Altice Defends Full-Month Billing at 3rd Circuit
Altice invoked musician Bruce Springsteen in a court filing to defend its policy not to prorate cable charges when a customer cancels service. “Just as with, say, a ticket to a Springsteen concert, the price of the ticket entitles the…
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customer to see the entire concert, but fans do not get a prorated refund if they choose to leave at intermission,” the cable company said (in Pacer) Monday at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (docket 21-1791). The New Jersey of Board of Public Utilities is appealing a March 23 opinion by the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, which agreed with Altice that a state rule requiring the company to prorate bills is impermissible rate regulation preempted by the federal Cable Act (see 2104230051). Altice also argued not prorating “limits losses from scenarios where a customer subscribes to the service to watch a particular program, like the Friends reunion show, and then seeks to cancel the service after only a few days,” the operator said. New Jersey’s prorating rule requires Altice to charge a daily rate and not charge a higher amount to make up for the shorter subscription period, it said. “That is rate regulation."