A man from the small town of Fairway, Kansas has filed a lawsuit against Time Warner Cable, claiming he should have a choice when it comes to choosing the cable box he uses to access digital services.  The man feels it’s wrong that he’s tied to Time Warner’s hardware offerings and a nominal monthly rental fee, when other companies can provide the same- and sometimes better- digital boxes for less money. 

The man, Matthew Meeds, filed the lawsuit this week in federal court in Kansas City, Kan., and is seeking class-action status for every Time Warner customer in the state, according to InformationWeek.  The suit was filed against both Time Warner Cable and its parent company by the same name which owns 84% of the cable company.

Meeds, a real estate agent by profession, states in the antitrust lawsuit that being locked to Time Warner locks out competition that could otherwise provide a choice to consumers.  Time Warner claimed they hadn’t learned of the lawsuit as of yet, and couldn’t comment on it, but did offer this statement to the Kansas City Star; “Obviously, people have the right to make claims through the legal process, and we’ll certainly review it and respond accordingly,” Time Warner spokesman Damon Porter said.  In other words, it sounds like Time Warner really couldn’t care less, as it’s just another frivolous lawsuit.

Meeds lawsuit is most likely the first such action taken against a cable company concerning the cable box arrangement.  It’s definitely the first to challenge the arrangement as a violation of antitrust law, and likely won’t be the last, according to Meeds attorney.  The situation was compared to AT&T a while back when it used to rent telephones to customers decades ago.  The government had to intervene in the end to break up the telephone monopoly.  “I think the same thing is present here,” Meeds attorney told the KC Star. “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.”

I don’t really see what the big deal is.  If the cable company owns the boxes and the subsequent firmware, it’s to the customers benefit that the cable box is made to work as a companion to the companies programming.  If you could choose different cable boxes with different features, the cable company would have to provide the services first before end-users could access them.  I think the problem is the cable companies are lacking services, not the other way around. 

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Entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 8:46 pm under Legal.

Read more entries by Justin Montgomery.
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