As unregulated monopolies, cable companies seem able to raise rates with impunity and to insist that consumers buy or rent converter boxes.

The Cable Television Act of 1984 created an unregulated monopoly.

"The only way they can stay an unregulated monopoly is to provide the programming."

Such are the wages of the sin of taking an unregulated monopoly for granted.

Congress ended Federal regulation of cable television in 1984, leaving most cable systems as unregulated monopolies in the areas they serve.

Having a single unregulated for-profit monopoly both build and capitalize on a network is just expensive and inefficient.

But it is the only unregulated, legal monopoly we have in this country.

"The idea that we are some unregulated monopoly running amok is a misconception," Mr. Quinn said.

He earned the lasting enmity of the cable companies by attacking them as price-gouging, unregulated monopolies.

Cable is a largely unregulated monopoly.