Comcast To Sue FCC Over Ownership Cap

Comcast will likely win, but it could take a year or two before it is heard and ruled on. By then Martin will have moved on from the FCC to his run for office in North Carolina. In the meantime he can claim how consumer friendly he was by sticking it to a cable company. A no lose decision for him. That is how politics is played in the big leagues.

I've determined that the critical source of global warming/climate change is in fact politicians/high ranking officials and their constant output of hot air.

With that logic, Brian Roberts is likely responsible for temps on Venus.

According to the neo-cons CO2 doesn't cause warmer temps. It's a myth.

Given that manmade CO2 is only a trace amount of the actual greenhouse gases I would agree.

If someone wants to stop global warming they'll have to destroy the Sun.

... or Al Gore

Remember also that we have to drain all that dangerous lava from the center of our planet. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

I pray every night for man-made global warming to occur. I'd love to have beachfront property... I'd be a millionaire overnight.

And yes, I am being serious. My electric heat is quite pricey this year, as it was last year, and the year before...

You want more than 30%? Fine. You cannot filter, restrict, cap or otherwise interfere with the internet traffic your customers use.

You will carry all local affiliates HD broadcasts

You will offer a basic rate tier for no more than 20$

You will not have ETF's

You will not charge customers for using their own cable modems or other hardware which essentially eliminates any discount over renting same hardware from comcast.

You will allow customer to use any STB/DVR of their choice and rent cable cards for no more than 3$ a month for the next 5 years

You will role out DOCSIS 3.0 to 100% of your markets.

You will charge 100% of markets the exact same price nation wide

Yeah....like ANY of that will happen....

Why would you want that to happen? Then there would be no competition, prices would skyrocket, and then we'd be really screwed. I'm all for the open market. If people don't like Comcast, vote with your feet. Most people have alternatives, and if you don't like them, move. You're the one choosing to live in that area.

EDIT: Also, I see you subscribe to FIOS. Why aren't you complaining that Verizon do the same? Here in MA, Verizon has stopped deploying FIOS and has no plans to ever roll it out in the city. It just isn't profitable. That is why Comcast gets my TV/Internet/Phone dollar.

Where is the competition now? As far as I know less than 1% of the people live in areas where 2 or more cable companies compete with each other.

Don't forget two nationwide, major sat TV providers when you're talking about pay TV.

I did mean the two major satellite providers, but if you don't like your cable company, complain to your local franchise. Many communities gave up the right to let cable companies compete in their franchise agreements.

But those 2 satellite companies have nothing to do with Comcast and the 30% rule. You said Comcast getting more than 30% decreases competition, but that doesn't effect whether Dish or Direct can offer you service. If Comcast had 100% of the cable market how does that decrease competition between cable and the satellite companies? It doesn't. In the end most people would still have the choice between cable and satellite.

Bingo. Even if Comcast owned 100% of the coax connecting homes in this country, they still have at least two strong competitors in the pay TV market.

The Pay TV market is much less of an issue now because of the increased competition. Internet TV, Satellite, have provided excellent alternatives.

My concern is for internet access, which in my area is still a 1 person show.

This is about pay TV. Internet access and competition is a separate discussion.

Well if you consider satellite, well DSLReports needs to close, its not needed anymore. 100% of the USA has Universal Broadband.

You do realize this about pay TV, right? Not everything discussed around this forum is about your connection to the internet.

That's because Comcast owns almost the majority of it. Why would they compete with themselves?

My cable company is not important enough for me to actually move, I prefer changing them.

It looks like everybody has had that dollar at one point or another.

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You want more than 30%? Fine. You cannot filter, restrict, cap or otherwise interfere with the internet traffic your customers use.

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blah blah blah

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You will carry all local affiliates HD broadcasts

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almost all areas do already

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You will offer a basic rate tier for no more than 20$

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its called limited service....where have you been!??!!?

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You will not charge customers for using their own cable modems or other hardware which essentially eliminates any discount over renting same hardware from comcast.

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they dont charge for CPE....go buy your modem, comcast doesnt care or charge....

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You will allow customer to use any STB/DVR of their choice and rent cable cards for no more than 3$ a month for the next 5 years

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this was the point of putting CC's in STB's and dvrs....again, where have you been??

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You will role out DOCSIS 3.0 to 100% of your markets.

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in time yes, its not an instant change over

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You will charge 100% of markets the exact same price nation wide

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impossible, standards of living differ.....

This isn't horseshoes. Charter only has 5 of 7 locals in my area not counting CW.Then how can Dish Network, DirectTv and FiOS do it?

Top reasons that make it difficult, is that Comcast has contractual agreements with every single city, township or village they provide service in, known as a franchise agreement, that must be paid out and varies.

They also have to rent the real estate that they cables on the poles are using, and agreements with land owners whose yards the headends/cmts are kept(similar to the dslams that at&t has, only they don't explode).

The expense of maintaining, expanding, upgrading and replacing equipment and fiber optics. As far as I know most of the call centers are regional, instead of cherry picked for there lowest cost of living, meaning if you are calling from Pittsburgh, theres at this moment a 90% chance you will get someone from Pittsburgh, I can't speak for what the others areas are doing, only that this area is cutting it's dependence on outsourcing.

plus the fact that what comcast pays for a channel is going to be more or less then what another company is paying

The company as a whole, like most large companies have there issues to be worked out.

AHA!! SPEECHLESS I SEE!

So maybe they should SUPPORT statewide franchising instead of fighting it. Wouldn't that make their jobs eaiser and be better able to offer more standard pricing?HAHA. Most of Charter's call centers are either in India or Mexico. And I'm NOT being sarcastic. Very rarely do I ever get a person that is not speaking broken english.Bull ESPN is NOT going to charge Comcast more per sub for ESPN and ESPN 2 in Chicago than they do in Nashville or wherever.

Everytime I call Comcast, I always get a native English speaker from somewhere in North America.

Half of your "wants" have nothing to do with pay TV, and the other half are already solved, or soon will be...besides, they aren't relevant to market share.

I expect some 'concessions' - i.e. Comcast 'can' have more than 30% 'if' they

a) offer a la carte programming
b) stop filtering/traffic shaping
c) offer indie access to their network (yeah, like that will happen)
d) offer better pricing

What does any of this have to do with pay TV market share? Nothing. There is no reason that Comcast (or any pay TV provider) should be capped at 30% when viable pay TV competition exists nationwide.

Is Charter in any way a subdivision of Comcast?

they illegally screwed with a FCC investigation, and now they're thinking they can sue because they need to be split up like ma bell, and don't want to? I think someone needs to have everyone at the comcast offices committed.

and not due only to the power of money. It's in uncle sam's ultimate interest to have as much communication under one roof. The control of information is ultimately worth far more than fiat money or some inky-dinky tech stock.
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This seems to be getting old to everyone except for Comcast, right? I wonder if this will ever end...

Not a chance of winning this..

If Comcrap takes over Cablevision I'll jump to FiOS when it comes to my area no questions asked (Verizon techs have been out doing surveys of the area in preparation). Having read about Comcrap for years here on BBR it is one company I definitely want nothing to do with.

As a CV customer, I'm more worried about TW (the other Cable ISP in my area) absorbing CV and downgrading us to their speed standards and higher $rates. I have a friend who lives just north of me in a TW serviced area. He pays more than the CV standard 15Mbs/2Mbs tier and gets only gets 6Mbs/512Kbs (that latter might only be 384Kbs UL). I can get 30Mbs/5Mbs for an extra $15 if I want (and I have) but the Top/Only Tier on TW is the aforementioned 6Mbs/512Kbs.

CV is a guilty pleasure. Highest speeds in the USA. If anyone does a takeover 100% guarantee there will be a speed decrease.

Bunch of hypocrites here. You have no problem with comcast taking over more and more companies and gaining a monopoly but those bad, bad phone companies, right. I know, how about you hypocrites demand comcast open there coax to competitors? I suppose you would be against that huh? Yes i know its not practical or even possible at the current time, but the point is valid.

What the hell has comcast ever done for anyone except raise rates every year by aprox 30% and make those stupid exclusive deals with subdivisions. While you shit on a company like at&t who brought us (just to name a few);

7 Nobel prize winners in Physics/Science
Telephone -1878
Load coils/Capacitors -1899
Electrical Amplifiers -1915
Public radio broadcast - 1922
Television - 1927
Discovered the wave nature of electrons -1937
Coaxial cable -1941
Cellular phones system -1947
The Transistor - 1947
Trans-Atlantic undersea cable -1956
First commercial Modem -1958
First communications satellite -1962
Tone tone dialing -1963
First Trans-Pacific undersea cable -1964
Electronic switching systems -1965
911 system -1968
created the UNIX operating system -1971
Fiber optic cable -1977
Deployed the worlds first Trans-oceanic fiber cable -1988
..etc.

Now thats a great American company. And I'm not even a american.

I've really never understood caps like that. Owning only 30% of the market share? How are you supposed to be the "top dog" in the market? How are you supposed to beat your competitors into the ground? Corporations are supposed to grow continually and make ever-increasing profits; how is this possible with a cap?

Really, they should just make cable government owned and operated. It would have the same effect as it does now. If I reached 30%, I'd just gut the company for as much money as I could and go into a business where I could actually progress instead of stagnating at 30% year after year without change or innovation.

By the way, Comcast does many of these things to some degree or another.

1. Reduce your operating expenses. (Duh, sorry, it's just the first thing I thought of)
2. Repackage services in cool, new ways
3. Invent new services for your service area
4. Build alliances with other services providers in your area to create new revenue
5. Open your private coast-to-coast Internet backbone infrastructure to new classes of subscribers (Compete for the same customers as Level3)
6. Leverage that infrastructure to offer distribution (e.g. akamai, Limelight)
7. Strengthen loyalty with unique value-added services: FOR GOD SAKES, LET ME PROGRAM/WATCH MY COMCAST PVR USING THE INTERNET WHEN I'M AWAY FROM HOME
8. Use your considerable influence with content providers to open up content to new uses (and new forms of revenue for all)
9. Beyond basic cable -- a step toward ala-carte -- choose any 10 additional non-prime, non-sports channels for $10 /mo.
10. Be the service star -- Any AV or Computer problem is your problem, $50 a half hour, same day service (plus the opportunity to upsell, which will happen frequently "while I'm here, can I show you something new that just came out...")
11. From "On Demand" or "My PVR" to "On My iPod" or "On My PC"
12. Unlimited Everything - One flat fee, everything we offer, On Demand, PayPerView $250/mo. flat.
13. My Comcast Neighborhood -- e.g. a CATV-hosted, remote-control navigable version of text ads with simple images (similar to craigs list) relevant to your service area
14. Small Message Service / TXT via Remote Control
15. "Send to..." from the Program Guide. Tell a friend/relative about a show via email (gives upsell opty).
16. Never say "no." If I want two cable modems and it isn't in some service offering, send it to someone who has the training to come up with a profitible and fair offering that delivers it for 12 months at (whatever price worked). By doing this, you'll discover what products/services are in demand that aren't on your normal menu (basically, you'll learn what money you're possibly leaving on the table).

Basically, the more Comcast trucks people see, the more entertainment Comcast ties the things together that they want to do and see, the more Comcast is seen as that ubiquitous glue that ties together all the things that informs and amuses them, then the more that Comcast is that "must have", "no brainer" choice in the areas it serves.

There's PLENTY of growth out there. Employees need to be empowered to give it. The company needs to be dedicated to serving it up.

Here's the real deal: Verizon could offer me 20/20 FIOS, but I'd keep my 6000/384 Comcast Internet*** if it integrated extremely well with TV. That's a no brainer.

PS: ***RST free, of course -- C'mon guys, get this company back on track, get "no" out of your vocabulary, really dig in to your local communities, your customers aren't targets, they're your neighbors and they really do have needs that you CAN fill -- the first step is deciding to do it (say YES we can), THEN figure out the price, THEN make the sale!

keep it capped at 30%. We don't need a cable co version of att/bell.

It is kind of hypocritical. Martin wants at&t to have free reign but not Comcast.

I'm not saying either company is good, just ask why Martin is doing this.

Fastibook-
So, the FCC says AT&T and Verizon (a larger company than Comcast) doesn't have to abide by the Cable Operator cap of 30%, but forcing Comcast to abide by it, is fair??? Comcast is right to sue the FCC, and I hope they win. FCC always likes to make the worst decisions. I don't get why they wouldn't be challenged after they had recently gave Verizon the ok to not have to abide by the same rules as Comcast, even though they are a larger company as a whole.

Comcast deserves the right to compete with the telephone companies on a level playing field!