Verizon Criticizes Cable for ‘Cumbersome’ Video Service Porting, Urges FCC Ruling
The FCC should stop cable companies from slowing video service ports to competing TV companies, Verizon said in a Wednesday petition. “The process to switch video providers is… cumbersome for consumers,” Verizon said. “Cable incumbents do not accept disconnect orders from the new provider; instead, they require the customer to contact them directly to cancel service after choosing a new video provider and to return equipment. This significantly complicates the process of switching video providers, thereby entrenching the cable incumbents’ dominant market position.”
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The petition flips a complaint that cable companies filed against Verizon. Last month, Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House said Verizon illegally uses rival carriers’ advance number porting notices to trigger pitches aimed at getting departing customers to stay with Verizon (CD March 20 p14, March 5 p15). In a statement on its new petition, Verizon responded again to that complaint: “The cable industry is attempting to use the FCC and some state-level regulatory processes to protect itself from competition by preventing customers from even receiving information about attractive competitive offers - so-called customer retention efforts - that would benefit those customers,” it said.
The FCC should declare “it constitutes an unfair method of competition or an unfair practice for an incumbent cable operator to refuse to accept its subscriber’s order to cancel video service when such a cancellation request is communicated by a competing video provider as the subscriber’s lawful agent,” Verizon said. “As telephone companies and cable companies compete for the ’triple play,’ it is essential… that new entrants and incumbents enjoy a level playing field across all three services.”
Regulators should treat phone and video cancellations the same, Verizon said. North American Numbering Council guidelines on local numbering portability say a wireline customer’s new phone provider becomes the customer’s agent for cancelling the old service, the telco said. Also, a requirement dating back to the mid-1980s has forced incumbent LECs to cancel telephone service at the request of a CLEC acting as agent, the Bell said. No such processes exist for video, it said. “It is fundamentally unfair for cable incumbents to benefit from the streamlined processes applicable when they win a telephone customer but refuse to do the same with respect to video services.”
But telcos don’t make telecom service porting easy, either, said a video competitor source. “Companies do everything to keep customers.” Verizon’s cancellation policy for video is the same as cable’s with regard to agents, an industry source said. The proposed rule would apply to phone and cable companies alike, but Verizon still benefits because it processes more video ports to FiOS from cable than cable does from telcos, the source said. The filing doesn’t ask the FCC to apply the rule to satellite TV companies.
NCTA called the petition a “fairy tale complaint.” The filing “is a lame attempt to deflect criticism from its years-long illegal practice of misusing proprietary information to prevent consumers from switching to a new phone provider,” said NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz: “This is yet another example of Verizon looking for a regulatory handout to help them compete, rather than focusing on a customer-friendly approach to providing -- or switching -- service.”
Verizon is trying to complicate the issue “rather than stop its own anticompetitive behavior which thwarts consumer choice,” said a Comcast spokeswoman. “Verizon does not have to rely on Comcast or any video provider for a customer to make a change in video service providers. Conversely, Comcast and other competitive voice providers must depend on Verizon to release a customer’s telephone number so that Comcast can install its voice service.” If Verizon wants to promote consumer choice, it should support Comcast’s proposal to put a 24 hour shot clock on porting wireline phone numbers, she said.
AT&T supports the petition, a spokesman said. “We certainly support the FCC ensuring consumer choice and robust competition, and we look forward to participating in the FCC’s review.” Steve Pastorkovich, senior policy analyst for the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunication Companies (OPASTCO), said he was reviewing the filing and couldn’t comment on its specifics. But he agreed there’s “disparity” between cable and telephone regulation. There are “very few regulations” slowing cable companies’ entrance into the voice market, while there are “a lot of barriers” for telephone companies entering video, he said.
But another video competitor said an FCC ruling isn’t the way to solve the porting issue. Problems exist, the source said, noting a cable practice of continuing to charge for service until equipment is returned. But they don’t “rise to a level of regulatory relief,” the source said: “This is competition.”