Court Rules U.S. Cable Law Is Constitutional. The FCC does have the right to limit the number of households a cable company may reach, and to force cable companies to share their capacity with others instead of filling it entirely with their own programming. The intention is to prevent consolidation in the cable industry similar to that bedevilling the rest of the public media. Get this — Time Warner Cable had contested the FCC’s authority on the grounds that it was an infringement of free speech rights!