Voice of the Customer

TMCnet - The World's Largest Communications and Technology Community
New Coverage :  Asterisk  |  Call Center Outsourcing  |  Call Recording  |  SIP Trunking  |  Hosted Exchange  |  PBX
Webinars
Channels by Topic
Share
 
| More
RSS-XML alerts
Print this page
E-mail this page to a friend
Voice of the Customer Featured Article Archive

[June 27, 2005]

High court rules cable companies need not share lines with rival Internet providers

By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer

(AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that cable companies may keep rival Internet providers from using their lines, a decision that will limit competition and consumers' choices.

The 6-3 decision is a victory for the Bush administration, which sought exclusive control to promote broadband investment from deep-pocketed cable companies.

Judges should defer to the expertise of the Federal Communications Commission, which concluded that limited access is best for the industry, the high court said in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas.

More than 19 million homes have cable broadband service. At issue is whether cable Internet access is a "telecommunications service" under federal law that makes it subject to strict FCC rules requiring companies to provide access to independent providers.

The FCC said no, voting in March 2002 to exempt cable companies from the strict rules to stir more investment. The agency reasoned that high-speed Internet over cable was just an "information service," making it different from phone companies.

The stakes were high. Cable companies have invested billions to set up broadband networks and are now reaping the benefits. Last year, the industry earned about $10 billion in revenue from cable-modem subscriptions, which now represent its fastest growing segment.

The cable industry also had the backing of phone companies, which will now push the FCC to deregulate their rival Internet services on digital subscriber lines. Currently, DSL is regulated as a "telecommunications" service that requires companies to share their lines with independent providers such as Brand X and Earthlink.

Consumer groups, however, argued that subscribers should be able to choose their own Internet service provider rather than be forced to use the cable company. Left unregulated, cable companies will monopolize the market, with unfettered ability to raise prices and restrict content for their business advantage, they said.

Most computer users access the Internet through dial-up services, but broadband connections, through phone and cable lines and satellites, are faster. Broadband, which costs about $40 to $50 a month, depending on location, also features video conferencing.

Though there are alternatives for high-speed access such as telephone line-based DSL, fixed wireless and satellite, an estimated 60 percent of high-speed Internet users subscribe to their cable company's service, according to recent studies.

The cases are National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services, 04-277; FCC v. Brand X Internet Services, 04-281.

___

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

[ Back To Voice of the Customer Community's Homepage ]
› Return to Voice of the Customer Home

FOLLOW US

FREE Voice of the Customer eNewsletter

Subscribe Now

Featured White Papers

  • Seven Best Practices for Speech Analytics: Speech analytics is valuable for identifying issues in the contact center. However, limiting its use to the contact center only considers a portion of all customer interactions and subsequently only reveals a small part of the voice of the customer. This paper discusses how organizations can optimize their Speech Analytics implementation strategy to realize the promise of this exciting technology.
  • Understanding the Voice of the Customer: Today's contact centers involve a sea of information that must be captured, processed, and distributed on a daily basis. Effective use of this information enables companies to remain competitive in an increasingly aggressive and customer centric marketplace. An overwhelming percentage of the information that circulates in a contact center's audio recordings, documents, web pages, and emails is unstructured in that it resides outside of a normal structured database and cannot be managed efficiently. These unstructured items contain valuable information, yet this information historically has been difficult to organize, categorize, and access.
View All ›

Case Studies

  • Aflac: Aflac, the leading provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance turned to Autonomy to help them automate the process of monitoring their contact center agent for quality and compliance. The company now has a system that can offer continued improvement in agent quality and productivity while enhancing the customer experience. ...
  • Avaya: Avaya, a global leader in business communications, inherited 880 websites as well as numerous intranets and extranets when it was spun off from Lucent Technologies. The sheer volume and diversity of the sites and the over 500 content creators resulted in inefficient content distribution rife with divergent branding, messaging, and product information. ...
View All ›

Video Showcase

    Interview with Autonomy: Rich Tehrani interviews Simon Hayhurst, SVP of Autonomy

Featured Events

  • Multichannel Analytics with Autonomy Explore: In today's world of constant connectivity there are a variety of direct and indirect channels of communication between an enterprise (or a brand) and its customers. 80% of these valuable interactions are generated in a human-friendly, unstructured format across multiple touchpoints and channels. With this ever growing mountain of information how do you extract the emerging trends and topics of interest to the enterprise? ...
  • SES Chicago 2011: Marketers and SEO professionals attend SES Chicago each year to network and learn about topics such as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more. The conference offers 70+ sessions, intensive training workshops, and an expo floor packed with companies that can help you grow your business. While you're at it, network with peers and leading industry vendors. Programmed by the SES advisory board, you can be assured - SES content really is king! ...
View All ›
 
Share
 
| More
RSS-XML alerts
Print this page
E-mail this page to a friend