Matthew Meeds of Fairway, Kansas, doesn’t want to pay Time Warner Cable a monthly rental fee for his cable box—he’d rather own one outright. He’s filed suit against the cable provider and its parent company, Time Warner, Inc., accusing them of establishing an illegal tying arrangement by making the box rental a condition of the subscription agreement. He’s seeking class-action status for all TWC premium customers in Kansas.
“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.”
Meeds told the Kansas City Star,
“I think that for most people, if they could buy the box, they would. That definitely makes more sense.”
Meeds’ attorney says that the situation is similar to the days when AT&T forced customers to rent telephones, before lawsuits helped break open the market:
“I think it’s very similar to the cases brought back in those days, where slowly but surely, the courts whittled away at that kind of protectionist activity by AT&T,” he said.
“I think the same thing is present here. You have a lot of companies out there manufacturing these boxes, and there’s nothing necessarily proprietary about them. … They only cost about $30 or $40 at most, and they’re charging around $15 a month for them.”
“Fairway man sues Time Warner over cable box rental requirement” [Kansas City Star]
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I’ll be taking our Scientific Atlanta 8300 to our local TW office after the Olympics are over for the 5th equipment exchange this calendar year. Between the software issues (having to step down from an 8200 last year to an 8100 because the operator was releasing new boxes without having updated the software) and both live and recorded “skipping” it is very frustrating.
Although we look longingly at HD/Dish, we are effectively stuck with TW because it is the only way to get live telecast subscription of our hometown football team’s away games. Sad, really.
All the more reason to re-regulate the cable industry. They and satellite operators form an oligopoly and need to be regulated.
The hardware problems/issues would be resolved in the marketplace if consumers were permitted to buy them on the open market, and the competition would also force prices down.
Long Live Senator Sanders!
The FCC already has regulations in place that says that you can buy your own equipment, and the cable companies are required by law to support it. The problems are:
None of the major cable box manufacturers (Motorola, Scientific Atlanta) sell directly to the public.
CableCard was intended to allow consumers to buy their own equipment, with full support from the service provider, but CableCard (OCUR 1.0) is one-way only. Subscribers can’t buy on-demand programming or access interactive guides.
OCUR 2.0 is being stalled in development because of a lack of interest (from both consumers and providers). This guy will lose his lawsuit for two reasons:
CableCard devices that meet the FCC requirements are commercially available, and the cable companies cannot charge you to rent CableCards.
The providers will argue they’re not in the business of selling hardware. It is not a market they have ever, nor ever wish to enter into.
“modified” Free-to-Air satellite box
@FLConsumer: I did not know those were still around. Is it 4DTv?
I’m glad this guy is taking on TWC for this practice. It takes guts and an attorney willing to go the distance with him.
However, I can’t resist making my other cable TV comment: I don’t have cable, and can’t imagine ever paying a monthly fee just to watch TV. You can get a cheap indoor/outdoor antenna and from most homes, you’ll get great reception of all of the major networks and some others you probably didn’t know you could get. Cable and satelite TV subcriptions are completely unnecessary for the vast majority of locations.
Forget the “premium” services, the box rentals, and all of the other tack ons in the one-sided cable subscription gotcha game. Most subscribers don’t even need the basic subscription.
@Pylon83: agreed.
i rent 2 HD DVRs from time warner, and wind up swapping at least one out each year
seconded on Cable Boxes being more than “$30 or 40″. what a dumb freakin’ assumption. also, there ARE CableCARDS capable of 2 way communication, (M-Cards, or multistream(?)) i just haven’t seen devices they will work in yet…
Fios
First of all, why does everyone in this country think they are entitled to have everything exactly the way they want it? This is not a life-sustaining service, it is a luxery item. If you have a problem with what they do, don’t buy their service.
If there was a company that sold champagne enemas, and they required you to rent the funnel from them instead of bringing your own, do you have a right to sue them for that??? The answer is no, because you don’t need a fucking champagne enema in the first place, so why should you have the right to tell them how to give it to you.
Having cable is optional, and you have no right to make demands for crap to entertain yourself with. It’s not like cable is a human right or something.
@full.tang.halo:
I actually thought about the XBox360, but then realized it doesn’t really count. The XBox360 is sold at a loss, which means they have every reason to cut as much cost as possible. (And hence, there may be some longevity issues there.)
If they were willing to accept a smaller market, they could produce a more robust model for a higher charge.
Just like if it was up to the subscriber, you could rent the cheap box from the cable company or buy your own, and you could buy from within whatever quality range was allowable.