FCC investigates cable, Verizon pricing
p2pnet news view | Freedom:- Pricing policies of major US cable operators and Verizon Communications are being scrutinised by the Federal Communications Commission.
The investigation was launched to ensure customers are being treated fairly, the Associated Press has FCC chairman Kevin Martin saying.
“I’m certainly concerned with the increasing cable prices that consumers are facing,” he states in the story.
“They are getting less and being charged the same or more.”
AP says the FCC wrote to Verizon and 11 cable companies about their practice of moving analog channels into digital tiers, “to free up bandwidth for other uses, such as high-definition channels”.
“To watch channels that have been moved, subscribers to analog service must either subscribe to a more expensive digital tier, rent a digital set-top box or use an adapter, which service providers are starting to offer for free,” says the story.
Under the FCC spotlight Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, Bright House Networks, Suddenlink Communications, Bend Cable Communications, GCI Company, Harron Entertainment, a unit of Harron Communications, RCN Corp and Verizon, “because it offers pay-TV through its FiOS service”.
The FCC also will try to determine whether or not, “providers are misleading customers into thinking that when analog television channels move to the digital tier of service the shift is related to the federal government’s mandate that all broadcasts be digital by February,” Martin said.
However, “The two moves are unrelated,” notes AP.
The FCC went out a day after the Consumers Union asked the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to look into the practice of moving analog channels to the digital tier, adds AP.
Associated Press – FCC to probe pricing policies of cable, Verizon, November 4, 2008
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