Verizon lost one at the FCC. Cable competitors brought a complaint against Verizon regarding some customer win back tactics being used by the phone giant. The complaint alleged that upon receiving a telephone number porting request to a cable competitor, Verizon would contact the customer in question and try to “win them back.” Cable companies claim such tactics were not only unfair, but illegal. The FCC issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order against Verizon and in support of the cable companies complaint. It’s somewhat of a surprising development, considering the FCC’s own enforcement bureau came out with an opinion siding with Verizon. Apparently several FCC commissioners were not impressed with that opinion.
Verizon did fire back against the original complaint, and issued a complaint of their own regarding the process to switch video service providers. Verizon claims that the process for video switching requires the customer to initiate action with the existing provider, whereas a telephone switch does not. Both points seem to be valid. Whatever the process, it should be comparable and equal. Both telcos and cablecos should have an equal chance to “eat each others lunch.”
