02 FEB

Comcast accused of demanding $3.5 million “punitive ransom” from rival

A cable company that competes against Comcast says it was forced “to pay a punitive ransom totaling nearly $ 3.5 million” in order to keep airing Comcast-owned TV programming.

Wave Broadband, which has about 455,000 customers in Washington, Oregon, and California, filed a complaint against Comcast-owned networks with the Federal Communications Commission in December. Comcast-owned NBCUniversal asked the FCC to dismiss the complaint, but Wave pressed forward in an official reply to Comcast yesterday.

Demands from Comcast-owned Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) “had the effect of withholding must-have regional sports programming from the largest cable competitor to Comcast Cable on the West Coast unless Wave agreed to pay a punitive ransom totaling nearly $ 3.5 million,” Wave wrote yesterday. This violates Section 548(b) prohibitions on cable operators using deceptive or unfair acts and practices to hinder rivals’ access to programming, Wave argued.

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Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.