http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Cox-Can-Still-Force-You-to-Rent-a-Cable-Box-Judge-Declares-135637
Last week we noted how Cox had lost a lawsuit claiming it violates antitrust law for a cable company to force customers to rent a cable box. The suit claimed Cox was violating antitrust laws by forcing customers to pay a fee to rent the boxes instead of letting them buy their own, resulting in countless thousands being paid for devices worth nowhere near that much. The suit also accused Cox of exaggerating the disadvantages of third party boxes and making the use of cableCARDs unnecessarily difficult to deter adoption.
The jury awarded the suing subscribers $6.31 million in damages.
That was then, this is now.
A federal judge in Oklahoma has now overturned that verdict, saying that the consumers who initially sued Cox back in 2012 didn't do enough to prove that the company did anything wrong.
"While the Court agrees with Plaintiff that Cox required a customer to rent a set-top box in order to obtain premium cable, there simply is no evidence from which a reasonable jury could determine that that arrangement led to a foreclosure of commerce," U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron wrote in her ruling.
The cable industry's stranglehold over the set top box rental market has been growing somewhat tenuous in the face of Internet video and efforts to open up the market to outside hardware competition. Arecent survey by Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal found that set top box competition is virtually nonexistent, with 99% of cable customers renting a cable box. The average household will spend up to $231 per year on set-top rental fees, the study found.
Cox, as you might imagine, was happy with the ruling, though it's likely to be appealed.
Last week we noted how Cox had lost a lawsuit claiming it violates antitrust law for a cable company to force customers to rent a cable box. The suit claimed Cox was violating antitrust laws by forcing customers to pay a fee to rent the boxes instead of letting them buy their own, resulting in countless thousands being paid for devices worth nowhere near that much. The suit also accused Cox of exaggerating the disadvantages of third party boxes and making the use of cableCARDs unnecessarily difficult to deter adoption.
The jury awarded the suing subscribers $6.31 million in damages.
That was then, this is now.
A federal judge in Oklahoma has now overturned that verdict, saying that the consumers who initially sued Cox back in 2012 didn't do enough to prove that the company did anything wrong.
"While the Court agrees with Plaintiff that Cox required a customer to rent a set-top box in order to obtain premium cable, there simply is no evidence from which a reasonable jury could determine that that arrangement led to a foreclosure of commerce," U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron wrote in her ruling.
The cable industry's stranglehold over the set top box rental market has been growing somewhat tenuous in the face of Internet video and efforts to open up the market to outside hardware competition. Arecent survey by Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal found that set top box competition is virtually nonexistent, with 99% of cable customers renting a cable box. The average household will spend up to $231 per year on set-top rental fees, the study found.
Cox, as you might imagine, was happy with the ruling, though it's likely to be appealed.
