Where I live, there's only one cable company to choose from. They must be counting DirecTV and the like as "competition", because I've only once in my entire life had the ability to choose from two cable companies. And that didn't last long either, because the one I picked (the smaller, better one) got bought out by the large, crappier one after about a year. And I personally don't count DirecTV as an adequate "replacement" for cable.
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Then why do the courts not force cable companies to share their lines with competitors? (Maybe that decision was exclusive to internet?)
We dumped Comcast years ago because they would raise their rates arbitrarily and with no limit. And yet the courts have this delusion that their is competition - then why are they allowed to do this? Sure....
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
It's good not to limit how many people can connect to the fastest last mile infrastructure avaliable to them. As long as cable is required to push %30 of data pertaining to developing newer last mile infrastructures. God's will- it cannot be undone!
Since when does a dialup modem hung off the side of a satellite dish constitute "competition"? Seriously, I want to go up to this judge and ask "Are you from the past?" This is like saying that a Ford Festiva competes with a [insert sports car guys drool over here]!
* Yes, my knowledge of cars is limited... I drive a purple Saturn. That is as much as I know about the car. But Slashdot loves car analogies, so work with me here.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Today with phone companies cable companies and DBS offering TV there is adequate competition. But in the future, with Verizon investing so much of money in getting fiber to premises, essentially others wont be able to compete in the future. We are looking at de facto monopoly. Given that TV and internet are converging into one, this would prove to be a big issue in the future.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
when cable broadband oversells their service and they have more customers than their system can handle? i guess they can do that all they want now?
well look at the bright side of this economic recession = less people can afford broadband internet so there is more broadband to go around.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
1) We are talking about cable not internet service in this case.
2) Satellite availability depends on being able to have a satellite. If you rent, which more than half of the U.S. population does, you probably don't have this option.
In my area (Portland Oregon). I have one option for cable, comcast. Why is there not another cable provider in my area? Because comcast has bought them all...
What the FCC policy should be is that a service provider can not buy out another service provider if it means that the new company will have more than 30% of the market...
Usually it is because the local municipality signed an agreement to give them a monopoly. Similar to how the same municipalities force you to use the garbage company THEY selected and won't let you choose an alternate one. Cable is the same way in many places. Certainly it is where I live and I have seen enough posts on other cable stories to know it is the same in a lot of other locales as well.
I think rules like this from the FCC are the least of comcast's worries. After a year of crappy quality service from Comcast, I switched to FiOS from Verizon (it wasn't available where I live when I first signed up for Comcast). For the same price, I now get dramatically better internet service (5/2 Mbps down/up). What I was really surprised by was how much better the television service is. The channels are much clearer, and I get a ton of good channels in the base package. The guide works much better as well.
If AT&T's uverse is on the same level, then I would expect the cable companies are facing real competition from the traditional telcos.
No, it means there will be THE cable company, kind of like Ma Bell was THE phone company. This is just setting TV up for a repeat of the Clearchannel effect.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The cable industry thinks this is a victory. It is for them, it's a huge loss for consumers.
Cable companies aren't forced to enhance their infrastructure to handle the extra subscribers, so consumers get lower quality service.
The subscriber cap was meant to preserve the quality of service for consumers. Now there is no recourse.
They're using their grammar skills there.