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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.
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.
Maybe some manufacturer will make a box that doesn't draw 20 watts when it's turned off.
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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
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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.
:(... Thanks Obama.
Basically, don't bother getting too excited. This'll all be swept away when Obama leaves
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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!
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)
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
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 ?
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.
I have a Comcast cable card. They charge $0.00 for it and pay me $2.50 per month to use it.
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!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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?