FCC goes over the top again to battle America's cable-box rip-off The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is to take another crack at breaking the multi-billion-dollar consumer rip-off that is cable set-top boxes by setting the regulator up as a copyright office. FCC staff were briefing organizations late last week on the revised plan, prompting an angry letter from the cable industry …
There is no way to defeat the communications/cable/internet oligopoly. They have too much money and will buy Congress every time. The only thing that would fix this is for everyone to dump their cable, satellite TV and Internet and do without until the bastards went bankrupt. Then Congress might give us a reasonable set of laws if they weren't being bribed. Of course, that's pure fantasy and will never happen.
So continue to expect high priced crap service with no end in sight. Don't like your provider? Take your business to the <joke>"competition" </joke>.
>There is no way to defeat the communications/cable/internet oligopoly.
People in the late 1970s probably said that about AT&T also which was a lot worse situation than today. As for cable itself its starting to finally see declines because quite frankly if you don't really care for live sports on paid TV (and even that is quickly becoming a bubble that will pop) you can get plenty of viewing options through the internet or over the air TV without the onerous contracts and ridiculous equipment fees (one time fee to equip your whole house with rokus and digital ants for several hundred dollars no problem). The market once again is fixing what regulators may fail to do. ADSL sucks for many (upload is dog slow) but I can get it cheap unbundled just for the internet and it keeps the cable companies somewhat honest.
This whole thing started when the cable companies decided that they didn't want to keep buying boxes that had a Cable Card slot - necessitated because the cable companies' support for Cable Cards was terrible until they were forced to use them themselves.
So the FCC convened a meeting to decide on what will replace Cable Cards and that's where we're stuck now. If they aren't going to provide us with anything able to replace them, the FCC should require cable companies to continue supporting them - and further require that to be done even for programming delivered over IP. Otherwise the cable companies will escape the requirement by switching from using QAM channels to using DOCSIS 3.x to use IP to deliver all their content, and Tivos and anything else built to use cable cards would be useless.
The app model will never work because cable companies can choose winners and losers. They don't like Google, they don't have to produce apps for a Google device. Roku pays one $50 million for an app 'exclusive', too bad if they are your cable provider and you would prefer using an Apple TV. Not to mention that they are probably doing this to control what you can and can't record, and thereby limit your ability to skip commercials. That's the big prize that the networks and cable companies want, but they can't move on it so long as people can get around the cable company's limits with a Tivo.
The cable companies are just going to try to delay this with spurious objections until they're able to drop cable card support, or drop the use of QAM channels to end run around the requirement for cable cards.
People will dump their cable subscriptions altogether. Too bad there aren't many good internet access alternatives (cable modem or DSL, both brought by the same companies we hate.)
The thing that would accelerate their switching would be if the cable industry gets more anti-customer than they already are. If they doubled the price of cable people would dump it immediately and figure out something else. It would also open the door for a bunch of better internet access providers.
Who cares if satellite radio is a monopoly, you could always listen to commercial radio (that is mostly adverts with a few songs scattered inbetween). At this point nobody listens to radio and uses internet streaming or music stored on their player. Go ahead with your monopoly, we'll just substitute it with something different.
Amazon is worth it for me anyway for the free two day shipping and grandfathered in cheap on Netflix. Personally Amazon/Hulu/Netflix works great for me without Sling but its an option if I so choose. I like having choices each and every month about what I want to see and pay for and internet TV gives that to you with no fear of penalties. DirectTV can take their two year only contracts with obscure pricing (when does that rebate end and this one begin, etc) and shove it.
Same with Playstation Vue. We have Playstation Vue, and use our Amazon Fire stick to watch a whole bunch of "cable" channels. We are big into sports, so it works well for us with ESPN, Fox Sports 1&2, and NBC Sports Network. You can have up to 5 devices for no extra charge, so we have it on both of our TVs. Plus you can use the ESPN, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports apps on your smartphone & tablets.
Despite the name you don't have to have a Playstation to use it. Amazon Fire TV or Stick, and Roku work with it.
The only thing keeping cable afloat in the US is ESPN - and they are showing signs of jumping ship. Essentially cable is dying as all of the entertainment options realize that they can make more money plucking the customer themselves.
Cable needs the cable boxes to stay alive so it's going to be a bitter fight.
This sounds a lot like the government is saying people have a right to content. I despise the way it is handled today, but I am not looking for government mandated sharing of IP.
If you want to pay, pay. If you don't, go without. If you can't afford it, hold tight - the government will set you up with a free (subsidized) subscription to go along with your free (subsidized) cell phone. Can't wait to see the new "service charge" on my bill for this one.
The other side of the argument being if they are granted a regional monopoly from the state as most of them are, then everywhere else virtually in the developed world it also expected they will be treated as a common carrier and their infrastructure open to competitors. Granted less worried about cable tv myself but very worried about the future of internet to the home in general. Internet is not a right any more than power is a right but I want either fierce market competition or price fixing if that can't be done in both cases.
>I am not looking for government mandated sharing of IP.
I think the issue is that the cablecos are using DRM not to manage content (which is inconvenient enough) but so they can rent you a box to undo the DRM at a cost far in excess of the cost of the box. It is dishonest.
If you could purchase the STB for something approaching its cost, I doubt there would be a problem.
We may have the option of internet tv like Amazon, Hulu, or Netflix, but that still requires an internet connection. An internet connection provided by the very cable company (in my case Comcast) that is screwing us over in the first place. Sure we COULD ditch the box for ITV only programming, but the cable company will just make up for the loss by increasing our internet bills to compensate.
"Just switch providers!" is a sadly laughable joke. There *aren't any*. In my town there's AT&T Uverse, but that's only if I'm willing to pay AT&T to upgrade their own infrastructure to be able to deliver as their ads promise. There's DirectTV or Dish, but those require me to convince my neighbors to cut down their trees so I can get a bead on the horizon to find that satelite. There's satelite but that requires the cutting down of someone else's trees. There's cellular based internet if I suddenly find myself so filthy stinking rich that paying by the byte is no longer a problem. Or there's Comcast. There's no other cable company in town, Comcast has no viable competition in this town (or anywhere else), so if I want a level of service the FCC considers "broadband" then I've got exactly *one* option: Comcast.
In order to get any form of viable competition I'd have to move to a city where there's FibreOptic available from at least one other company (Google, municipal, etc) so that the citizens have a chance in hell of telling any provider "Shape up or I'm switching." With no ability to switch there's no reason for the entrenched provider to change.
So the FCC needs to grow a spine, DEMAND the competition that we deserve, & then take the fat cat fuckers to court to enforce it. YES the government is essentially bought & paid for by those fat cats, but SOMETIMES we get someone worth their salt to stand up FOR us rather than against us. In this case it's Wheeler. I hope he can get these laws passed to force Comcast & their ilk to Do The Right Thing.
Failing that I hope a very large meteor suddenly turns Comcast HQ into a smoking, glassy, molten crater.
"So the FCC needs to grow a spine, DEMAND the competition that we deserve"
That's something NO ONE can do, because NO ONE can FORCE a company to do ANYTHING it doesn't WANT to do. If no one wants to build in your area, then as the saying goes you are just S.O.L. Your ONLY options are to move or to live with it.
It's like being stuck in a desert village where the guerillas control the only well. You can't move because you'd never survive the trip, yet you can't really stay because of the guerillas. Scylla or Charybdis: pick your poison.
How about
just not watching TV?
Yup, that is what we have been doing for four years, after we told DirecTV to shove it. Facing a very frugal existence or medical bankruptcy (the USA is the greatest country on earth....) we learned to live without. Guess what? The local public library has DVDs of most of the shows we want to watch anyway, and who cares about seeing them first-run? We've been binge-watching everything from Midsommer Murders to Fringe. And as people are selling off their DVDs in garage sales and used-book stores, we have picked up the ones we like to watch again at a couple of bucks apiece.
Rural area like ours, no internet service to speak of (maybe 1 Mbps, on a good day) so internet TV not likely. Reading The Reg and others for news.
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