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Why The FCC Chair Says Set-Top Box Reform Proposal Could Change (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Hardware costs are down yet fees still seem to climb. The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said he might change his proposal to allow tens of millions of U.S. pay TV subscribers to ditch costly set-top boxes and access video programming online. At a Senate hearing on Thursday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler defended his revised proposal, which is scheduled for a final vote on Sept. 29. The plan, announced last week, lacks some of the most controversial aspects of the original proposal unveiled in January but includes a new licensing body to ensure that pay-TV companies do not enter into anti-competitive agreements. The plan is aimed at ending the cable industry's long domination of the $20-billion-a-year set-top box market and lowering prices for consumers. Nearly all pay-TV subscribers lease the boxes from their cable, satellite, or telecommunications providers at an average annual cost of $231. Those fees have jumped 185% since 1994, while the cost of televisions, computers, and mobile phones has dropped 90%, the FCC has estimated.
the other options are meaningless.
I'm becoming concerned that Wheeler actually is, as feared, a shill for comcast et al. I'm wondering if the net neutrality issue he tried to push was designed to fail, I'm not a lawyer nor have I read much about it. Now he's backing down from opening up the cable industry to competition. Is it possible his job was just to lull us into not worrying about it, and letting the telecos get everything they want?
On the other side of the fence content costs are increasing faster than equipment costs decline.
The most important reform we could have of cable, satellite, and other programming bundle vendors (SlingTV, etc.) is that the consumers should be able to pick and choose (and pay for) only the channels they want, with no economic penalty for choosing unbundling. Right now, a fair fraction of cable bills goes for channels that almost no one wants or watches.
I'd love a service like SlingTV, but with the ability to select only the channels I want (for instance, to address the very real sports problem mentioned above, I'd take Fox Sports Southwest, so I could watch the Rangers, but I don't want a dime of my money going to the SJW Nazis at ESPN, which sucks huevos, anyway...)
There is no neutrality, and no real freedom for consumers, until we can CHOOSE what we actually want to buy!
This is the media programming equivalent of saying it's OK for a car dealer to force you to buy bogus upgrades like "paint protection", "upholstery protection", and "fuzzy dice package", or "dealer prep" (beyond ordinary make-ready) regardless of whether you want them or not. (This sort of thing has been such a problem that many states have outlawed this sort of chicanery in recent years...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
They're only making their market disappear faster with those prices and restrictions.
copy Canada they have buy the box and la carte tv coming soon.
Comcast makes alot on rent / outlet fees and they don't want to give it up.
They need to ban the mirroring / outlet / device fees.
It's a joke the Directv makes you pay an TV fee to use your own TV RVU client. Or Comcast makes pay to rent the used to be free DTA's.
It is the big media corporations (I think there are 6), which force the media bundles. It's more like the car manufacturer selling only fully loaded versions of their vehicles to the dealers.
Tell me a political appointee isn't corrupt? One good thing is that Hilary will drive up the price of corruption so that only the ultra-rich can afford in, instead of all of the 1%
sony vue is needed to WGN 9 and CSN CHI
This is why I am moving to NH shortly. Going to take part in the Free State Project.
if you are in the right area you can get shaw or bell sat.
The biggest thieves of them all.
I love statistics. It is amazing how they steer a conversation in any direction the user wants. I'm not saying that paying to lease set top boxes isn't BS. It is one of the reasons I built an HTPC/Media Server and cut the chord with the cable companies. But let's look at why the statistics here are what they are. An annual cost of $231 isn't for 1 set top box. It is for multiple. Remember when you would have 1 TV with the cable box and the rest would just get whatever the TV could tune in? Well, now we have IPTV services, for example, like UVerse and FIOS. Can't get your signal without a box, so you have to get a box for every TV. So the rising costs isn't due to a single set top box going up in price as this article would suggest. It is still BS and I believe, especially in the IPTV world, that you should just be able to tune in to your TV service from any computer within your network. I've done just that with my home brewed solution.
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