Cable Lobby Steams Up Over FCC Set-Top Box Competition Plan (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Cable TV industry lobby groups expressed their displeasure with a Federal Communications Commission plan to bring competition to the set-top box market, which could help consumers watch TV on different devices and thus avoid paying cable box rental fees.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules that would force pay-TV companies to give third parties access to TV content, letting hardware makers build better set-top boxes. Customers would be able to watch all the TV channels they're already paying cable companies for, but on a device that they don't have to rent from them. The rules could also bring TV to tablets and other devices without need for a rented set-top box. The system would essentially replace CableCard with a software-based equivalent.

Comments

Vampires

[ChrisMaple]

Maybe some manufacturer will make a box that doesn't draw 20 watts when it's turned off.

Re:Vampires

[SeaFox]

lol, that's you first mistake -- thinking there's an actual "off" mode.
On DVRs at least, there literally is not an Off state with the box plugged in. On some models the difference between On and Standby is only 1W because the the only difference is in on state the box is outputting a video signal and in the other it's not.

Re:Vampires

[davester666]

I wish the CRTC here in Canada started getting some balls like the FCC has recently started showing.

Re:Vampires

[Darinbob]

Nonsense. They'd have to hire engineers to do that since they laid off the last one two decades ago.

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, that's you first mistake -- thinking there's an actual "off" mode.
On DVRs at least, there literally is not an Off state with the box plugged in. On some models the difference between On and Standby is only 1W because the the only difference is in on state the box is outputting a video signal and in the other it's not.

Simple math:
1 watt times ten kerjillion: lots.
20 watts times ten kerjillion: lots *(20)

Is a "dumb" low power state a good idea? Is this the choice we make between "stateful" and "stateless" designs?

Talk about Devil's Advocate...

Re:Vampires

[dk20]

The CRTC does, they are just against the consumer... the same way the incumbents are anti-consumer.

Maybe in 2020 they can get it so Rogers finally stops calling me every other week even though i have asked them to stop....

Re:Vampires

[ArmoredDragon]

With as much as I hate centurylink, their PrismTV is actually pretty decent in this regard. It comes free with fiber internet at my apartment, so I don't watch it very much, but it's entirely IP based (I have it running through my own Asus router running Tomato firmware) the channel changing is virtually instant (no 2-3 second wait time of cable) and when it's off it barely consumes any power at all. The HDD in the main unit only spins up occasionally when it's recording something.

The downside is that live TV isn't buffered, but since I pretty much never watch live TV (or TV in general for that matter) I don't particularly care.

Re:Vampires

[See Attached]

I checked my Power draw when the Pretty blue LED is on ( 40W ) vs off, and when off ( still 40 W ). Multiply that by 4 boxes and we have some substantial drain. WHY oh WHY would a cable company need to have the service staying up while I am not watching? Clearly, this is to suit their purpose. When I turn it OFF, it should go OFF. Always wondered if the CC was using my boxes as Wireless access points, without my knowledge. They do clain to have a MILLION access points... VERY glad to hear of competition in the Cable TV industry.

Re:Vampires

[jonwil]

If its a DVR it needs to be on at all times so it can actually record the things you told it to record.

Also it needs to be powered up so it can update when the cable company has something to push to it (e.g. new encryption stuff)

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

Not DVR... just the plain Samsung Set Top Toaster. When CC pushes updates. the box turns off, and waits for user to hit the on button. Curious.
No reason to be sucking 200W out of my house 24x7.... I will pay for spinning the Tivo... its DVR (to your point).

Re:Vampires

[Obfuscant]

WHY oh WHY would a cable company need to have the service staying up while I am not watching?

Also to keep the program guide updated.

Always wondered if the CC was using my boxes as Wireless access points, without my knowledge.

Very simple to check for yourself. Do any of your portable WiFi devices show a very strong signal on an unknown SSID when held near your cable box? But the set top box isn't the access point, it will be a cable modem supplied by the cable company.

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

Not 100% true, but it varies.

The IPTV systems are basically computers with a firmware "drive" and a "recording drive", and will spin up the drive in preparation to record a broadcast. Since it's data either way, it just saves the bitstream to the mechanical hard drive and then when the recording ends if there are no other programs it spins it back down. If I physically unplug it, wait a moment and plug it back in, it will have lost the program guide, but not the recording schedule. This is because it is constantly sent the program guide every few minutes over multicast. The only thing preventing watching all channels at once is bandwidth. VOD initiates a direct connection instead of a multicast one, but otherwise costs the same in bandwidth.

These IPTV set top boxes are the easiest to convert to third party boxes as all they need to do is implement multicast and the headend just has a whitelist for device mac addresses.

Cable providers on the other hand have an extra piece of overhead involved. The cable channels can be tuned selectively depending on how many tuners are in t he box, DVR boxes have two or three tuners, which is why they are much more expensive and consume much more power than IPTV boxes. When you select VOD, it actually activates the cable boxes DOCSIS 2.0 modem and performs the same operation that an IPTV box does.The VOD on cable tends to be crippled much more severely than stand-alone IPTV boxes. Where you might get a 12Mbit HD stream for a cable channel, the VOD tends to be 8Mbit.

So a third party would never be able to produce a box that is cheaper than the Cable Co.'s box, owing to the extra tuner bits. Cable card was a great idea in principle, but didn't really pick up steam owing to how fast the technology shifted. Can you even get a SmartTV with both a DVR feature and a CableCard slot? No, I didn't think so. Samsung only started making these in 2013, and I have yet to hear of anyone owning one and actually using the Cablecard feature.

Cablecard doesn't exist in Canada, or really anywhere else but the US. When we get US-market devices, if it has such a slot, it's usually bolted down and unusable anyway.

Re:Vampires

[whoever57]

When I turn it OFF, it should go OFF. Always wondered if the CC was using my boxes as Wireless access points, without my knowledge.

Comcast keep writing to me, telling me that I need to get a new cable modem. I don't. It's just that they want to use my cable modem as an access point. Perhaps if I paid for greater speeds, I might need a new modem, but if that day arises, I will buy my own.

Re:Vampires

[hawguy]

If its a DVR it needs to be on at all times so it can actually record the things you told it to record.

Also it needs to be powered up so it can update when the cable company has something to push to it (e.g. new encryption stuff)

The DVR I owned a decade ago didn't need to stay powered on 24x7, it just used a timer to turn itself on whenever it needed to record.

Likewise, it can schedule itself to check in twice a day to get "encryption stuff" or whatever else it needs. Or it could use a modern low power CPU to do housekeeping like that that doesn't need the entire device to be turned on.

40W a day 24x7 is over 300KWh/year of wasted power - that's more electricity than my household uses in a month. The simple fact is that the cable companies just don't care, it's not their money.

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

It shouldn't need to be fully powered on all the time, only when it's recording or downloading updates. It would be fairly easy to design a device that uses 1W or less in standby mode (no HD spinning, CPU powered down, etc.) and either comes alive when the real-time clock says to, or periodically wakes up enough to do some networking. That would be if the STB designers cared about your electricity bill, which they don't.

Re:Vampires

[hawguy]

WHY oh WHY would a cable company need to have the service staying up while I am not watching?

Also to keep the program guide updated.

With over a gigabit/sec of downstream bandwidth available, they *could* just update the program guide every time you turn on the cable box by allocating a little more bandwidth to the program guide, no need to capture it continuously -- they could send out the next 2 hours worth of programming every few seconds to allow you to see what's on right now as soon as you turn on the cablebox, then send out the full program guide less frequently.

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

No. they're telling you because you're using an older docsis 2.0 modem.
and they're on docsis 3.0 now.

AND. you don't need to get shit from them or give them an access point to sell.

Go buy your own.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16825387002

70 bucks. pays for itself in the first year vs. renting from comcast. 5 mins on the phone to activate. ezpeezy done.
and faster speeds even at their lowest tier.

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

No such thing as off unless you unplug it. A set top cable box or satellite box will remain communicating to receive updates and other needed programming.
Its the same as your cable modem that also requires a constant link. People who whine over 20watts which is highly doubtful in the first place need to get a life.

Re:Vampires

[Z00L00K]

That's why you can have a power strip with a master and several slave outlets. Render everything powerless except the master unit. That would keep down the power consumption.

Re:Vampires

[quetwo]

One thing you missed with all this is the encryption/decryption mechanism that both STBs provide. The content providers require, by contract, that the signal be encrypted end-to-end. STBs are pre-loaded with a decryption method (ones from Motorola claim that their encryption mechanism has never been broken). The CableCARD units were essentially just decryption units.

Almost every TV sold in the US has the ability to watch digital television (even over cable systems), as long as it is not encrypted. Systems that don't encrypt don't require a STB (this is how I've deployed my CATV system).

Digital Cable (QAM) is essentially Multicast video. It is either MPEG2-TS or MPEG4-TS, multi-program streams, just like IPTV. The only thing that makes it different is that it gets packed into 38MB/s streams for each "channel" (OTA digital TV does the same thing -- packs MPEG-2 streams into 19MB/s streams).

There are lots of companies that have been producing cheaper STBs for years -- but again, they won't always be compatible with the Cable Co's chosen encryption method. Blonder Tounge makes an HD/DVR tuner for about $140, without encryption. K-World makes a HD Tuner for about $80. New Motorola STBs start at about $180 for a HD unit, and $360 for a HD/DVR unit). These prices are without volume.

The big reason why CableCARDS failed was that the cable companies made them so hard to use. Even in their 'hayday', Comcast and TimeWarner didn't list them on their website, and if you called in for one, you had to know how to navigate their systems better than they did. Comcast, in most regions, blocked the EPG data from any non-motorola receiver (they did this by using some non-RFC additions to the EPG data to make it so it would be thrown out by compatible systems). When the TV manufactures realized that they weren't getting anywhere with the Cable CO's on the CableCARD front, they stopped putting the slots into their sets to save money.

Re:Vampires

[LifesABeach]

I think this lobby is late to the party, I see my kids using their phones to watch TV shows.

Re:Vampires

[pnutjam]

When the DVR is "off" it still needs to monitory and record. It's not doing much less off vs on. The uverse one doesn't seem to pull iptv streams when it's off, unless configured to record, but I'll bet the CATV ones still pull whatever channel they were one when you turned them "off".

Re:Vampires

[pnutjam]

It's interesting that you claim the IPTV ones will be easier. They currently don't handle cable card, so your locked to the providers box entirely. I found it interesting that AT&T doesn't even allow you to stream to an xbox or anything.

Re:Vampires

[Anonymous Coward]

Several reasons..

- They chose not to implement low-power standby.... To support this either a separate HW or special support in the SoC (cpu) is needed, and they both require software to control it and both of those cost money.
- They might have had a hw-issue in the manufacturing causing the low-power standby to malfunction.
- The encryption used requires is to receive updates of new keys, and if it does not have them it will add to the startup of the box.
    The longer the box has been shut down the longer it will take until it has received all required keys (from a few seconds to many minutes or even hours or maybe you will have to call the operator to send out manual update.)
- Users complain about 1-5 minutes boot-time after pressing the power-button on the remote so they just use active-standby (shutting off the output and turning off the tuner)
- They are using some type of call-home feature for something. Things like network-info/errors, user-behavior/bug-reports, updating software when box is off.

And some boxes do have the option (hidden in some settings-menu) to do a real power-off, or possibly a basic low-power standby, when hitting that power button.

Most of the above could be handled via using a box with real low-power standby (suspend to ram), but that's usually not available on the cheapest boxes.. So think the above next time you have the option to select between that "free" or that $99 settop-box.

Re:Vampires

[mattack2]

You may think CableCards "failed" (past tense), but they're working as well as they have in anything in Tivos. (I'm not claiming the error messages that Cable Cards put out aren't somewhat obtuse.. but that's generally fixed ONCE by calling your cable company and getting the cable card authorized for that device.)

Every time I've used a cable DVR, they're horrible. There are PLENTY of things I personally wish Tivos would do that they don't, but they're still orders and orders of magnitude better than anything else. (Before >2 tuner Tivos came out many years ago, I briefly thought of using some Windows Media Center box with cablecard tuners... but nowadays WMC is obsoleted .)

Re:Vampires

[MoarSauce123]

But with the boxes taking 10 minutes to boot up that power strip will stay on because waiting gets old really fast.

Re:Vampires

[MoarSauce123]

DVR is one reason, also downloads for the program listings and other services. That could still be done better. Have a timer in the box that turns it on at 3 in the morning, downloads that stuff, then turns itself off again. Same for DVR usage. Then again, most of the HD boxes cost around 60$. Something gotta give.

Translation

[penguinoid]

Cable TV industry lobby groups expressed their displeasure with a Federal Communications Commission plan to bring competition to the set-top box market, which could help consumers watch TV on different devices and thus avoid paying cable box rental fees.

Cable TV industry lobby groups expressed some of the highest praise they can give for a Federal Communications Commission plan to bring competition to the set-top box market

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that Cable TV lobby will probably win, since the Cable TV companies are the highest spenders on lobbying. Comcast spent more on lobbying then the largest defence contractor.

They tried it before with Cablecards

[elrous0]

But the cablecos just made the Cablecards a pita to install (some requiring a technician to come out to your house to install a simple card), and making the slot so hard to implement that only a few companies like Tivo even tried to support them, then adding in shit like SJV to make them useless for certain channels, then charging RENTAL FEES for the cards. The rental fee was the ballsiest move of them all. And they got away with it too, of course, because lobbyists and campaign brib....contributions.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got the new TiVo (it's glorious by the way) and the cable card fee is $2.50 / month. Worth every penny.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[elrous0]

Typo, meant SDV not SJV.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[michael_cain]

This year for the holidays I bought myself an HDHomeRun Prime by SiliconDust. Comcast gave me an M-card with no questions, and the tech support number in the documents (a call center that does only Cablecard activations) handled the activation fine. It would have been somewhat easier if there were a decent online description of exactly what numbers the call center needed. Three independent tuners, DLNA compliant, and delivers the HD streams over our household LAN (some wired, some wireless). Works fine to my Mac and my Android phone. There are issues with my old Android tablet, but those involve the limited hardware there, not the delivery.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[fustakrakich]

And they got away with it too, of course, because lobbyists and campaign brib....contributions.

Yeah, and despite all that, they still get reelected. How strange... It's like people can't be bothered to seek out a replacement when they bump into this.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[Anonymous Coward]

$1.50 per month plus a $2.50 customer-owned equipment credit for a benefit of $1 per month for me.

Then came the price change. Now I think it's $9.95/month in my area for a single, and $11.45 for a pair ($5.725 each), assuming what I am told is correct. No credit though.

Remember the good old days when one cable company I think ran commercials about how we didn't need a box between our TV and the wall, unlike satellite? Something like that, unless... false memory.

How about capping rate increases to no more than 7% per year. Cablecard prices should really be capped too with the first two cards free perhaps.

Been a TiVo customer for less than a year. I think during July, $400 for a refurbished Roamio ($50 + $350 lifetime). In August, $300 ($50 + $250 lifetime). Got a $100 credit back for price-matching for the one in July. So, those two netted me $600. Actually, $550, because I think I asked and received a $50 discount on the second one. Then $600 for the new Pro Nov 30th. Assuming I didn't mess up the numbers here. Net total: $1150 + tax I think.

Thank you unnamed cable company for jacking up your DVR rental price, otherwise I wouldn't have been pushed to get a TiVo to replace some of the boxes.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[Guspaz]

While it sucks that they didn't support SDV in some cable cards (I'm assuming, CableCard is an American thing that we never had in Canada), SDV is really quite valuable from a technical standpoint. Cable systems tend to be really crunched for spectrum, and SDV lets them free up huge swaths of spectrum for DOCSIS (cable modem) use.

Eventually, it seems like the trend is moving to IPTV over DOCSIS 3.1, which should solve the capacity issues by letting them use the entire spectrum for data, ultimately getting them reasonably close to GPON throughput.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[vtcodger]

"But the cablecos just made the Cablecards a pita to install..."

Exactly. And your cable company may simply pretend not to know what you're talking about when you try to order a cable card. And the satellite companies don't do cable cards although I've been told they are supposed to.

If CableCompanies etc drag their heels with the cards, what are the chances that their software interface is going to be reliable and comprehensible? Is it going to work with more than one OS.? Is it going to be in a constant state of flux? I'm sure the FCC means well, but this scheme better be so simple that even Comcast can't screw it up and there have to be legally binding, non-waivable financial penalties for non-compliance. And even then, my bet is that it probably won't work right or well.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[Anonymous Coward]

Cablecard prices should really be capped too with the first two cards free perhaps.

TV's support netflix fairly often. I'm not sure about 4k, but if not now then soon. So we have the hardware to handle the decoding, save perhaps some updates to receive the bits. The only thing missing is a security design, and then perhaps a replaceable security card. Add economies of scale and such, and likely the cost difference for that tv would be minimal.

The only logical reason I can see needing a separate card, is just because they can to make more money, and, or reduce their tech support costs. For that matter, why ever would we need a dedicated DVR? Include a removable spot to pop in a 2.5" sata drive.

Satellite based systems could also be made simpler. Perhaps a small box to select which Dish and block downconvert the signals into a frequency range the tv can decode? Sure it wouldn't necessarily be easy, but solve the problem and mass produce it. Update the standards every couple years to try to plug holes and such, and introduce new features. Sure the open system increases the odds of hacks, but I'd bet you could put enough key tech in the security card to handle most of it.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[See Attached]

Bought a Tivo Premiere in 2010 with lifetime, and its the best investment.Top shelf DVR.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[Anonymous Coward]

So now that you see how great the Tivo interface is, do you get irritated by the streaming apps on the Tivo? They just pale in comparison. I think Tivo should change their model so they record streaming shows onto the box and allow you to use the Tivo interface to watch rather than the crappy Netflix, Hulu and other apps that barely function well.

In fact, I would love for Tivo to just be a reseller/front end for Netflix, Hulu and eventually CBS streaming Star Trek. They can cut deals with those guys and I'll gladly pay just Tivo so I only have a single entity to pay.

That's how we can eventually get ala carte programming.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[whoever57]

But the cablecos just made the Cablecards a pita to install (some requiring a technician to come out to your house to install a simple card)

When I got a cablecard, it took a technician to get it working. But really, the reason is either deliberate or accidental stupidity within Comcast. I had got the cable card set up so that some channels were working, but not others. The technician didn't do anything special. He get here, replaced some working cables and then got on the phone to someone who set up the cable card remotely. Why did it take a technician here to get those other channels working when all he really did was phone someone back at Comcast?

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[whoever57]

Bought a Tivo Premiere in 2010 with lifetime, and its the best investment.

And locked yourself into cable service. I bought a Tivo that can also receive OTA broadcasts.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[meerling]

My Sony Blueray player does Netflix. It sucks though as it stutters and stops like crazy. None of my other devices on that router have any problems, only the Sony. I guess they have a buggy Netflix build, or just a crappy processor in that box. Kind of funny as my phone doesn't have much of a processor and it does just fine, and that's over the slower wireless as well.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[See Attached]

Premiere gets both cable and ota simultaneously. FTW. Newer ones get either, but not both, as I recall.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[Z00L00K]

That's the reason why I don't subscribe to any cable, satellite or OTA at all. There are a few free channels to watch whenever I'm in the mood - about once every 5 months.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[silas_moeckel]

Wait until your cable co flags everything as copy once. Cables cards issue is it gave them more rights than the VCR ruling of the 80's. If I paid to watch it once I should be able to record it and watch it as much as I want on whatever gear I want.

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[Anonymous Coward]

PITA?

I pay $2 for a CableCard for my tivo, No tech to dispatch, I call a dedicated cable card support number, provide them with the mac, all set to go. Easy as Pie.

I thought it was going to be hell when I upgraded my Tivo, same process, took all of 5 min, including hold times... Which I can Bypass via Twitter/facebook/chat support.

Mediacom is the provider...

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[pnutjam]

Yeah, that worked out well for phone, internet, tv bundles. Single entity mean high price.

Re: They tried it before with Cablecards

[MoarSauce123]

Satellite should operate like it is in Europe. The broadcaster pays all access fees, the consumer buys the equipment, done! The Eutelsat and Astra satellites are positioned close enough together that a "googly-eyed" dish with to LNBs grabs both without issue. If you still want local OTA add a simple antenna. They sell dishes and receiver bundles for 100€, the quality is dismal of the cheap stuff, but on par with the garbage that Dish or DirecTV staple into your front yard. I used to install satellite systems when I lived in Germany and they all still work fine....20 years later. I used only top of the line Kathrein or if not available Fuba. Add a decent switch and splitter and access to thousands of digital TV and radio channels is at your fingertips. I only used the Grundig receivers, but that company went belly up (rather sad). Still proud on my work from back then, but I spent enough time on roof tops. I'm done!

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[MoarSauce123]

Good for you. How is that relevant to anyone else?

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards

[Z00L00K]

Well, just relevant enough to make some consider to cut the cable.

Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[timrod]

It's funny how most cable companies allow their subscribers to purchase their own cable modems and routers, but now those same companies balk at the idea of their subscribers buying their own set-top box.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[sims 2]

I can buy a modem from At&t and when that one burns out I will have to buy or rent another one just like it because while att has no rule that I can't use another companies modem they use a proprietary authentication method for their adsl2+

So I am stuck with a single choice for a modem the NVG510. No other options are available that I am aware of other than switching isp's

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Because torrents are too complicated, basically.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[taustin]

As soon as anybody can start making set top boxes, somebody will make one that can easily be hacked to ignore all the various restrictions on recording, if not just market one that does that. And skipping commercials. And when that happens, the various networks are going to raise their fees to the cable companies.

Traditional television is dying, because nobody gives a shit any more. And frankly. good riddance.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[rsborg]

I can buy a modem from At&t and when that one burns out I will have to buy or rent another one just like it because while att has no rule that I can't use another companies modem they use a proprietary authentication method for their adsl2+

So I am stuck with a single choice for a modem the NVG510. No other options are available that I am aware of other than switching isp's

This is amazingly AT&T. What do they think, it's 1981 and they're Ma Bell again (proprietary landline phones)?

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[omnichad]

There is hope for the NVG510. There is a way to enable telnet and bridge mode, and disable updates to the firmware that blocks that hack (you have to download firmware manually first). Yes, they patched the security vulnerability that lets you get it working, but they didn't make it work correctly at the same time.

AT&T has been no help with it. I don't have their service, but I have done work for people who do.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[sims 2]

I had one working right thanks to earlz a year ago but after that one burned out the new one has the new firmware and I've been unable to find a copy of the old firmware online anywhere. If you happen to run across it please post a link.

Yep AT&T fixed the security vulnerability but couldn't be arsed to set the no cache flag on the redirect page.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Rakarra]

This is amazingly AT&T. What do they think, it's 1981 and they're Ma Bell again (proprietary landline phones)?

Look at the history of AT&T in the last 30 years. The breakup was a temporary set-back, and they realized quickly all they had to do was lay low for a few years for the anti-trust fervor to disappear (and for the people in office behind the break-up to leave). Pretty quickly they tried getting it all back. They're not as dominant as they were back in the phone heydays, but they have as much of a stranglehold over the landline market as they ever had.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[JoeRandomHacker]

Modems are about communication; settops are about control. The primary purpose of the cable box is to control whether you can access the content and what you can do with it. Without that control the network providers would have to pay the content providers more because there is a higher risk of their content leaking out onto the Internet where anyone can get it for free. The network providers aren't happy with leakage, either, because potential customers who can get it for free won't pay their subscription fees. Even ad-funded content is an issue, because the ads injected by the provider are targeted, and the eyeballs of viewers outside of the targeted area are less valuable.

CableCard, as a hardware solution, had a chance of working because the provider could control the card. The fact that it had issues is part technical challenge and part political challenge. It isn't that fun to have a government mandate to forge your own chains, not to mention being forced to work with your competition to make sure their chains will fit your limbs and vice versa. The idea of a software CableCard has been around for a while, but to maintain control you have to be able to trust the software an some random hardware, or have rigid controls on which hardware is certified to run the software, and have the software validate the hardware before allowing access. It isn't easy, it doesn't really make anyone happy, it takes forever, and the market tends to move on before the issues are solved.

The trend is already towards Over The Top (Internet) video, anyway, so I really don't see the point.

FTR, I used to work for Motorola (now ARRIS) as a developer in the Access Control group.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Darinbob]

Sort of the thing with their U-Verse which uses VSDL. However after checking just now, it appears that the AT&T supplied router (TwoWire crap) is required if you use U-Verse television. If you only use U-Verse for internet or internet+VoIP you can use a third party VSDL modem. But AT&T isn't going to provide you any help in getting it to work... I don't know if the third party modem would actually help with performance though, it's only useful I think if you need better routing/wifi capabilities (the TwoWire doesn't support 5GHz, 802.11N, etc).

Despite being a crappy modem it was good enough when all I used was one ethernet a basic wifi for my mobile phone where even 802.11b was good enough. But when I wanted a TV+Roku and didn't want to rewrire the condo I wanted better. So I got a third party router to sit behind the modem, and the modem was put into pass-through/DMZ mode and that worked well (worked even better once I put TomatoUSB firmware on it). So that's an alternative, keep the modem as just a WAN connection then add a third party router for your LAN/WIFI; it's annoying to have two powered devices where only one should be able to suffice though.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[mrchaotica]

The idea of a software CableCard has been around for a while, but to maintain control you have to be able to trust the software an some random hardware, or have rigid controls on which hardware is certified to run the software, and have the software validate the hardware before allowing access. It isn't easy, it doesn't really make anyone happy, it takes forever, and the market tends to move on before the issues are solved.

This.

I'd like to believe the FCC is trying to make things better for cable TV subscribers, but what I actually believe is that the FCC is trying to destroy the freedom of computer users by encouraging the entrenchment of DRM.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Traditional television is dying, because nobody gives a shit any more.

Traditional TV is dying because it SUCKS and offers very little ( if any ) value
for the time wasted ( never mind the money, you can always make more of that,
but once time is gone it is GONE ).

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[amRadioHed]

Interesting, thanks for the tip. The AT&T modern is so crap, I've been fantasizing lately about replacing it with something.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[antdude]

I am still waiting for cable companies to allow subscribers to buy modems that can do both phone and Internet. None of that stupid splitter to our own modem.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. AT&T has an 802.1X authentication scheme based on client-side certificates that they won't give you. Thus, you can't use your own router.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Megane]

Their newer modems are a lot better than the old stuff. NVG598 and Pace 5268AC are good modems and the latter does 802.11ac. I've heard that the NVG510 really is crap, and if you are still running anything by TwoWire with UVerse, I can't even feel your pain. See if you can get them to replace yours a new one.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[omnichad]

One of the commenters on the earlz site posted a link to a DSLReports forum post with firmware version 9.0.6h2d30:
http://www.dslreports.com/foru...

It's a little over halfway down the page. You do have to create a DSLReports account if you don't have one in order to download. Just be sure to disable checks for updates or your fix will break as soon as AT&T sees the outdated firmware and updates it.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Of of my electrical engineering professors worked at Scientific Atlanta and designed the first dvr set top box. It had the ability to burn finished DVDs of anything it recorded, and had no copyright restrictions...Sadly this was classified as a "testing" machine and never released.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[sims 2]

While you can actually extract the certificates I am unaware of anyone getting them working on non at&t equipment.

A few years ago the certs expired on some att motorola 2210s and thus wouldn't connect to att's network to update so someone copied the certs off of a working nvg510.

http://thinkdiff.org/blg/?p=41

Since then a firmware update has been found that will fix them with much less effort.

http://thinkdiff.org/blg/?p=47

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[sims 2]

I recommend you read about the flavors of uverse; http://adslm.dohrenburg.net/uv...

While it's not mentioned in the article ADSL2+ uverse plans upload speed max out at 1mbps unlike the other flavors that have 1.5mbps for the same price.

As for modem compatibility I can't get vdsl so no idea.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[sims 2]

Thank you very very much! You've made my month!

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[omnichad]

It was worth my effort to find it again. I've needed it several times and I don't want to lose track of it forever.

Re:Funny how they don't care about modems, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actually a couple of ways this can be done securely, and that is relying on something that the SoC (CPU) manufacturers embed in in the chip... They are already doing this but the embedded parts are different between chips for Conax/Viaccess/NDS etc.... Problem is that each CA (Conditional access) provider does not want other CA's to be able to swap them out so they will fight to the bitter end before allowing something like a generic HW based CA.

It would be fairly easy...
SoC vendor:
1. Implement hardware driven display output. ( no access to framebuffer from SW in STB )
2. Implement hardware based decoding with keys encrypted with the SoC public certificate.
3. During production, program each SoC with unique public/private certificates.

Customer/Operator:
1. Customer calls in to the operator stating the serial displayed on screen.
2. Operator fetches public certificate from SoC vendor.
3. Operator can now distribute any wanted content to the STB in a secure way.

One problem for the customer is that if a specific model of a SoC would be exploited it's up to the end customer to get a replacement STB, and it's up to the operator/content producers to define at what level they consider it to be unacceptable.

Did not touch on things like output protection of HDMI since HDCP 1.x is broken and HDCP 2.2 has a long way to go before all TV's have it..

The presidential election

[rsilvergun]

will probably sink this. I can't imagine any of the Republican Candidates letting this slide. Hilary might (e.g. she might get lobbied harder by the folks that want to sell set top boxes). Bernie would tell the cable industry to go *bleep* themselves but he's got a snowball's chance in hell of getting the nomination.

Basically, don't bother getting too excited. This'll all be swept away when Obama leaves :(... Thanks Obama.

Re:The presidential election

[whoever57]

Bernie would tell the cable industry to go *bleep* themselves but he's got a snowball's chance in hell of getting the nomination.

* According to mainstream media, who have been studiously ignoring him to help their chosen candidate (Clinton). In fact, he has a very real chance of winning the nomination.

Re:The presidential election

[Anonymous Coward]

If hillary gets the nomination. Trump wins.

If bernie gets the nomination. We all win.

Re:The presidential election

[MoarSauce123]

As if the president has a say in this matter. The FCC figure heads might be appointed, but in the end all power rests with Congress. The problem we face is that since the Reps with their tea baggers won the majority absolutely nothing got accomplished because they have no plan and only one answer: "No!". Not saying that the dem dominated Congress did any more work. I'm all for cutting the number of House seats in half. I am sure 220 chair warmers can be as dysfunctional, but it will cost us less.

Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[kvn]

It's nice that the FCC is trying to bring about change, but device rental fees are a MASSIVE revenue stream for cable companies. IF they allow this, expect cable rates to go up $10/month. Or more.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[Mr D from 63]

It's nice that the FCC is trying to bring about change, but device rental fees are a MASSIVE revenue stream for cable companies. IF they allow this, expect cable rates to go up $10/month. Or more.

And if they want to raise rates on that portion of their service, fine. We can decide if we want it based on its own inherent value. That's different than advertising a certain rate, but then you can't get service unless you pay a box ransom fee.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[SeaFox]

It's nice that the FCC is trying to bring about change, but device rental fees are a MASSIVE revenue stream for cable companies. IF they allow this, expect cable rates to go up $10/month. Or more.

On the flip side, it will be very easy for providers to blame service issues on the third-party equipment. A field tech can go out, check service signal levels, confirm the authentication on the box is working fine, and if no issues found charge the customer a nice $50-$100 service call charge for a "customer equipment issue".

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[Darinbob]

I don't think the rentals are a massive revenue stream. But the cable companies are set in their ways. Their own set top boxes are only provided because of customer demand and I suspect they'd rather not be in that business at all. They typically seem to have gone the route of getting the cheapest junk they can have rather than pay any patent fees to TiVo, although a few have partnered with TiVo as an alternative (ie, AT&T with DirecTV).

The biggest concerns of the cable companies and such are with authentication. They're extremely concerned that someone somewhere might watch a program that they shouldn't, or be able to record HD quality video without DRM. More accurately though, what they're really scared of is Hollywood smashing their nuts with two bricks so they've taken on the enforcement role on behalf of content providers. It's probably the most important reason that they're wary of third party set top boxes.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice that the FCC is trying to bring about change, but device rental fees are a MASSIVE revenue stream for cable companies. IF they allow this, expect cable rates to go up $10/month. Or more.

And if they want to raise rates on that portion of their service, fine. We can decide if we want it based on its own inherent value. That's different than advertising a certain rate, but then you can't get service unless you pay a box ransom fee.

No, it's not different. People are idiots who will go for whatever is advertised as cheaper, regardless of the actual value in the end.
Consumers will pay $20 a month for internet advertised as "50meg" which only ever gets up to 10meg, before they will pay $25 for internet advertised as "30meg" which actually delivers 30meg.
Consumers will sign up for cable TV which is advertised as "$50 a month", even when the fine print costs them $25 in rental fees, before they will pay $55 a month from the other guys who have no box fees.

If you're that pissed about the cable box fees, there's good news. All the big cable companies are getting ready to launch full streaming video over IP support, most of them already have it in limited areas. The eventual goal is to replace cable entirely, just like analog got replaced by digital, the TV is going to move to all IP streaming and you won't need a box any more. You'll be able to use a roku or a slingbox or tivo or whatever you want.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[mrchaotica]

Their own set top boxes are only provided because of customer demand and I suspect they'd rather not be in that business at all.

Totally false. I can easily prove that cable companies love their shitty cable-boxes. How? Just go and ask them to let you use your TV's built-in ClearQAM tuner instead and see what they say!

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[Darinbob]

They do want their own converter box to receive shows though, they are required to authenticate, provide DRM, and whatever else the content providers insist on. However they may not necessarily care about additional set top box features like DVR service.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[Obfuscant]

Just go and ask them to let you use your TV's built-in ClearQAM tuner instead and see what they say!

Comcast will say "fine, connect all the digital-ready TVs you want to your cable connection." You'll be paying for access to programming you can't decrypt, and they'll have no maintenance issues with you because you are CPE and they don't have to fix any of that. You are almost pure profit for them!

Of course, when you call and ask where the "on demand" TV services are, they'll tell you that you don't get those because you need a settop box for that. Less demand on the servers, so you're still a profit for them.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[Austerity Empowers]

. IF they allow this, expect cable rates to go up $10/month

Because we need more of an excuse to cut the cord.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[MoarSauce123]

The rates go up by that amount and even more with the current configuration.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[MoarSauce123]

A box costs about 60$. Do the math. It is an incredible revenue stream for a service that essentially costs nothing to deliver after an upfront cost. The real kicker are all the bogus fees like local sports network fee....which is for that SD sports channel that once a month shows a high school basketball game.

Re:Give up a massive revenue stream? NEVER!

[MoarSauce123]

I use my ClearQAM tuner in my TV and it works fine, but gets only the bottom quarter of channels.

Um any wonder if ...

[arbiter1]

Satellite tv will be next in the cross hairs for this as they do same thing but they are kinda worse.

Re:Um any wonder if ...

[Darinbob]

DirecTV offers TiVo, so they have some of the best set top boxes out there compared to generic cable companies. The satellite tv providers are even more scared of Hollywood than the bigger/richer cable companies, and Hollywood is who doesn't want to see a proliferation of unrestricted set top boxes.

Open it up!

[DaMattster]

There is no good reason for all of this proprietary technology.

Re:Open it up!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what this is doing: make it non-proprietary. Which is why the cablecos are not happy...

Of course they're steamed.

[rahvin112]

Do you have any idea how long it took and how much effort they expended to make sure that the Cable Card standard was never actually usable? And this new standard basically says they have to pass the data to an outside provider without being able to force the electronics retailer to have to go to cable labs which helped to make sure the process is painful and you can't win without giving in?

My god, people might not have to spend $20 a month on a DVR they don't own!

Re:Of course they're steamed.

[Darinbob]

To be fair here, I think ominous people behind the scenes to be concerned about are the Hollywood content providers. Content providers are the ones who insist that the cable companies enforce their rules and who have the power to bankrupt some of these supplier companies if they wanted to.

Key things that Hollywood wants are no HD recording without DRM, ever. They'd prefer no low def recordings either but so far they've not figured out how to ban analog DVRs. They especially do not want any pixel perfect recordings of movies. They greatly prefer to restrict any time shifting of content if they can. DRM everywhere, encryption all the way to the TV.

Re:Of course they're steamed.

[mrchaotica]

To be fair here, I think ominous people behind the scenes to be concerned about are the Hollywood content providers. Content providers are the ones who insist that the cable companies enforce their rules and who have the power to bankrupt some of these supplier companies if they wanted to.

They're the SAME GODDAMN PEOPLE! Comcast owns NBC, remember?

Re:Of course they're steamed.

[Darinbob]

But comcast is not the only cable provider, and it does not own all content. Cable companies often end up in feuds with providers, threatening to drop entire channels if the cost is too high, and sometimes actually going through with it. Comcast may own NBC but they will not be happy at all if ABC, ESPN, Turner, and whatnot decide to discontinue working with them.

Re:Of course they're steamed.

[DewDude]

Except that Comcast is so large content providers can't not afford to come to agreements. If your channel gets taken off of 50% of homes in the US; it will be a disaster for the network. That means the advertising value just plummeted.

One of the biggest fears from content providers over all these mergers is it would allow one or two companies to dominate and would remove any bargining power they have. Comcast doesn't want to pay for it? You're going to have to lower your fee because without Comcast, you will effectively be out of business.

Advertisers will not cough up money if your channel loses that many subscribers.

TRUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only true, they have software on their hardware.

Explain why that's wrong? Share it, the protocol or method of sending video to a device. Especially if people are paying for it.

Possible problems?

[kheldan]

The system would essentially replace CableCard with a software-based equivalent.

I see two possible problems with this idea:
1. Having any cable company install any proprietary software on any customer-owned computing device for any reason whatsoever.
2. If it's software-based, it'll be cracked and pirated within a month of release.
(Disclaimer: As if I give a rat's ass whether highway robber cable companies get pirated or not. Just sayin', though)

Re:Possible problems?

[LordKronos]

2. If it's software-based, it'll be cracked and pirated within a month of release.

You would think so, wouldn't you. However, Windows Media Center is software based, and yet (as far as I know) nobody has managed to crack it to enable open source software to mimic WMC and trick the cable card devices into giving full access to the Copy Once and Copy Never content.

Re:Possible problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you ever find out someone has cracked it, let us know. Moved from a state with everything-is-copy-freely FIOS to one with everything-is-copy-once piece of shit TWC.

Re:Possible problems?

[kheldan]

I'd have to think that the reason for that is one of two things: Either it hasn't been passed around all that freely, or nobody cared enough to bother doing it.

Re:Possible problems?

[Z00L00K]

I think there's a reason why the Media Center isn't provided by Microsoft anymore.

Re:Possible problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Attackers figured having to put up with Windows Media Center was punishment enough.

Don't be too quick to choose a side

[LordKronos]

Reading through the FCC's summary, I can't tell whether this is a good or a bad thing. In principle it sounds good, but certainly there's going to be some sort of certifications involved somewhere, and I doubt open source stuff like mythtv is going to be able to pass the requirements to get certified. Cable card may be less than ideal in implementation as far as open source is concerned, but at least there, if you've got a cooperating cable provider, you can access much of that content in it's digital form, which is better than the previous options of analog capture.

So the question we need to ask is whether, from an open source perspective, this is actually going to improve things for us (I'm definitely skeptical on that), keep it about the same, or make it worse.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[Etherwalk]

Reading through the FCC's summary, I can't tell whether this is a good or a bad thing. In principle it sounds good, but ...

If you have ever used a cable set top box, you know it's a bad idea. The set top boxes are so riddled with design problems showing the cable company just doesn't give a shit that competition is good.

The cable company doesn't like it because they market on the set top box (advertisements in their guide), they charge a shitload if a box gets lost (like $240 for an entry-level $20 model), and they get rental fees for the box.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[Rakarra]

In principle it sounds good, but certainly there's going to be some sort of certifications involved somewhere, and I doubt open source stuff like mythtv is going to be able to pass the requirements to get certified

Unless there's some sort of sea change in the country, it's highly unlikely that open source technologies will ever be allowed access to encrypted TV broadcasts. Only the programs and devices that can pass through an authorization process will be given access.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[Fire_Wraith]

There's an easy way to figure out the answer.

1) Are the cable companies for or against this?
2) Adopt the opposite position.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[klui]

If the cable companies don't like it, it must be a good thing for the consumers.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[Anonymous Coward]

Its hilarious because if you want to watch something live, illegally, its easy. But to watch it through your own cable, it's hard. I don't get their though process.

It's already being pirated. I't already easy to get for free. I know how to solve this problem! Make it HARDER TO PAY FOR IT.

I've been running mythtv for my parents for the last 5 years. They love it, but only because they haven't experienced a digital signal without interference. I torrented something (at a low bitrate), and my father remarked how good it looked. They're slowly weaning themselves off of it as they discover online streaming.

Up until recently, I though live sports would be impossible without cable. But, because of some stupid blackout policy, I found them a live stream of a sports game. Turns out you don't cable for sports either. At some point, they cable is going to a merely symbolic feature, making them feel better about pirating content they should be able to watch legally. And then they're going to stop caring, and cancel it.

And the cable companies wonder why they're losing customers.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[rayd75]

Cable card may be less than ideal in implementation as far as open source is concerned, but at least there, if you've got a cooperating cable provider, you can access much of that content in it's digital form, which is better than the previous options of analog capture.

So the question we need to ask is whether, from an open source perspective, this is actually going to improve things for us (I'm definitely skeptical on that), keep it about the same, or make it worse.

Didn't the cable companies finally kill CableCARD a year or two ago? Obviously, most will still give you one, but isn't the mandate dead? If so, it's only a matter of time before the remaining cooperation winds down.

  Regardless, I think a robust market for consumer-owned set-top boxes is better for the DVR community than CableCARD ever was. Let's face it, no such mandate is going to be open source-friendly, so why not have a variety of commercial products that actually have to compete with one another for customers? In the end, open source projects such as mythTV and the wonderful (but in desperate need of an installer) Sage TV will benefit through the variety of work-arounds and hacks that develop. If nothing else, I can see someone developing a recording and playback peripheral device that "protects" the content while allowing scheduling and UI to be handled by software of the user's choice.

Re:Don't be too quick to choose a side

[DewDude]

Yes, cable card mandate ended last year; Congress struck it down. Most cable companies immediately stopped offering or even supporting cablecard. Friend of mine on Comcast said they gave him no warning and just shut it off; telling him he'd have to get a box from them.

Of course, most of the time the cable companies broke the system so horribly. Comcast here did not bring out any new hardware from 2007 till recently; that was because they were not allowed to ingrate the security in with the box and had to use cableCard.

If you want to back the cable company on this, go ahead; but you are backing an industry that is 100% anti-consumer and 100% profit-profit.

About time this happened

[WillAffleckUW]

The day I can pull the plug on renting a substandard device from a provider is the day I get freedom.

Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for each

[Joe_Dragon]

Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for each home. Even if you are just an internet sub. Hell if you are an Comcast business sub with static ip's YOU MUST rent there hardware.

Comcast makes it very hard to get a working cable card and then they change like an $7-$8 outlet fee + card rent.

Advertisements in the guide

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure this is one big reason cable companies don't want this. They wouldn't be able to take up half the on screen guide with ads.

comcast finds a way to mess that up as well.

[Joe_Dragon]

comcast finds a way to mess that up as well. Some times when you own your own modem they mess up and still bill you for renting theirs.

IPTV...

[Midnight Thunder]

If they uses the IPTV approach, then they could just leverage devices people already have, such as the Apple TV, an Android TV based device or maybe a tablet.

Maybe this bitter medicine may actually help cable companies wake up and improve their service and the way people watch the content? There are people who still like the programmed content stream, but not necessarily the limitations on which device they can watch it on.

One company they should be copying: http://www.free.fr/adsl/freebo... (just use Google translate). It may be solution limited to France, but I am envious every time I read their offering.

Re:IPTV...

[CastrTroy]

I kind of think it's odd that they are even having a conversation about this. There is no future for cable television or set top boxes. TV over the internet is the future. There's no need to stream hundreds of channels to every house and then filter them with a set top box. Netflix and other streaming providers are proof that you can deliver TV content and the only thing the customer needs is a web browser.

Re:IPTV...

[Midnight Thunder]

It may be true for many people, but there are still people who just want to switch on a stream and just follow what's happening. They like someone else to suggest what to watch, like party people letting the DJ run with it.

What turned me away from cable was more the constant breaks between the commercials, uh, I mean the shear amount of commercials during the show and that once you have eliminated the announcing what's coming up and resuming what's happened, you end up with what feels like only 20 minutes of a actual content during an hour. Time wasted, patience tested, sanity tested, service buried.

Cable have a future, but not in their current form. The companies may well still exist, but the service they offer will be different. Their business models are crumbling like a vampire in the daylight.
 

Paying "rent" to see paid-for content = Ransomware

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always struggled with my Windows Media center and cablecard.. reboot the computer, reseat the cable card not too often.. more often than not I am no longer "authorized" for the channels I pay for. A phone call to support and within 30 minutes talking to them they reset world+dog and it starts working again. I got rid of all my set-top boxes after the umpteenth time I was told to unplug one/all of my set-top boxes for 2 minutes then plug it back in... As of Jan 1 I can no longer see or record any content I'm paying for, instead I'm enjoying the "copying prohibited" error. An error that I've been told by my provider "might be resolved by rebuilding your computer".

If my provider had a configuration for my home that wasn't a revenue stream per-screen, that didn't have to be rebooted constantly to work...

Maybe a third party needs to step in and make something reliable that is a one-time purchase.. hello Samsung?

They better do IPTV as well. As comcast and others

[Joe_Dragon]

They better do IPTV as well. As comcast and others can just switch from QAM to IPTV to keep there lockin or just Move HD to IPTV. Comcast MPEG2 HD trun off is having then dump a lot of old hardware and the newer MPEG4 HD boxes can do IP based tv.

Cablecards work good nowadays.

[ppartipilo]

I had troubles pairing my old Series 3 HD Tivo, requiring a visit from a Comcast technician. I currently have a Series 4 Premiere and have been able to perform a self-install without difficulty.

Oh Lordy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Lordy, here comes the Raspberry Pi of TV Boxes! Prepare for doom and gloom tripe from the cable lobby!
On a more serious note, the game changing aspect of this would be beneficial to consumers obviously and make the cable giants have to innovate! Hooray!

A decade too late

[iamacat]

Why would I want to plug in a whatever box and watch a middle of whatever program it's showing at the time, interrupted by ads every 15 minutes? When technology is there to select exactly what I want to see and when. Even for live news/sports I may want to pause or rewind to see what I missed. Just give me well working apps and ability to subscribe to the ones that appeal to me.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules

[Areyoukiddingme]

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules...

Former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler proposed new rules that is making the cable companies whine and cry.

They must be wondering what their money got them. I guess Tom plans to retire after this. He is 69 years old, after all. Between this and net neutrality, he's doing a fine job warming his toes with all the bridges he's burning.

Re:FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules

[WaffleMonster]

Former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler proposed new rules that is making the cable companies whine and cry.

They must be wondering what their money got them. I guess Tom plans to retire after this. He is 69 years old, after all. Between this and net neutrality, he's doing a fine job warming his toes with all the bridges he's burning.

T-Mobile is actively selectively rate limiting certain types of traffic. Comcast's IPTV stream service is exempt from bandwidth CAPs even though it is delivered over the top of subscribers Internet connection.

Thus far all Wheeler has done was bring ISPs under Title II and sit on the sidelines while ISPs drive trucks thru "Net Neutrality" ... more red tape for small ISPs and real possibility of USF fees for Internet service appearing on already astronomical bills.

What I'm expecting is Cable companies to use this as an excuse to dump support for existing equipment supporting CableCARD and make a new scheme just as unreliable and expensive to replace it. Probably one involving active data collection/spying to boot.

For what little its worth I personally have never had a problem with CableCARD. Sometime in 2008 I visited my local Cable office and asked for a card. One minute later I walked out with one, went home, plugged card into DVR, called Cable company and read off MAC address. It has been working flawlessly ever since and the first one is free so no equipment charge.

Ignoring regulatory capture depending on government to save you from side effects of monopolies rarely ends with the intended outcome. Would much rather FCC focus on forcing a competitive market or at the very least a disaggregated one and let the market bitch slap the Cabletowns into line.

Dear Cable TV Industry

[fnj]

I believe I speak for everyone not in the Cable TV Industry.

Dear Cable TV Industry: fuck you. Up the ass. With a rusty spike.

and this is why I cut the cord

[speedlaw]

Had analog cable, fed a few tv sets. Cable goes digital. Clear QAM - only premium channels are scrambled. The golden era. One day, all channels become scrambled, but you get a free box for a year. One year later, the box is $8 per month per TV. Boxes go back. There was no reason in my very suburban area to scramble everything....except to force me to rent a box to view a signal I *already paid for*. Double Dip ? I fought this off with cablecard devices until the cable co put a $6 per month charge for "sports programming". I'm not a fan, they would not remove the charge. Turns out I had to pay for ESPN, like it or not. Invested in a better router and repeater. Happily streaming from a variety of sources. Antenna on the roof like Gramps had gets me plenty to feed the DVRs. I still have to pay for the broadband, and the company increased the internet price $10 per month because I don't have "tv'. I have the least evil of the group, Cablevision, and they were pretty good with cable cards when I had the unicorn of the American electronics market, a Free Cable Ready DVR, the obsolete Sony HDD 250. It worked until Rovi killed the listing service a few years back. The "industry" has allowed Tivo to survive, as Tivo has a few key patents which have stifled anyone else, (even Sony!) It is beyond over due that there be privately owned DVR and cable card type devices. You can do this if you are computer savvy, but where are the set top boxes for everyone else at best buy ?

Cable Box Software

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

It will be interesting to see how the cable companies fight this. They are moving towards the actual box being rather stupid and all the heavy lifting being done on the back end "in the cloud." If you can buy an equivalent box, but you don't have access to their proprietary code, you're kinda screwed. I suspect that $9/month rental fee would remain and would be renamed a "software license fee" or somesuch.

Net gain for the consumer....zero.

Re:Cable Box Software

[rahvin112]

The FCC learned pretty good from how the Cable Companies subverted the Cable Card mandate. This one forces them to pass the data out of their system via open standards, it allows them to continue to pass on the restrictions and other stuff they are using but the key here is everything is in software. There won't be any hardware to rent from the cable company. This is going to make it very difficult for them to subvert like cable card.

They subverted cable card by getting the FCC to OK creating a certification laboratory. They called this cable labs and they used it to throw so much red tape in front of companies that it became nearly impossible to get hardware through. On top of this they would add conditions about software and other things that they had no business putting into the certification process. On top of this at first they made the cable card process extremely complex to begin with including partial implementation so that anyone that bought a cable card device would find the process either broken or impossibly hard which would bias the public about cable card being bad.

The software option is going to block all this. They have to pass the data out in an open published way. The FCC just basically made them implement an API and pass everything out. Because there is a lack of hardware there can't be a certification laboratory and because they are required to use open ISO approved standards they can't game the software side.

I'm sure if there is a way to subvert the process they will find it but this cuts almost all of their current methods off. It should be easy to develop hardware and software systems to implement the standards and if the cable company isn't complying with the standard you should be able to complain to the FCC.

It's Socialist!

[Anonymous Coward]

Signed,

Obama Haters Everywhere

Re:It's Socialist!

[DewDude]

Fine. Maybe when your cable company is charging you $400/month for the same crap and the networks have shut off OTA for being non-profitable...will you be still calling it socialist.

Your hatred of Obama makes you blind to the fact no corporation is your friend; none of them care about you. All they see you as is a source of income; and a cable company would gladly take your money without giving you service if they could figure out a way to legally do it.

I don't want to live in a world where I'm under the total control of a heartless corporation. It's bad enough I only have two choices for TV/Internet/Phone as well as most other things in this country. Where the fuck is the competitiveness? I thought open free markets were supposed to embrace competition; not merge and get rid of it.

You're just a source of money to them. Take a look at any water utility that shuts people off for non-payment. IF you can legally shut off what could be considered a basic requirement to live; then there's a problem.

IF you think that's the way it should be; then you're a horrible person...and your title of Anonymous Coward says everything it needs to say about you.

Re:Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for e

[rahvin112]

Hell if you are an Comcast business sub with static ip's YOU MUST rent there hardware.

The modem rental is part of the price, there isn't an extra charge for it on the business side. Now if you want to argue the static IP costs are extravagant I would agree but the equipment rental is not a big deal IMO.

Re:Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for e

[onevista]

I have a Comcast cable card. They charge $0.00 for it and pay me $2.50 per month to use it.

They don't realise

[Anonymous Coward]

What they don't realise is the FCC is doing them a favour, dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Customers want to be able to pay to watch your shit on their tablets, let them.

Re:Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for e

[onevista]

The modem rental is part of the bill, but separate from the service price. Modem rental just went up to $14.95 per month. This is with Comcast Business class. Static IP (5) are $24.99 per month

Re:They tried it before with Cablecards and ..SDTV

[See Attached]

Switched Digital TV.. so the tuner leaves the house and goes upstream to the distribution layer.. and remove any CHANCE of unintended usage!

The irony of course...

[WalrusSlayer]

...being that my older Comcast DVR's used CableCard technology. If you looked on the back you could see the slots for them. Of course there was secret sauce in there that allowed OnDemand access and what-not that a Tivo+CC wouldn't do. But for all the pushback against CC's it seems like it probably saves them quite a bit of money as the cost of designing a carrier-locked box must be a lot lower for the OEM's if they can use CC as the starting point and lowest-common-denominator.

Of course, Comcast's new Xfinity platform (finally becoming a platform in addition to a brand) seems to be something altogether different, since they now essentially push the DVR storage back up into Comcast's private cloud. And near as I can tell there's no CC tech inside these new boxes, and for all I know use a completely different content delivery technology.

Day Late and Dollar Short

[Jack Kolesar]

While I am certainly a supporter of having an open system where you might actually be able to buy a decent DVR that wasn't designed in 2003, I really think that they have missed the boat. People are cutting the cord left and right (I just did tonight as a matter of fact). With all of the content available online, why do we even need a dedicated STB with software decryption. Hell, Time Warner even has a Roku app that is free and gives you ALMOST all of their programming (and depending on your market even local channels). Sure a DVR would be nice but content is also On Demand online if you have a subscription. This would have been great in lieu of the CableCard but I think it is severely late to the game at this stage.

Insider look

[ElRabbit]

I have been deeply involved with Cable Card (happen to design Cable Card test system and leading a Cable Card project). I am now leading some DVB-CI+ project for making USB based Conditional Access Module (CAM is the generic name for CableCard like devices). The major issue in the US are operators which loooove so much milking their customer that they will NEVER EVER allow a system that will prevent them to do so. So if there is an initiative to make software based CAM make sure this thing will be carefully driven to end up in the wall. This has been done before with DCAS and will be done again. This is why the average cable bill is around 100$ in US while we pay half of that for premium package in Europe. European commission may be a bunch a picky buggers, they don't hesitate to slam the fingers of the ones who are abusing their dominant position.

Not just lobbiests and bribes

[rsilvergun]

they got away with it because we've been electing candidates that are further and further on the right wing ever since Clinton (Bill) moved the Dems that way so he could take the presidency. If you're gonna keep electing "pro-business" folks you shouldn't be surprised when they do things that are good for business. Consumer protections and competition aren't good for business. We like to think they are because we like to ignore just how few companies supply the goods and services we depend on. But even 'small' cable companies are multi-million dollar affairs. These days anything bigger than a cupcake factory is probably owned my a multi-national...

Re: Not just lobbiests and bribes

[Anonymous Coward]

How cute. You think it's only right wingers who love money. Left wing and centrist politicians are bought and paid for just like anyone else in our current political system,

Local Loop Unbundling!

[riverat1]

If you're like me and get your TV and internet through a coaxial cable connected to a fiber network you should favor local loop unbundling. Make the local loop a public utility and let the content providers compete for my business, both internet and TV. Let the content providers pay the local loop utility for access to my business (yes I know they'd pass the cost on to us but as a utility the local loop would have regulated rates). Then you wouldn't have to regulate the content providers (and ex cable companies) at all. Wouldn't that be a free market?

Re:Local Loop Unbundling!

[silas_moeckel]

Fiber to the CO is a great fit for that. Entirely passive CWDM is cheap and fiber that could have been put in in the 70's would still work fine today (spec wise). Make the central office a meet me sort of space. Now more enterprising muni's might light a channel to provide lifeline internet/school/government/library/muni peer to peer access and even resell the L2 to providers that do not want to stand up there own infrastructure. In any event the thing that realy should be a monopoly last mile access is while giving a wider choice of providers. The security end can be dealt with with mandatory encryption so the town never knows what's going on. IPv6 actualy lends itself well to this where routing decisions can be made to use your ISP or the muni's own network. That means you can run voip to government schools neighbors get HD voice Vid conferencing etc. If the muni network is considered baseline with your property taxes you can quickly facilitate things like school telepresence.

Re:Local Loop Unbundling!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have this where i live..

The city offers operators to sell their services on the city-network and they all share the cost of maintaining the city-network via their fees.
Prices for a 100Mbit connection dropped from ~30EUR to about 10-15EUR when it was introduced..

A operator may still get monopoly for a short time. Like if a house owner wants to pull in network to the building but does not want to do it or finance it himself he can talk to one of the operators and get them to connect the house to the city-network and then let that operator "own" that for a number of years... they probably break-even after 1-2 years for a mid-sized complex with ~100 apartments since they can still charge 20-30EUR and all they have to do is wire each apartment with ethernet and put a managed switch in the basement...... 10EUR for city-network and charging the customer 20 would equal 10EUR in profit.. 100 apartments * 10 EUR * 12 months == 12000EUR per year.. 24000 EUR for 2 years.. say 40EUR per apartment for installing ethernet-cables (using existing ducts like for phone-lines or just putting it just a meter into the apartment) 4000EUR + switch and other equipment lets say 4000EUR for the extras.. 1 year would be 4000EUR (minus tax) in profit..

The always put the initial prices just a few steps below the current pricing of internet connection via ADSL/Cable they grab basically all people living there except for people that have singed up for X years with someone else.

My building i live in we are out of the monopoly period and have a flat-rate sub for all apartments.. IP-Phone + internet (100/100Mbit) for about 11EUR per month per apartment.. And no upper cap.. Max transfer i have done in a month where about 18TByte without getting a letter from the ISP.. (backup to a friend going haywire when not being home) And my friend even has a different ISP in another city.. (different city so a different city-network owner)

US is just screw'ed up with all it's monpolies and companies fighting to keep them...
Cities should handle the common things to all houses within the city-limits.. Things like connectivity for network, water, power, sewer, garbage collection.. Then it should be up to companies to provide services to take care of things on the other side..

Re:They better do IPTV as well. As comcast and oth

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had long talks with the Comcast technology and product CTO. They already experimented with IPTV and have zero plans to move to IPTV due to the sheer size of their customer base. They are already committed to X1 and to replace their entire X1 hardware with IPTV would be virtually impossible at this point. You have at least 10 years to not worry about that problem.

How is this different?

[jmac_the_man]

I have a Tivo with a cable card. I can already access all my channels and all the Over the Top services (including Comcast's video on demand stuff and pay per view, if I wanted that.) This exists now. How is this different than that?

TLDR; Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had one since the year 2000 and paid more for a better user experience than what my cable company offers.

Should be SIM-card equivalent

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't need to be software-dependent, it can easily be setup following the phone example of a SIM card.

Re:Should be SIM-card equivalent

[DewDude]

CableCARD. But most cable companies do such a piss-poor job of supporting it, that the technology fails to work.

Yeah, but

[rsilvergun]

He's basically this generation's Walter Mondale. A nice guy who is completely unelectable. He's on record saying he's a socialist. That won't scare off any Dems, but it doesn't have to. It will scare the $h!t out of the the right wing baby boomers and get them out in droves voting for whatever the Republicans run (Probably Jeb or Rubio). American politics aren't about convincing people to vote _for_ you, they're about convincing people to vote against the other guy.

Re:Yeah, but

[dyslexicbunny]

Mayhaps.

Everything I've read gives the Democrats a huge lead in EC votes from historical data. Something like 240 to high 100s or low 200s and basically said without Ohio and Florida, the Republicans are in a pretty tight spot. And if I recall correctly, Colorado was a tossup state. I imagine that any Republican will shut down their marijuana legalization so odds are they vote Democrat and that puts Republicans in a tighter spot. I think Virginia was as well.

Now this does depend on who the Republicans run. I think Trump and Cruz will be guaranteed losers in swing states. Rubio maybe. Not sure who else might rise to the occasion from the established players. I'd love to see Kasich do well and rise up. A Kasich-Rubio ticket would give them Ohio and Florida and probably be a tough match against HIllary or Bernie.

Who uses cable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with cable? I put up an antenna long ago. It pulls in 46 stations (6 are repeats) from my attic, all HD and not compressed. I live in a small market too, with about 50,000 people in the whole county, over 100 miles from a metropolitan area. My HD Homerun lets me stream to VLC and Kodi on my projector and tablet respectively. That's just for live TV.

Most everything else that I could possibly be interested in is available by streaming, Colbert on CBS, The Daily Show on CC. PBS, History, etc. Hell, even the Superbowl will be simulcast on the Internet next week (as it was last year).

The pressure needs to be equal for cable and Internet. AT&T's rental fees are like death by paper cuts, and there is no possibility of ownership.

Re:Who uses cable?

[DewDude]

The reason people bother with cable is the fact the selection of channels you get OTA is absolute garbage. The networks don't show anything worth showing anymore; and the "extra" channels are usually the same crappy reruns or foreign language programming.

There's also the fact a large majority of the people do not have the luck you have with digital TV. I live 25 miles from DC; if you assume that I get all the OTA DC channels and a good chunk of Baltimore stations you are horribly mistaken. I can get 1 broadcast out of DC and another from a tower five miles away. This leaves me with CBS and about 12 channels that are all foreign language. Sure, I get great signal reports on all of them; but the digital streams are completely useless after they've bounced around 5000 times. If an ATSC signal bounces even once, the decoder cannot handle it. I am not about to invest the thousands of dollars in installing a TV tower (which will probably meet local opposition ayway) or the equipment to put an antenna on the top of it with a rotator (coax is not cheap, and RG-6 is not suitable for UHF); especially considering the garbage I could get OTA.

It's great you don't need cable; it's also ironic you talk about streaming services as if they're all free. CBS charges, all the other content providers want verification of TV subscription before they'll let you view. The grass might be green where you are; but for myself, and a lot of people; if we didn't have cable, we'd be completely out of the loop.

How about addressing the real issue

[wyattstorch516]

People are being gouged on the programming cost not the set top. A typical person would spend anywhere from 80-130 per month on programming and around 5-20 for the set tops. Any cut to the set top price would amount to little in the way of savings for the average person.

The government should be doing something about the practice of content providers forcing cable companies to carry their programming in oversized packages that few people want. Give us more choices there!

Re:Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for e

[DewDude]

I've got FiOS.

Verizon will gladly rent you a router for $9.95/month (or something); or they will allow you to buy one of theirs. Don't want one of theirs? Then you're welcome to buy any off-the-shelf router for your internet. If you signed up years ago; Verizon outright gave you the router.

AFAIK, it's the same with the biz class as home class.

I think the larger point you should be yelling about isn't the fact you have to pay for Comcast's hardware; but like that Comcast is your only option for services. They're getting away with crap like that because they're a monopoly; and they've likely paid off your state/local legislators to ensure their monopoly will stand nice and legal.

Re:Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for e

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, Comcast business modems had the static block configured and advertised by RIP. Presumably if you brought your own hardware, that'd be right out.

CableCo Rape on Rental

[Barloe]

Rental fees for equipment is ridiculous. I have Comcast and my equipment charges look like this: "Additional Outlet" = $19.90 "Additional Outlet" = $3.99 DVR = $9.95 "Digital Converter" = $2.50 "Does Not Print" = $1.50 = $37.84 Equipment Fees I then pay sales tax on this stuff, so add another $3.12 and we're looking at about $41/mo in rent on their crappy devices. I have an HD DVR box and 2 satellite "companion" boxes (basically just MoCa clients to the actual HDDVR). I have yet to get a straight answer on what all these items are. WTF is "Does Not Print"?? Anyway, this hashes out to about $490 a year in rental fees. I own my own cable modem, otherwise that would be another $14/mo. tacked on. At my previous residence, I used WMC and a Ceton CableCard tuner, with Xbox 360s at each TV as clients. I was a little spoiled with that setup by not having to pay for additional outlets to access the content I already pay for. Since the move, I have spent 4+ hours on the phone trying to get the CableCard functional again and have yet to succeed. I opted to rent set top boxes to keep the wife and kiddo happy. Their X1 platform is a joke too, as I can't remove listings in the program guide for channels I don't receive. I might just take the hit and get a Tivo Bolt and 2 minis. While that hardware/subscription would be paid for in 2 years, who's to say I won't have the same issues trying to get the CableCard to work in it too.

Re:Cable wants to have a forced rent gateway for e

[Anonymous Coward]

The modem rental is part of the price, there isn't an extra charge for it on the business side. Now if you want to argue the static IP costs are extravagant I would agree but the equipment rental is not a big deal IMO.

Sorry, but the modem rental is not part of the price. I'm currently paying $69.95 for a 16/3 connection, plus a $14.95 Equipment Fee, and $19.95 for a single static IP. I asked if I could just buy a modem and not have the rental fee. I was told I could provide my own modem, but they were still going to bill me that fee.