The lone FCC dissenter was Chairman Kevin Martin, who said in a statement: "Customer-retention marketing is a form of aggressive competition that has the potential to benefit consumers through lower prices and expanded service offerings. Moreover, the cable companies engage in such practices to keep their video customers from switching to other providers."
It was a surprising win at what has been an unfriendly FCC for Comcast. Catherine Avgiris, the company's senior vice president and general manager of voice services, said in a statement: "The FCC has said to Verizon, 'no more games.' "
She said the FCC majority "deserves the gratitude of all consumers for standing up for fair play and against anticompetitive tactics."
Comcast's number of phone customers has grown tenfold since early 2006, making the Philadelphia company now the fourth-largest landline phone provider in the nation. It has 5.1 million dial-up customers and expects to advance to No. 3 this year.
Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks L.L.C. said in a complaint filed in February with the FCC that Verizon - which lost 3.7 million landline phone customers in the last 18 months - had improperly used the information on "porting" phone numbers for retention marketing.
When a cable company like Comcast sent a phone number to Verizon saying that the customer had switched to cable, Verizon would bombard the customer with special deals to retain them before the switch actually took place, according to the complaint.
Among the deals mailed overnight to Verizon customers were $10 monthly discounts on bills, and $50 or $100 American Express gift cards, according to regulatory filings.
