FCC Opens Market for Cable Boxes

fistfullast33l writes "The FCC rendered a decision today against a Comcast appeal that centers on integrated security features in set-top cable boxes. The decision comes at the end of a long standing feud between the FCC and cable companies over the matter. The result is that starting July 1st, cable boxes distributed by cable companies must not be tied directly to a cable provider via internal security features. This rule is viewed as the first step in creating a market for set-top cable boxes. Comcast does have the right to appeal and has said they will do so. From the article: 'Several major consumer electronics manufacturers have argued that if set-top boxes weren't directly linked to the provision of cable service, they could enter the set-top market. Consumers could get a cable card from their service provider that they could insert into a set-top box purchased at a consumer electronics store. The cards would ensure that consumers could only access channels that they paid for.'"

Good

[QueePWNzor]

Cable companies are right now huge monstrosities, leaving no space for creativity because of their market shares. If other companies could produce boxes that could have new features, like maybe a TiVo in the box, consumers would have better options. And, with every company advertising the pluses to their services, you could have a firmer grip on deciding what to chose, and they could have fairer competition from external companies. I hate monopolies.

Rest of the world?

[Plutonite]

From what I have seen, people in the middle east and north africa have had this for ages. And, on a related note: mobile service providers like Vodafone have nothing to do with the actual handsets people buy from various vendors. You simply insert standard SIM cards and can swap them between phones.

These people can never understand restrictions like the one that has just been removed, and for a good reason: they don't make sense. Is there some sort of survey of the countries that have a standard de-linking between service provision and hardware? It would be interesting to know.

MOXI, as an example...

[jbarr]

When we had Digeo's MOXI HD DVR through Charter, my biggest beef was that its feature set was completely dictated by the cable company. One example is the "skip" button on the remote. Many DVR's have a 30 or so second skip button. MOXI has the capability of having a 30-second skip button on the remote (actually, the box could be configured to pretty much any skip value) but the value is specified by the cable company, not the consumer. The bottom line was that Charter felt that it was in their best interest to make it a 15 minute (yes, minute) skip instead of a 30-second skip.

By opening this up, it could provide consumers with more choice on features.

Re:step one...

[KillerCow]

people that just want phone service at a decent price aren't even on their radar.

I think that Virgin is going after them.

Great! So it will be like it used to be!

[Buelldozer]

I'm old enough to remember when cable came out in Omaha, Nebraska. You had to lease a special cable box with pushbuttons on it that tuned the channels. Eventually everyone got standardized and the various CECs (Consumer Electronics Companies) started building support for the 70 odd "standard" cable channels right into the Televisions and VCRs of the day allowing you to tune pretty much anything without leasing a box from the cable company.

With digital cable the cable companies recreated the same situation they had in the late seventies and early eighties. You have to have the digital box in order to get the digital channels. Which not coincidentally is where they hide most of the "good" channels. Why did they do this? Well, a lot of reasons but trust me when I tell you that the charge for leasing the cable box you need to tune your channels isn't making them feel bad.

With this decision the CECs of the world can get busy putting standardized digital receivers back into Televisions and the DVR. It's about damned time too.

Re:Appeal?

[symbolset]

Comcast and other cable companies have a nearly unlimited budget for "lawmaker education" for this chainbreaker. Shortly after your congressman gets back from his junket to Bali to see how other countries handle this problem, he's going to introduce a bill that makes the decision of the court moot.

Oddly enough, it will be titled "The Protection of Children from Video Terrorism Act" or "Cable Television Deregulation and Child Protection Act" or "Homeland Security Budget for Fiscal 2008".

This is what you get for paying $100/mo for 157 channels of "nothing's on."

Re:Free Me from Scientific Atlanta!

[CheSera]

Oddly enough, none of your described symptoms have much to do with the code. The current approved code is 1.4.2 for Sara (SciAtl) boxes. The idea of the box crashing every single wednesday, due to a recording, really can't have much to do with it. I assume you've swapped your cable box out? The one real advantage you have here is the ability to get a new one for free, so if you haven't yet, do so. The Tivo can't really cause the SA box to crash, since its just going to communicate via an IR transmitter, which the box will just view as the remote control. Honestly this sounds like bad hardware, but it could be a bug. But i've had to deal with the SA boxes a lot lately, and I haven't heard anything like this at all.

Re:step one...

[duranaki]

i heart you.

i worked for nokia for nearly 10 years in r&d for cell phones (cdma) and grew to loathe operators. in the u.s. they completely control the distribution because of subsidies and refusal to activate other phones claiming, "they don't work on our network." they ignore usability and force handset makers to jump through hoops designing phones essential on spec (if you put in these features, remove your name from the device, and pretend we invented all the technology maybe, just maybe, we'll put some in our stores.) ugh i hate them! it's all coming back! damn you operators!!

p.s. i also blame the fcc, because hell they do everything wrong. i love those billion $ license fees which guarantee that only big monopoly companies can enter the market place.

Re:No different than AT&T decision...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I would very much welcome a requirement to open up the the consumer choices with regard to cable boxes.
The most welcome aspect of such a change would be the ability to ACTUALLY USE the myriad ports featured on my cable box of choice. Many cable companies deploy the same exact hardware--while living in FL, I've had both Time Warner and Cox, which both use the Scientific Atlanta Explorer line of boxes--but write their own specific middle-ware for their respective cable systems which utilize different capabilities of the identical hardware. The Explorer 8300HD DVR boasts an E-Sata port, two Firewire ports, and a front mounted USB port, all disabled by the content mafia's middleware. Being able to go to a retail store and buy an HD-DVR with upgradeable storage (via E-Sata or otherwise), computer interoperability (USB/1394/Ethernet), and high-end entertainment system connectivity (HDMI, DVI, 1394) is perhaps the most promising consequence of de-tangling the cable provider from the hardware.

I would also like to see a requirement by the Feds to allow consumers and content providers to chose their packages à la carte (i.e. disallow bundling requirements).
This is what's being promised by the IPTV camp, in some cases touting features like on-the-fly subscription to channels, 16 channel simultaneous PIP (so you could actually SEE the shows playing as you scroll through the guide), and the possibility of having one box feeding every TV / computer in the home. But don't count on a la carte programming anytime soon for most metro areas. Many channels are owned by large parent companies, like NewsCorp, that generally provide cable content in bundles to local cable companies. Supposedly, this is *at a discount*, and cable providers bundle the content from one source together in "packages" in order to qualify for their discounted access. Simple economics teaches us that, under an a la carte business model, unpopular channels would slowly disappear from the list of offerings or would carry ridiculous subscription charges. I'm not saying a la carte cable is a bad idea or won't work, but it's going to take a combination of intelligent regulation, informed consumer demand, and industry cooperation. And the flipside is that a la carte cable may actually force content producers and programmers to deliver QUALITY PROGRAMMING.

Re:This benefits me how?

[Anonymous Coward]

the most important thing you could get out of this is the ability to capture your raw DVB-C transport stream to your PC harddrive,(and transcode it to another format and send it out to your UDP multicast LAN if you want easly), rather than rely on the current STB to only output substandard analogue and so needs to convert the incoming DVB to that format before it gets to your tv (as UK NTL do now, i assume your US STB does it that way too?).

id wish that the UK Govt put such law inplace to force Virgin Media (aka NTL/telewest/Virgin) to open up its DVB-C markets if they cant see the longer term benefits of opening up their network to the 3rd partys card/box makers to innovate and add end-user requested/needed/liked options and in the process feed a garanteed income for VM.

Re:Good

[virtual_mps]

Now, another way to look at it from the Cable company. These "special" features that the box you buy. Why would they support these features?

Why would they? My device's features are between me and the manufacturer. All I want from the cable company is a feed.

Would the software "at" the cable company work with features of say box, a b and c box?

I don't care/want it to. I just want a feed.

The software at these cable companies is specialized. I should know, I work in tech support at one. There is now way in hell that they will support a box they do not provide unless the manufacturer of said box releases the information required. Simple.

You'd think it would be simple, but the cable companies don't seem to understand that I don't want their lousy software or their lousy support. All I want is a feed.

The customer will get referred to the manufacturer.

I wish I had that option. That's really all I'm looking for--the possibility of buying a better product than the one the cable company is pushing, that comes with better support.

Another thing, say you spend $300 on a box and spill coffee in it. You buy a new one. If you had OUR box, it gets replaced, free. Same as the cable modem.. you're takes a crap, you buy another one, we will replace it free. I really don't see any cost savings here.

First, what the hell do you do to your equipment? I have never spilled coffee on my TV. Never. Not once. Nobody in my family has. Ever. I'm willing to risk it, if the cable company wasn't so determined to gouge me and would actually give me that option. If you don't see the cost savings over owning versus buying you need to go back to school. (If I was getting regular upgrades to the hardware for my monthly fee maybe there'd be a better argument for renting--but we all know that an STB with extra functionality is also going to have a higher fee associated with it. And lets face it--if people were really destroying their STBs on a regular basis the monthly fee would simply be high enough to ensure that they pay for the boxes faster than they break; the cable companies are making quite a healthy profit, and can do the math easily enough to know that this "breakage insurance" isn't happening enough to actually cost them anything significant.)

Plus feature wise, you'll lose out.. at least as far as our VOD and such. (video on demand)

I don't want your lousy VOD. I haven't wanted it for the last 15 years that the cable company has been trying to foist it on me. All I want is a feed; my interest is in watching TV, not in improving your profit margin. (sorry) My solution, after I got fed up with overpriced, low quality, lousy service was to just cancel my cable subscription--but I'm lucky enough to actually be able to get a decent OTA signal; I pity the people who can only get TV though the cablecos.

Same for FIOS?

[amigabill]

Does this ruling apply to FIOS as well? Verizon is digging my neighborhood right now... But I'd like hte same possibility of box choice if I get FIOS TV as this would allow with Comcast.

Will this allow TV tuner cards for computers that take cable cards? Which are usable with Linux and MythTV?

I've got a MythTV box with two of the pcHDTV 3000 cards. Is there any way to make use of this with FIOS to record HD programming? Will there be such a thing as a FIOS "tuner card" for computers?