FCC approves proposal to boost TV set-top box competition

[brooklynite]

Source: Reuters

The Federal Communications Commission approved on Thursday a proposal to let consumers swap pricey cable boxes for cheaper devices and apps, a change that would boost competition in the $20 billion television set-top box market while delivering a blow to major cable companies.

The new rule, unveiled by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in January, would allow customers to obtain video services from providers such as Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Tivo, instead of cable, satellite and other television providers such Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications.

The proposal passed in a 3-2 vote, with three Democratic commissioners including Wheeler in favor and two Republican commissioners dissenting.

Wheeler said the proposal is the beginning of an "information-gathering process” in which the FCC will allow cable providers and other stakeholders a 60-day comment period. If implemented, the industry would then have two years to comply with the rule.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fcc-tv-regulations-idUSKCN0VR0GU

[Hoyt]

1. Another good move by Obama and Wheeler. But since it's not free cable,

they will be bashed.

[freebrew]

2. I remember when cable TV started...

the cable companies had to answer why they had to charge for TV. Their answer was because there are no commercials and it was the only way to finance.

5 years ago, I sent DirecTV their shit back. I live in a rural area, hard to get broadcast.

DTV was charging $70/mo. for commercials, nothing but commercials for early mornings, Sunday mornings, etc.

As the old saying goes 500 channels and nothing on.

So, I got a signal booster and now get 30 channels. Sometimes there's nothing on. But it's FREE.

[mwooldri]

5. That's one argument.

Cable TV also got its start in areas where there was little to no TV signal penetration, and the "cable company" was simply relaying TV channels via cable from a central receiving antenna, usually on a hill. You could pay the cable company for service to get a signal, or you could move to where there was TV reception. Also thanks to the decentralized US transmitter network, lots of places might get one or two of their local TV stations well but the others were a bit of a crapshoot, especially if they used indoor antennas. Digital transmission has made it a whole lot better (a weak snowy signal on digital comes in clear with occasional frame freezes and pixellation when noise interferes with the signal) but the prospect of having perfect picture on all channels thanks to cable is still appealing to a lot of people, and also explains in part why the USA has extensive cable tv penetration. Europe doesn't have any where near the cable penetration that the US does, in part because of their centralized TV distribution network - you got one channel good you could get the other three just as well because they all broadcast from the same transmitter mast.

I think the US missed a boat on the digital tv transition. Check out Freeview (www.freeview.co.uk) - this is the UK's digital TV service, Freeview is the marketing part. The digital transition could have heralded a way for broadcast TV to become "cable tv lite". To me, it seems to be that way in the UK. Not in the USA. Though if broadcasters co-operated, they could do it.

[onenote]

3. Don't hold your breath

Last edited Thu Feb 18, 2016, 06:45 PM - Edit history (1)

The comment period (which I believe is actually 30 days for initial comments and 30 for reply comments) will not begin until the FCC's proposal is published in the Federal Register -- a process that typically takes at least a week and sometimes can take longer. The betting among those following this process is that the comment and/or reply comment period will be extended--the issues raised by the proposal include some highly technical engineering questions and may require more time to address than currently is contemplated. Once the comments and replies come in there will be time needed to write a final order and during that period there will be intense lobbying from industry stakeholders and from the Hill on the proposals. Democrats will be under pressure from Hollywood and the content community, which is very suspicious of the proposal. And repubs have already signaled that they opposed it as unnecessary interference with evolving technological developments.

Once its adopted (if its adopted), probably no earlier than early fall, there will be another delay while the final text of the rules and accompanying order are cleaned up and published in the federal register. At that point, a two year period is set for the impacted industries to meet and achieve consensus on a set of technical standards to implement the new rules. But technical standards setting is often a long drawn out process and its going to be difficult if not impossible for the competing factions to reach the required consensus. And even if the standards can be agreed upon, there almost certainly will need to be lead time for cable operators and satellite companies to engage in whatever engineering is required to implement the new standards. And if consensus can't be reached, what then?

At this point, the odds are pretty strong that technology, including the use of downloadable "apps" rather than a retail box will render this proposal obsolete before it ever gets implemented.

EDITED TO CORRECT COMMENT PERIOD INFORMATION. ALSO, THE TEXT WAS RELEASED THIS AFTERNOON, BUT IT PROBABLY WON'T GET INTO THE FEDERAL REGISTER UNTIL LATE NEXT WEEK AT EARLIEST.

[mwooldri]

6. Yup :( See "Cablecard".

Though pretty much every cable box is a semi-customized box for that particular cable company with a "Cablecard" in it.

In theory you could buy a box from Comcast, then move house to a Time Warner Cable area, send the cablecard back to Comcast, get a TWC Cablecard and slot it into your Comcast-purchased box and it should work okay.

Cablecard was okay but when the cable systems had difficulties delivering all the HD channels all the time to all the households, Switched Digital Video became the way forward. There were some safeguards put in place for later consumer cablecard devices... the cable companies had to provide Tuning Adapters for compatible cablecard equipment (pretty much only Tivo and my Samsung Smart Media Player) - and early cablecard equipment like my 2004 Sony projection TV were relegated to needing a set top box to view all the channels or live with a smaller channel list.

It really would not be that hard to develop a hardware/software based standard that's based on the present Cablecard standards. A Software Defined "cable card" could be created as a standard, so it's as simple as downloading an app from the cable company into your box and voila! you have cable TV service via their dedicated video channels rather than all being piped down a single IP channel. Alternatively we could force all cable companies to go IP based and basically become Internet Wire Providers.... leaving the consumer to choose from a bundle of IPTV packages from different content providers.

[onenote]

7. Yep. And a downloadable security solution is what Congress intended

when they mandated the creation of the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee (DSTAC) in 2014. But the FCC allowed the DSTAC process to get hijacked and what they're proposing now has little to do with the development of a uniform downloadable security solution and instead is another "big" idea that almost certainly will fall short of its lofty promises.

[Stallion]

4. See there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans

as there is in the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive which also divide on ideological grounds. Tangible evidence that the parties are not all the same