Comcast has sued the state of Vermont to try to avoid a requirement to build 550 miles of new cable lines.

Comcast’s lawsuit against the Vermont Public Utility Commission (VPUC) was filed Monday in US District Court in Vermont and challenges several provisions in the cable company’s new 11-year permit to offer services in the state. One of the conditions in the permit says that “Comcast shall construct no less than 550 miles of line extensions into un-cabled areas during the [11-year] term.”

Comcast would rather not do that. The company’s court complaint says that Vermont is exceeding its authority under the federal Cable Act while also violating state law and Comcast’s constitutional rights:

The VPUC claimed that it could impose the blanket 550-mile line extension mandate on Comcast because it is the “largest” cable operator in Vermont and can afford it. These discriminatory conditions contravene federal and state law, amount to undue speaker-based burdens on Comcast’s protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution… and deprive Comcast and its subscribers of the benefits of Vermont law enjoyed by other cable operators and their subscribers without a just and rational basis, in violation of the Common Benefits Clause of the Vermont Constitution.

Rival providers Charter and Burlington Telecom don’t have to comply with these special requirements, Comcast said. Instead, the other companies “need only comply with the non-discriminatory line extension policies” established in a VPUC rule.

Comcast’s complaint also objected to several other requirements in the permit, including “unreasonable demands” for upgrades to local public, educational, and governmental (PEG) access channels and the building of “institutional networks (“I-Nets”) to local governmental and educational entities upon request and on non-market based terms.”

………

Comcast often refuses to extend its network to customers outside its existing service area unless the customers pay for Comcast’s construction costs, which can be tens of thousands of dollars.

Comcast is regularly at the top of the list on the most loathed company in America, but somehow or other, they continue to flourish.

There is some sort of profound market failure going on.