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Cable Industry Threatens To Sue If FCC Tries To Bring Competition To Cable Set Top Boxes (techdirt.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the legal-action dept.

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."

17 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. now we know why by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Powell was hired

    1. Re:now we know why by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. screw cable! by hguorbray · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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'

    1. Re:screw cable! by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:screw cable! by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 2

      This time they are simply telling cable companies to ditch the cable box. How they do that is up to them. Android TV and Apple TV can easily fit the role.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    3. Re:screw cable! by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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."

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    4. Re:screw cable! by uncqual · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    5. Re:screw cable! by DarkTempes · · Score: 2

      All TV is digital now in the U.S. (even broadcast OTA) in order to free up spectrum and cable TV used to be required to offer basic cable and local broadcast channels unencrypted, over the wire, via clear-QAM.

      Then in 2012 the previous FCC chairman and commissioners decided to change that rule and let cable companies encrypt everything and thus require ALL users to pay a monthly fee for a set-top box, in addition to their normal service fees.

      This also means that the clear-QAM tuner hardware in TVs, that increases the cost of TVs and that we already paid for, became useless.

      This is a bit weird because these same cable companies are providing internet service over the same cables but users can choose to rent a cable modem from their provider or buy their own cable modem from a 3rd party.

  3. Free market and other fairytales by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Free market and other fairytales by KGIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re:Free market and other fairytales by MasseKid · · Score: 2

      It was never a free market. It is a locally legislated monopoly.

  4. Re:Not this again... by chemish · · Score: 2

    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.

    Is TiVO not a good example of people wanting it? Didn't they just get bought for 1.1 Billion? Someone must think there is something to it...

  5. weird by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:weird by inode_buddha · · Score: 2

      I think the American People shoud get together to pool their resources, and hire a lobbyist to represent them in Congress.

      --
      C|N>K
    2. Re: weird by unitron · · Score: 2

      No, because I can go exchange my cable box or modem to time warner any time it breaks or a new one comes out

      If I buy and it breaks I have to buy another one. And 30 years of open windows and Android has shown me that open standards mean slow performance

      My experience with TWC cable boxes makes me appreciate my TiVos all the more.

      When TWC started charging rent on cable modems, I bought one which is about the same quality/level of performance as what I'd be paying rent on, and for what I would have paid in rent I can buy a new one every year and break even. But I don't need a new one every year, so basically what I saved the first year repaid what I spent, so it's like I got it for free.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  6. He's not wrong by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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.
  7. What cable industry? by wwalker · · Score: 2

    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...