Cable Companies Lose Monopoly on Apartment Buildings

A federal appeals court says cable companies cannot have exclusive rights to provide service in apartment buildings that they wire.

The decision Tuesday from the Court of Appeals in Washington upholds a Federal Communications Commission ruling that banned the exclusive agreements as anticompetitive.

The deals involved a company exchanging a valuable service such as wiring a multiunit building for cable in exchange for the exclusive right to provide service to all the residents.

The commission said cable operators could no longer enter into such deals and existing ones couldn’t be enforced. Associations representing cable companies and apartment-building owners sued. But the appeals court sided with the FCC.

All apartment owners and renters, take notice that according to this decision, you are no longer bound by the exclusive agreement that the cable company has with your apartment complex, just because they wired the building. In other words, you can now choose any service provider of you desire.

Finally, a victory for the consumer. Or is it?

This also means that cable companies are going to be reluctant to wire a building for free or on the cheap, which means your rent will probably increase to cover the cost of the installment. But competition should keep it at a minimum.

Well — we can’t have everything.

Technorati Tags: Apartment Building, Apartment Buildings, Apartment Complex, Apartment Owners, Cable Companies, Cable Company, Cable Operators, Court Of Appeals, Fcc, Federal Appeals Court, Federal Communications Commission, Monopoly, Service Apartment, Service Provider, Valuable Service, Victory