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Cable Industry Threatens To Sue If FCC Tries To Bring Competition To Cable Set Top Boxes (techdirt.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Back in February the FCC voted on a new plan to open up the traditional cable box to competition. According to a fact sheet being circulated by the agency (pdf), under the FCC's plan you'd still pay your cable company for the exact same content, cable operators would simply have to design systems -- using standards and copy protection of their choice -- that delivered this content to third-party hardware. The FCC's goal is cheaper, better hardware and a shift away from the insular gatekeeper model the cable box has long protected. Given this would obliterate a $21 billion captive market in set top box rental fees -- and likely direct consumers to more third-party streaming services -- the cable industry has been engaged in an utterly adorable new hissy fit. And now, the industry is also threatening a lawsuit. Former FCC boss turned top cable lobbyist Michael Powell is arguing that the FCC has once again overstepped its regulatory authority: "An agency of limited jurisdiction has to act properly within that jurisdiction," Powell said, making it abundantly clear the NCTA does not believe the FCC has not done so in this case. He said that the statute empowers the FCC to create competition in navigation devices, not new services. "Every problem does not empower an FCC-directed solution. The agency is not an agency with unbridled plenary power to roam around markets and decide to go fix inconveniences everywhere they find them irrespective of the bounds of their authority."
Powell was hired
one of the few govt agencies that is actually trying to do consumers some good and they are overreaching?
WTF
I'm just glad that guy isn't in government any more -he represents the worst aspects of regulatory capture and the revolving door between government and industry.
cable is dying anyway thanks to millenials, cord cutting and the unavailability of a la carte pricing -Good Riddance
-I'm just sayin'
How well did the "free" market handle this? Not very well, did it now. Free for cable industry to have a fixed market. FCC needs to step in.
Between the internet and over-the-air TV, why on Earth would I pay an extra 50+ dollars a month for more crap to watch?
Could the FCC call in a favour with the DoJ? That should work out OK regarding jurisdiction.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Even if they *didn't* get sued I don't see this going anywhere. They've already tried this with CableCard, and except for TiVos and some in-TV setups there wasn't a big debut of third-party yes-you-own-it-outright equipment.
Then, there was supposed to be an entirely software-based version of the same thing. Never even got off the planning board.
making it abundantly clear the NCTA does not believe the FCC has not done so in this case
Probably just an editing error, but I'm not going to check whether or not it's in TFA.
all this tech already exists... you get a multi-stream "M" card... the cable company charges you the same $5 a month or whatever as they do the set top box, so they're not losing any money. plug the thing into your 3rd party box, and it works.
The cable companies really like having the boxes in your house. It's a platform they use to sell you services and restrict what you can do with your cable service. It also lets them collect a whole lot of information about your viewing habits that they doubtlessly resell.
The cable industry model really needs to change. They enjoy a lot of profit from using their physical infrastructure to force-bundle content packages (And vice versa)
That industry is clinging to the old analog circuit-switched distribution model. Cable providers should just be data carriers and that is it. Content and infrastructure need to be forced apart and the FCC has exactly that authority.
Satalite TV? Satellite TV is garbage and a waste of spectrum. (Seriously it looks like shit and it should be illegal to call something with early-youtube levels of video artifacts "HD") The people dumb enough to pay for it probably deserve their fate but we'd be better off using those frequencies for something else.
by the way things look. I work in a pretty typical office and at least half the people in there (the ones without kids...ironically) don't use cable anymore and just stream from x.
I say ironic because most kids thats all they do.
> "...to roam around markets and decide to go fix inconveniences everywhere they find them..."
Even he admits that the current landscape in set-top boxes is inconvenient to consumers.
I wonder if he meant to do that?
Apropos Captcha: stunning
And the cable industry wonders why more people are cutting cords every day.
It's funny that cable companies are bitching about this and people think it would be difficult to implement.
This already works just fine with cable modems, simply register the device with the cable company you're set. I stopped "renting" my cable modem years ago. Why pay the $8 a month or whatever it was when a modem is $30-$50.
I have both Comcast cable TV (basic service with Internet is the same price as Internet alone) and I have DirecTV. Video quality on DirecTV is better, BY FAR, than Comcast. Comcast is so over compressed, even my completely non-technie wife notices that something is 'wrong' with the picture. Sure, some channels (like kids channels and shopping channels) are more compressed than others on DirecTV, but the ones where you want the quality have it. Neither, however, compares to OTA.
Tom Wheeler - former cable lobbyist turned FCC Chairman
Michael Powell - former FCC Chairman turned cable lobbyist
Does anyone else feel like maybe we should try swapping our politicians with our lobbyists for a month just to see if it works elsewhere too? ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Cable companies to FCC: "How DARE you try to mess with our outdated, overpriced business model!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
This is yet another example of why there should be a significant surtax on ex-govt officials for "a while" after they leave govt service.
Such a tax would not apply to an exorbitant private sector increase, say the first $150k over the highest govt salary, but income above that would be subject to a significant surtax, say 30-40% (that's on top of the ordinary income rates for such salaries). The rate can decrease over time, say 5 years, and the exempt portion can increase. Heck - we might even let them substitute their highest pre-govt work private sector salary for the govt salary. (After all, we want the Goldman Sachs types to take a trip through govt, right?)
Yes, this would apply to elected officials as well as regulators.
Shame on the cable companies!!!!
"An agency of limited jurisdiction has to act properly within that jurisdiction," Powell said, ... "Every problem does not empower an FCC-directed solution. The agency is not an agency with unbridled plenary power to roam around markets and decide to go fix inconveniences everywhere they find them irrespective of the bounds of their authority."
He's not wrong, not every problem does empower an FCC directed solution. It's just too bad for him that this problem does empower a FCC directed solution.
Do you think he swims in all the money they are giving him like Scrooge McDuck?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I can't wait to gain what Time Warner and Cablevision refuses me in New York:
The ability to do PictureInPicture
The inability to remove do a "learn" mode so pressing up and down on the remote won't advertise to me what blocked channels they want me to start paying for. What use are all these modes on my TV set if it's only ever tuned into channel 3 (ok, "HDMI 1")?
I also guarantee that competitors will also be removing all the waiting from bufferbloat (when tuning a channel, even just seeing a number after pressing a button on your remote --my smartphone apparently is better as a remote than both of their $3/month remotes we're renting)
I am tired of slow cold boot times because of the slow Java clients. I'm talking 5 to 10 minutes. PC's beat that a decade ago.
And with configurability we'd end up having some real cool stuff like scripts for automated surfing (excuse me if Tivo or AppleTV already offer this)
Cable TV is going to be an app on your TV or your PlayStation or a Roku-like device. The boxes have no future.
The Feds have deeper pockets.
But they have to immediately stop offering voice services / land lines. Fucking hypocrites.
If they're providing a uniform service, surely they've already done that. So they can create a public-access standard, hopefully one that all the cable companies will implement, or they can publish their propriety protocol and force the hardware manufacturers to deal with it (via software).
Surely this part benefits the cable companies? They can concentrate on delivering services instead of installing hardware.
Subscription-based video to the home is not a new service.
So the cable companies can deal with right of access and supplying infrastructure without municipal assistance? Plus they can handle 'stealing' of subscription channels without the criminal courts?
There is an algorithm they use to dynamically assign bandwidth based on viewers. Sports gets the best quality
Really? Do you have any references? That makes a ton of sense, but I'd love to read up and learn more about how they do it.
The FCC should just cite All Writs Act, Done!
Satellite TV is pretty useful for people who live in an area not served by good broadband or cable or someone who travel in an RV a lot. These people are not "dumb", it's just the best option for them.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Even if the Fed must compromise and forces cable companies to eliminate all of the channels you don't pay for from the channel guide it would be a HUGE improvement.
Either way, I probably won't ever get a subscription again. I wonder how long it will be before paying a cable TV subscription is equivalent to paying for AOL.
The cable companies are already moving to a model where the cable boxes in your home have almost no real smarts of their own. There's just enough there to boot linux+busybox, display video content, and render the menus. The heavy lifting, and ALL of the brains (if you can call it that) of the system are handled on the back end by the cable company. Even if you are able to purchase your own box, I suspect you'll be forced to license their software anyway and still get a monthly fee jammed down your throat.
Looking forward to the day where I can just get a pipe to the internet from whatever company and then buy over-the-top TV from the single digit number of stations that I actually watch. That's really what terrifies the cable companies and why they're trying to buy up content providers.
This is why we don't want investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) ala TPP.
I can tell you're not a true radical Conservative.
If I understand (radical) Conservative thought right, the single most detrimental organisation we know is "The Government", and one of the worst things they can possibly do is to interfere with "The Market". In whattever form or shape.
So here's (my impression of) the Conservatove take on things: the FCC is one of the tentacles of The Government, and it's trying to interfere with Private Enterprise (i.e. the Cable industry). Now that's Wrong ... and should be stopped at once.
We know there are always some who find excuses about this-or-that short-term benefit that might arise from Government Interference. Well, this is the way in which Big Government proponents work their favourite pasttime: trying to insert The Government (or its subsidiaries) into ever more aspects of our society by letting The Government overstep its current level of authority and hence acquire new levels of authority. Now this can only lead to new levels of bureaucracy and more Government expenditure.
In this view there is only one sane policy: resist the temptation to let The Government meddle yet again, step aside, and let The Market solve the problem.
The additional benefit of this is: you can zip through the daily news like nobody's business and tell at a glance who is Wrong and who is Right. All it takes a little backbone to ignore the continuous pleas and indignant squawks from activists, do-gooders, and (leftist) consumer organisations.
Instant peace of mind will be your reward.
It is far easier to create a corporation than real people, easier to create a chain of complex parent corporations and child corporations. It is impossible for us to stop corporations from sneaking across our borders. It is impossible to access jail time for corporation people.
It is entirely ridiculous that SCOTUS endows corporations with all the rights of real citizens but none of the liabilities of real citizens. I can't clone myself, make my clone a citizen of Cayman islands and route my income through that clone and create another clone to hold my assets and yet another clone to hold my liabilities.
We need a constitutional amendment to making corporations second class "people". It is necessary to limit the powers of the government.
If small government is better big government, and smaller government is always better, by method of induction we have to conclude no government is better than small government. But small and powerless governments will not be able to enforce the laws. There is a minimum size of government needed. That size is what is needed to enforce the laws, more power than any individual subject. If we make government smaller than that, the most powerful individual will drown it in the bathtub and we will be living under a warlord.
But, if we distinguish between real citizens and corporate citizens, we can make the government more powerful than the most powerful corporation but limit its power over real citizens so as not to threaten our liberty.
Now a days our liberty is more threatened by corporations than governments. We need to realize the government is the last defense we have against the corporations.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Cable CARTEL Threatens To SEND THUG LAWYERS If FCC Tries To Bring Competition To Cable Set Top Boxes"
Generally the figures show cable cutters on the rise every year.
I applaud the FCC for these kinds of decision as it is long overdue for the customer to actually be put fist.
Liken the CC's reaction to that of a spoiled rich kid laying on the ground kicking and screaming because mom and dad wont let them have the yacht for the weekend to party.
Yes I am quietly smiling both on the inside and outside as I watch the inevitable happen.
FCC is not the only one quietly taking these guys down a channel or two either.
The CRTC in Canada has also taken a few steps (not enough yet) to help consumers.
We all get to see how much these guys get and thier profits.
Never seen em loose a dime at the end of the day.
And if that wasn't all many also get government subsidies too.
We know where that money comes from as well. that means many of us are paying twice for entertainment.
Once to the CC and again to the Government in taxes.
HA HA just loving the way they cry it makes my day
Cable industry? What cable industry? Every year I do this dance with Comcast, where they raise the prices on my cable bill by 50% or more, and I have to call their "customer retention department" to get a better deal. LPT: say "cancel service" into the phone to get a live agent on the line almost immediately. To get the better deal, they ask me what shows I watch, to figure out which channels I need, to get the cheapest package possible with fewest channels. And every year I realize that I watch less and less shows. This year, with the Mythbusters gone, and a few other shows I used to watch on cable, I think I'm down to network TV, so I might as well cancel the thing and get a TV antenna. I still have Netflix and it's been pretty great. I'm sure I'm not the only one going in that direction. It does seem that the "cable industry" is really trying its best to kill itself as fast as possible. Now I just wish I could as easily do the same with the medical insurance ever increasing premiums...
.... and I'm laughing my ass off reading about this stuff. It sounds like Comcast and the others have a monopoly and ar fighting tooth and nail to hold on to it.
Meanwhile, I'm paying like $15 a month for all in one digital tv (no set top box, just CI), 30MB/s internet and something like 5GB traffic on my mobile phone.
I'm just gloating, really.
I'm not saying this because cable is evil, I'm saying this from a business perspective. Of _course_ the cable industry is going to try and stop this. They would be completely foolish if they didn't at least try. If they can fight this and possibly hold on to a revenue stream, or at least hold on to it a little longer, or not fight it and lose money....they're gonna fight it. They probably know they are going to lose. That's not the point.