Back in November 2010, Zoom Telephonics, makers of cable modems, filed a complaint with the FCC against Comcast.
The modem manufacturer cited anti-competitive practices in Comcast’s new Physical and Environment (P&E) acceptance testing of their modems. According to Zoom’s filing, “Comcast’s P&E testing regime contains a host of unreasonable, irrelevant, time-consuming, and costly requirements.”
Current statutes in the Communications Act (Title VI, section 629) allow cable operators to restrict the use of modems to those that do not cause network harm or enable service theft. Zoom says that its modems are being excluded based on testing criteria involving, ahem, modem weight, labeling, and packaging.
With the approval of the FCC’s new Open Internet rules in December, Zoom seems to have a new line of attack.
In an ex parte filing on January 21, Consumer Union and Consumer Federation of American said that Comcast is violating a key OI principle of non-blocking, specifically thou shalt not block non-harmful devices.
Of course, it’s always a little dicey with cable since they are not technically providing telecommunications or merely broadband access but an entire information service bundle, which remains unregulated by statute.
Your move, cable company attorneys.
Related articles
- Level 3 and Zoom Telephonics Challenge Comcast on Fees and Policies (dailyfinance.com)
- Consumer Union/Consumer Federation of America ex parte (fcc.gov)
