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."

Comments

now we know why

[turkeydance]

Powell was hired

Re:now we know why

[Z00L00K]

And the cable industry is slowly killing itself by alienating the customers.

They may show a profit right now, but sooner or later there will be an avalanche of customers leaving and stick to OTA transmissions or get what they want over the net on Netflix and other services.

screw cable!

[hguorbray]

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'

Re:screw cable!

[Ralph Wiggam]

one of the few govt agencies that is actually trying to do consumers some good and they are overreaching?

Remember when everyone was calling Tom Wheeler, and by extension Obama, shills that were in the pocket the of the cable industry?

Re:screw cable!

[mrchaotica]

If the FCC really cared about doing what's best for the public, they'd simply say "Cable TV is over; you are all plain common-carrier ISPs now. Spin off your content divisions into separate companies and they can become streaming services. You are no longer allowed to be both at once."

Re:screw cable!

[uncqual]

The legal question isn't if the proposal is good or bad policy, the question is if the Congress granted the FCC the power to make such a regulation.

Consider if the EPA was to issue a regulation requiring that all employers provide sexual harassment training annually for every employee. In that case there would be no question that the regulation was not something within the EPA's charter and would (and should) be struck down by the courts even though it might be a good policy. There might even be another agency that did have the power to issue such a regulation, but that wouldn't make the EPA's regulation legal.

If the FCC doesn't have the power to issue this regulation, the fact that it is good or bad policy is immaterial as are the motivations of the plaintiffs challenging the FCC. In a Federal courtroom, it's extremely unlikely that any question of the motivation of the plaintiff would be allowed as it would be a waste of the court's time. Such questions are no more relevant than questioning if the CEOs were left or right handed.

Free market and other fairytales

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Free market and other fairytales

[KGIII]

What is "free market" about the cable industry? Those words have meaning. For the low price of a few cents, you can use the device you used to send that message for something else - like learning what those words mean. No matter where you put the quotes, there's no free market involved with the cable industry. At least not in the country where this is taking place, there isn't.