Charter Fined $640,000 For Blocking Thirty Party Modems Charter has been forced to pay a fine of $640,000 for preventing its customers from using their own modems for two years, starting back in 2012. Back in 2012 we noted that Charter stopped supporting customer-owned modems -- but rolled the rental fee into the overall cost of service (which was actually welcome in the age of $10 additional fees). Customers with existing, owned modems were allowed to use them, but users signing up for new tiers were forced to rent a modem from Charter in order, the company claimed, to ensure every customer gets “the best online experience possible.”

By 2014 Charter backed off the requirement to rent, but the FCC wasn't thrilled about the fact that for two years, Charter wasn't letting customers attach the modem of their choice to the network. “The Bureau’s investigation found that for a period of approximately two years beginning in 2012, Charter informed subscribers that they would no longer be permitted to attach new customer-owned modems,” the FCC said in an order first spotted by Ars Technica. "Charter later provided a list of authorized customer-owned modems, but new modems were only added to the list after passing a number of tests, many of which did not relate to harm to the network or theft of servicem," said the FCC. Under FCC rules, ISPs can only block the attachment of third-party modems if the modem in question causes “electronic or physical harm” or is used for “the unauthorized receipt of service.” The FCC notes that while Charter relented in 2014 and allowed users to buy third-party modems, the company's selection was limited and the testing period for approval for third-party devices was onerous enough to annoy several manufacturers, including Zoom. As part of its settlement with the FCC, Charter will be shortening its modem testing period to just three weeks and participate in a three-year compliance plan to ensure the company's being open with modem attachment. There's currently As part of its settlement with the FCC, Charter will be shortening its modem testing period to just three weeks and participate in a three-year compliance plan to ensure the company's being open with modem attachment. There's currently 25 different modems listed as compatible on the Charter website. The settlement came shortly after Charter received FCC approval for its $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.







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Most recommended from 61 comments

tkdslr

join:2004-04-24

Pompano Beach, FL 2 edits 16 recommendations tkdslr Member Chump change @ 10$/mo.. That works out to be ~2,600 customers worth of modem rental fees for 2 years..



Make the fine a million rental fees for 2 yrs(~240M$) and only then would I consider it to be a fair outcome. Joe12345678

join:2003-07-22

Des Plaines, IL 10 recommendations Joe12345678 Member Go after ATT and Comcast next! Go after ATT and Comcast next!

buzz_4_20

join:2003-09-20

Biddeford, ME 6 recommendations buzz_4_20 Member Best Online Experience Possible The best online experience doesn't come from cable... it comes from fiber. Jim_in_VA (banned)

join:2004-07-11

Cobbs Creek, VA 5 recommendations Jim_in_VA (banned) Member I recovered my purchase fee for the 6141 I use a year ago. Exact same modem my ISP rents. juliska

join:2013-09-06

Woodstock, GA 4 recommendations juliska Member And? What good does it do? The ones wronged won't see any money or very little of it. Then the company can pass on the fine money to the customer via higher rates. clone (banned)

join:2000-12-11

Portage, IN 2 recommendations clone (banned) Member Unneccesary Paranoia Throwing out the window that the modem "testing" is done to discourage endusers from buying their own modems, there is no reason to still have this kind of "compatibility testing" in 2016.



It reminds of a network admin I worked with back in the late 90s, who wouldn't allow PCs on the (ethernet) network until he had personally tested and approved the network adapter in the machine. While I still admire his dedication to the performance of his network (he had pretty much built it from the ground up over decades), it was wasteful that every computer had to be ordered with a PCI 3Com network card when they had a perfectly good Intel onboard adapter that probably performed better given that it wasn't in an expansion slot. Eventually that policy was ended and the admins realized that an ethernet adapter was an ethernet adapter regardless of who's name was on it, and that was probably around 2004.



I just still wonder how large companies get away with "approving" devices for use on their networks when that's what we have standards for. DOCSIS, GSM/UMTS, LTE, ethernet, etc. Network devices are manufactured with standardized chipsets on both ends so we don't HAVE to go through the trouble of specifying compatible hardware and testing things to see if they work properly. If more people realized this and demanded that service providers allow them to use whatever hardware they like, we wouldn't have these issues.



But I suppose it's just a symptom of people not wanting to put any effort into anything and expecting everyone else to solve their problems for them, so we end up with lists of "approved" devices because if the cat kicks the line out of the wall or someone screws up their settings, they can never take personal responsibility and fix anything for themselves.

guppy_fish

Premium Member

join:2003-12-09

Palm Harbor, FL 2 recommendations guppy_fish Premium Member Fine goes to the Government .. So whats the point? Customers are over charged, but the fine is paid to the government? Yah that really helps us out