How Much Does a Cable Box Really Cost? The Industry Would Prefer You Don't Ask (latimes.com) 219
The FCC chairman insists that he is driven by a market-based approach to regulation. In a story, published Tuesday, an LA Times columnist uses the simple example of set-top boxes to argue the agency has, instead, been captured by the industry it regulates. From the story: Spectrum TV and internet customers will see their rates go up again in November. Among other increases, the broadcast TV surcharge will rise to $9.95 from $8.85 a month, and the monthly fee for a set-top box will jump to $7.50 from $6.99. It was that last charge that got my attention -- and got me thinking about the economics involved. How much do cable boxes actually cost? Why do their monthly fees keep going up when the cost of similar technology, such as TVs and computers, goes down over time? Not surprisingly, my attempts to answer these questions were met with stonewalling from industry players.
Spectrum, owned by Charter Communications, the dominant pay-TV company in Southern California, clammed up real fast when I asked how much they pay for the boxes they lease to subscribers. Nor would it comment on how much cash flow the boxes generate, or why fees keep rising even as the number of residential TV subscribers dwindles (down 66,000 more in the third quarter). Dennis Johnson, a company spokesman, said only that the 7.3% higher box charge in November -- more than three times the inflation rate -- represents a "modest increase" that is "comparable or even lower than our major competitors."
Spectrum, owned by Charter Communications, the dominant pay-TV company in Southern California, clammed up real fast when I asked how much they pay for the boxes they lease to subscribers. Nor would it comment on how much cash flow the boxes generate, or why fees keep rising even as the number of residential TV subscribers dwindles (down 66,000 more in the third quarter). Dennis Johnson, a company spokesman, said only that the 7.3% higher box charge in November -- more than three times the inflation rate -- represents a "modest increase" that is "comparable or even lower than our major competitors."
This is why cord-cutting has become common (Score:5, Insightful)
That was one reason I stopped using Cable TV services, I could not take the recurring cost of a cheap ill-made box with a terrible UI.
I would way rather spend more one time on my own box, as I do with cable modems - at least then I haves some control over quality and will not be paying a huge amount over the lifetime of use.
I have to think that a lot of people do not like TV services gated through a crappy cable company box and that is doing a lot to increase the number of people unsubscribing from cable TV content.
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I too used to do that. But now I would barely break even on the price of the modem by the time my service got upgraded and I needed a new modem. So I could keep buying new modems every 4-5 years, and have to worry about replacing it out of pocket if it ever craps out, or I can get one from the ISP and let them worry about replacing it if it craps out and they'll give me a new modem if I get upgraded service that the older modem cant handle.
My current ISP also doesnt charge for modem rental, so theres that t
Re: This is why cord-cutting has become common (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a big thing. Out here they charge $10 a month for the box, when a quality modem is $90. They use bundled modem + router boxes, and the routers are awful, they're missing standard features, they can't cope with more than one Xbox running at once, for instance.
Luckily we've got fiber now, and despite having specialty hardware and no competition they don't pull these games with "rental fees" and shit.
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I used to do keep the ISP supplied router in its box and use my own until I upgraded to gigabit fibre. The supplied router for that was a halfway decent fritzbox. They're kind of forced to supply something good with those speeds, as the crappy routers can't keep up with the packet rate. Now the ubiquity router sits in a box.
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> But now I would barely break even on the price of the modem by the time my service got upgraded and I needed a new modem.
> So I could keep buying new modems every 4-5 years,
Huh??
DOCSIS 3.0 was released August 2006. I'm not sure when cable companies allowed customers to use their own cable modem but its been at least 5 years.
A basic DOCSIS 3.0 modem was like $70 a few years back. Your cable company charges you a rental fee of ~ $10/month so buying your own cable modem would pay for itself within a
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I would way rather spend more one time on my own box, as I do with cable modems - at least then I haves some control over quality and will not be paying a huge amount over the lifetime of use.
On the other hand, if you have your own STB it will likely not have the STB functions like On Demand or whatever your cable company calls it, and if it breaks you cannot just walk into a local office and get a new one free. You probably also don't have a lot of control over the UI.
I have my own -- SiliconDust Home Run Pro I think it is. An 'm' style cableCard to get three channels at once. But if it breaks I will have to buy another one. And the SD UI really sucks.
I have to think that a lot of people do not like TV services gated through a crappy cable company box and that is doing a lot to increase the number of people unsubscribing from cable TV content.
The box is probably pretty low on the list
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I have my own -- SiliconDust Home Run Pro I think it is. An 'm' style cableCard to get three channels at once. But if it breaks I will have to buy another one.
For several years, I was using a MythTV system I built that could record 3 channels, but it only had SD tuner cards -- which was fine for me. Cox switched to digital only and I thought about updating my system to use a SiliconDust unit and CableCard, but Cox has a spotty record in several ares of the country of randomly enabling the CC bits [wikipedia.org] and I didn't want to mess with it. I ended up buying a 1TB TiVo BOLT w/4 tuners and am pretty happy with it. A friend has a Roamio w/6 tuners and 2 Mini Tivo units and
Re: This is why cord-cutting has become common (Score:2)
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My TV has on-demand features like BBC iPlayer and ITV Player.
I only got the cable STB because it was 20 quid a year more than broadband on its own. I guess they are hoping that I spend more money on pay-per-view or something.
The box is total crap, I can't believe how bad it is. It's actually slower than the last one I had over a decade ago. Takes 10 minutes to start up (no exaggeration) and the menus are slow and unresponsive. The TV guide in particular lags like hell. The cheap LG TV I have it connected to
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Re:This is why cord-cutting has become common (Score:4, Informative)
A channel change means frequency change for the analog tuner, dynamic gain adjustment, sync to the MPEG transport stream, sync up the decryption hardware, start extracting the particular content stream, wait for a B frame to come along, and finally start putting up the image. All spec'ed out by the standards bodies 25 years ago.
Change it? It took more than a decade of lobbying to get the FCC to approve dropping analog NTSC carriage.
We all know the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
They are making scads of cash on these things and the price goes up because they need more and more revenue because the cord cutters are killing the top line.
Personally, I use only a cable card, which runs $4/month and get up to 3 channels of TV at a time. Still this is highway robbery, Cable Cards only cost a few hundred dollars and I know they have a pile of them just sitting there and they charge enough just for service to more than pay for this.
Re:They need more and more revenue (Score:5, Insightful)
Although CEO pay is certainly astronomical, there used to be public policy after the AT&T breakup to encourage customer premises equipment (CPE). Your own landline phone. The cable or set top box was an exception to owning your own stuff until sufficient commotion was made to let people have their own stuff.
If you have cable, you can very likely get your own stuff. Your local big box electronics retailer knows which one works with which provider in your area. It's fine to rob that provider of their insane rental monthly charges for cheapo routers, which is the point of the post.
And yes, they will nickel and dime their clientele because it beefs up the bottom line and pleases Wall Street and stockholders. This is not about consumers anymore, this is about a bought-off FCC and elected government in the USA. Ask questions, then: Vote.
Comparables (Score:5, Informative)
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^I should have said manufacture cost, not wholesale.
Yep, which makes the wholesale cost about double that $70... Then the cable company adds to that, custom and licensed software which adds another $70 per unit so you are at $140 per unit. Add custom branding to the equipment, packing materials, user manuals, throw in a remote control and some cables and you can be wholesale $200 easy.. Which, you double to retail. So $400 is a fair retail price. Add profit to that and we are at $600, which seems to be the sweet spot for what they charge for these things
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Re: Comparables (Score:2, Informative)
I used to work for a cable company, a large one. The cost of the boxes varies by features and manufacturer and how many the company purchases in a batch. But roughly speaking:
A basic single tuner Adaptor with limited output ports is around $40. A full blown set top box with two tuners and multiple outputs (i.e. hdmi, component, a dedicated audio, etc.) is closer to $100 . A DVR can be anywhere from $150 up to $400 depending on if it has 3 or 4 tuners, and the size of the internal HDDs.
But that's only part o
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Or you can buy a kodi box for $40 which does fundamentally the same things.
So $40-80 retail feels a sensible price - or about 10 months rental. Yep, it's a rip-off.
peenies (Score:2)
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On the storage end of things, they spend very little most STB's had like 20GB's in them when I was working for the cable company. I think the new at the time HD boxes had 40GB hard drives. Considering at the time 1TB drives on the PC where getting common at the time.
I understand why they had such small drives but it was still frustrating to me, my wife would fill the entire drive on 2 DVR's and I would get nothing... If the drives where larger maybe things would have been better for me!!! lol
Now I just use
Re: peenies (Score:2)
Per unit.
In bulk, assume 1% of those costs. Mass production versus one-off. Not even wholesale, no middleman. No seller's costs to eBay. Transport covers thousands or tens of thousands, so divide by same to get what is added for each.
And those PSUs are most certainly cheap. They have a short MTBF because they pull a Sinclair.
About ~$80 (Score:2)
The cable boxes can't be that powerful for as slow as they are.
Need some extra ports thou.
Market-based Approach (Score:5, Funny)
So, what's the going price for an FCC chairman?
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So, what's the going price for an FCC chairman?
About $3.50 [knowyourmeme.com] ...
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Re: Market-based Approach (Score:2)
Thought it was $6.66 - you saying they lied to me?
"Clammed up real fast" (Score:2)
How much do cable boxes actually cost? Why do their monthly fees keep going up when the cost of similar technology, such as TVs and computers, goes down over time? Not surprisingly, my attempts to answer these questions were met with stonewalling from industry players. Spectrum... clammed up real fast when I asked how much they pay for the boxes they lease to subscribers.
Also think about this: the cost of computing devices (and clothing, and food) has been consuming a smaller and smaller fraction of the average family's income as the years go by.
But the one expenditure that bucks this trend is the cost of government. It has consumed a larger and larger fraction of the average family's income.
Since government uses technology to provide services, one would think falling IT costs would in turn reduce the cost of government.
Advocates of big government clam up real fast when I
Re: "Clammed up real fast" (Score:2)
The cost of government is irrelevant. It's what you get.
If you get free health, free mental health, cheap fast mass transit, prisons that don't create criminals, free education and a police force that tackles crime rather than causes it, it's worth more than a government that does none of the above.
Cheap government advocates shut up when I point this out.
Right in the first sentence of the summary (Score:3, Informative)
The FCC chairman insists that he is driven by a market-based approach to regulation.
Oh, he is driven by a market-based approach. Whatever the market will bear that allows more money to be funneled directly to his and his crony's pockets is what he'll let slide. If he were smart enough to realize that there's a tipping point as you up the ante where people will stop paying in, he might have a different outlook, but he's a typical politician/businessman and sees the next quarter only. And he can only calculate the next quarter by taking the direct results of the previous quarter and multiplying them by whatever increased price has been decided on. Nobody ever thinks about the potential for the market to shrink, despite countless years of evidence that this market is, in fact, shrinking.
Re: Right in the first sentence of the summary (Score:2)
I thought it meant the market drove him to the magic tree cash dispensor.
Comcast won't give a static IP without their modem (Score:5, Informative)
Had this issue pop up recently.
A few years back customer opens shop. After 3 shitty comcrap modems, we buy our own. Comcast at the time has no issue, we have a static IP set and it's set for 3 years. FF to last week. Customer can't connect via VPN, lotta other people depending on that static IP can't connect. I call comcast and they start troubleshooting.
Apparently they changed their policy. No static IP if the customer is using their own modem. Nope, we can't have our old IP back, big FU. We have to pay $19.95@mo + $10 modem lease to get a static from them now. Never mind that this is a bonafide business account. Cable companies are worse than lawyers and politicians, and that's a pretty low bar as is.
Re:Comcast won't give a static IP without their mo (Score:5, Informative)
Charter (Spectrum) is worse. No static IP without a business account. No customer-owned modems allowed for business accounts at all. They claim it's to "maintain the quality of their business network" as if they're using different channels or nodes for business customers.
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Ya same thing with comcast/xfinity. Just another way to milk us. I wish when municipalities allow these jokers to use our poles that they'd have the foresight to think about this kind of situation. It'd be like AOL saying you can't use any HAYES compatible on their dial up. Absolutely no reason for this.
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It'd be like AOL saying you can't use any HAYES compatible on their dial up.
It wasn't until 1968 [wikipedia.org] that AT&T allowed you to use any modem/phone/device but theirs on the telephone network.
Every ISP is worse than the one that preceeded it (Score:2)
Re:Comcast won't give a static IP without their mo (Score:5, Interesting)
. No customer-owned modems allowed for business accounts at all. They claim it's to "maintain the quality of their business network"
I've got Comcast Business, with a force-rented modem. I understand that it's actually for support -- if you call with a problem as a business customer, you want it fixed. And they don't want to futz with yet ANOTHER modem, and what's it's password, and what do you mean you don't know?
/24 network. Not that it bothered him at all, but apparently no one else bothers to do so.
Besides, if you're a "business customer" then that's just another ongoing cost of doing business, no big. This way they know *everything* up past the demarc to your edge of the network and they know EXACTLY what to expect once they get there.
They also give you (most of) the controls for it as well, so you can make reasonable changes. One of the techs was surprised that I had changed from their default
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Actually, they know all the client devices connected as well.
I was experiencing an outage a few weeks ago. My systems are really stable, so I assumed it was Comcast's fault. I rebooted their router/modem, that didn't fix it. I called in and had them reset it remotely through the automatic system. No joy.
Called back and spoke with someone who could actually help. For once I wasn't an asshole and asked for help nicely. Learned long ago that about 10% of the time, I'm wrong, so best to be nice. She connecte
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Comcast allows you a modem. In Charter territory, the forced modem is a modem/router. This is where the problem comes in, honestly.
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Their residential modems are junk. I have residential service and bought my own modem to avoid the dropouts I was getting with theirs.
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Yes - this is one thing I give them points for. And it makes Asterisk happy. Every time my IP would change, my SIP provider would reject me as a duplicate registration. But Charter is using junk for modems. I had a terrible Technicolor modem that I bought a faster modem with more channels to replace. It actually had more downstream channels available than what Charter modems did, but oddly Charter does provision those extra channels. So I have some lanes on the highway practically to myself.
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I avoid Comcast like the plague. Cut the cord years ago. Even back then there was a line of people returning equipment. Lucky for me I have an internet provider alternative. Comcast business model is based on raising prices without offering anything new. Their expertise is in inventing new fees or claiming taxes have doubled or even tripled month to month and calling customers cheap - "it's less than a $1, what's the big deal?". My cable bill always increased between $0.10 to $1.99 per month every month (us
should file an fcc complaint (Score:2)
should file an fcc complaint
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/t... [ecfr.gov])
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Haven't done it in a while (Score:2)
Anyway, anyone done it more recently? I doubt it's changed much.
Live in LA TWC Ripped Us Off with Cable Modem Rent (Score:2)
tried to read the article... (Score:3)
but somehow i fail to see cable boxes mentioned in this text:
"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."
maybe get rid of all the parts of your website that is in conflict with the GPDR?
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for anyone else hit by the same "here be dragons" wall:
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Article 27 is protectionist (Score:2)
For a lot of especially smaller publishers, the hardest part of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to comply with is article 27, which states that if you provide goods or services to the EU and you don't have a physical presence in the EU, you have to hire a firm with a physical presence in the EU to act as your representative. This representative service can run thousands of dollars per year for even the smallest sites (source [verasafe.com]) and smacks of protectionism. The only surefire way to avoid obligation u
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If you don't have a presence in the EU then you don't have to comply with any EU laws at all. The fact that your website *can* be reached from the EU, or that someone in the EU could have your products sent to them is irrelevant.
There are hundreds of countries all around the world, some of them have very strict laws on various things, and yet the internet is full of websites which while perfectly legal in some countries are entirely illegal in others. Porn is one such example, porn is illegal in many middle
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If you don't have a presence in the EU then you don't have to comply with any EU laws at all.
Then you can't take money from customers in the EU or from advertisers in the EU. See "Extraterritorial Scope of GDPR: Do Businesses Outside the EU Need to Comply?" by Imran Ahmad [businesslawtoday.org].
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The article you pointed to doesn't explain why I (running a Canadian website) should care in the least about what the EU says.
GP's point is still valid. If you don't have a presence in the EU, there is absolutely no reason to think their rules apply, no matter what the EU says.
EU: "Uh huh!"
Me: "Nuh uh!"
Result: I win.
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How is your Canadian website funded? If through subscription or a la carte payment, you are dealing with payment card issuing banks in the EU. If through advertising, you are dealing with ad exchanges that more than likely target EU users. If otherwise, please explain so I can describe how EU jurisdiction affects it.
It's like asking (Score:2)
How much do typewriters cost?
It's not the 1990s anymore.
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Typewriters probably cost more now than they did in the (early) 1990s, when some secretaries still used them, since they sell at such a low volume now.
Cable box, LOL (Score:2)
2018:
Still needing a cable box for any reason whatsoever
ISHYGDDT.
Your not paying for YOUR cable box (Score:2)
While these boxes are getting more and more expensive ( built in cable modems/wifi/moca/UI ie.. all licensed from other companies not actual hardware cost) the majority of the cost of the boxes are the fact that they have to replaced frequently. A not so small part of the people who have these boxes do not treat them with care, they put them in small enclosures with no airflow or they spill things on them or leave in locations where their animals can get to them. They are also often just lost outright
Hdhomerun + Cablecard (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
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You made me laugh, but it's oh so true. I recently moved, and in the back of a giant storage box I found a ratty old vinyl gym bag. It was oddly familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what was in it or when I had last seen it.
It was the cable and ethernet card bag! Lots of cables and lots of 10/100 cards, many of them labeled, "probably bad".
A holdover from my LAN party days of the early 2000s. That bag was the equivalent of a doctor's bag. Medicine to make the PCs go.
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What's a "cable box?" (Score:2)
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Somebody who wants to legally watch live political talk shows on MSNBC and/or sporting events involving specific teams. These tend to be exclusive to "Sign in with your participating pay TV provider".
YouTube TV is unavailable in my ZIP code (Score:2)
When I attempted sign-up, YouTube region blocked me based on my Google Account's billing address:
Is it cost-effective for prospective customers interested in YouTube TV to first move to one of the supported cities [google.com]?
"market-based approach to regulation" (Score:2)
in canada you can buy the box without outlet fees (Score:2)
in canada you can buy the box without outlet fees
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How many college-educated immigrants from the United States is Canada willing to absorb over this issue?
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Canada has more or less Medicare, but for everyone.
Just cut the . . .satellite. . . or cord (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a HD Tivo branded box, which about 5 years ago would have cost me about $300 (I can now buy one for $200). However, owning the device wouldn't stop their monthly tax of $15 ($10 for the DVR, $5 for Tivo service). On August 2nd they merged my account with AT&T's RC1 system and turned off the DVR and Tivo capabilities (all prior recorded content was also no longer watchable). After calling them about 7 times they told me their was nothing they could do and to stop calling.
So I did.
Instead I spent my time looking at streaming services, what we watched as a family, and what the costs were. I also ended up canceling my DSL with AT&T as well (they couldn't offer me speeds fast enough to stream tv).
My final solution was to go with Comcast for internet which is about $30 a month (40x faster than DSL for about 75% the cost). I bought a new modem for $75 shipped which supports downloads 10x faster than my current package (still way cheaper than paying their $11 rental fee on a modem). I already had a good wireless router and a 10GB switch which all worked with the modem.
I went with Sling for typical tv channels we watched at about $35 a month ($25 for the package, + $5 for kids channels, + $5 for DVR). I also bought a $90 Roku box (Roku 4, wired ethernet, 4K output, bluetooth remote).
So the breakdown of costs:
DirectTv + DSL ~ $132 per month.
Sling + Comcast ~ $65 per month (plus $165 one time equipment cost).
So in 2 1/2 months I will be in the black. I also now have way faster internet; and with streaming I can watch what I want when I want it. Roku also has a ton of old free shows and movies which I'm still binging on. I now no longer have any rental fee and I can cancel anytime I want with no penalty fees.
Still the best bit was calling DirectTv and canceling the whole thing. Then asking to be transfered to the DSL department so I could cancel that too.
They don't know their competitors (Score:2)
the 7.3% higher box charge in November -- more than three times the inflation rate -- represents a "modest increase" that is "comparable or even lower than our major competitors."
My Netflix "cable box" came built-in to my TV, and my Blu-ray player. And my computer. And my phone. I did buy a $59 (or $5/mo for a year) Roku for the TV that doesn't have it built-in.
It's the cost of cable that drove me away in the first place -- at one point I was paying over $100 for basic cable, 2 cable boxes, plus a couple premium channels. Now I pay $9.99/mo for Netflix and receive free over-the-air TV with an antenna. Still haven't gotten away form the cable company though, now they get $59/month f
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What a joke. (Score:2)
the broadcast TV surcharge will rise to $9.95 from $8.85 a month
This the single dumbest thing, and is proof positive that the industry 'regulators' do no such thing. Having a 'broadcast TV surcharge' for cable... who's entire purpose is to broadcast TV over their cables... is like having a 'flour surcharge' at a cake store. It's just another way for cable companies to advertise $29.99/mo... but it's only for 12 months... plus fees... plus taxes... plus surcharges... plus cable box rental. So after the 12th month, it's actually double or maybe triple the cost they adv
Cost estimate (Score:2)
Add up the retail cost of the components. The real cost will be 1% of this.
Let's look at this logically, though. Designing the board costs a lot more than etching it. You don't need gigabytes of RAM. You don't need expansion slots. These are the expensive components in a computer and they're all missing.
Even if we assume embedded costs $300 retail and 50% markup per layer of sales, you're looking at $75 for a set-top box.
Re: Cost estimate (Score:2)
Correction, to the manufacturer that would be $38.
I am in this business (Score:2)
I've been in the set-top box business for more than 25yrs and can tell you, they are ripping you off way more than you know. The cost of at pay-TV box, similar to a DirectTV or cable box, is roughly $12 FOB China. The cost of a free to air ATSC or DVB-T box is roughly $7.50.
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The cost of a Roku or Android box is roughly $25-30, depending on the amount of RAM and 4K support or not.
Unchanged for decades (Score:2)
The only other hardware I can think of that stayed at the same price point for so long without any value-adding hardware or software changes are TI graphing calculators.
That's what monopoly power does to a market.
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No one really knows but it's between $750 and $1200 per box.
I call BS on this.
If Apple can sell a 64GB Apple TV 4K for $199 and make a nice profit on it, there's no way it costs Spectrum $750 - $1200 per box.
Re:I used to work for Comcast. (Score:4, Interesting)
No one really knows but it's between $750 and $1200 per box.
I call BS on this.
If Apple can sell a 64GB Apple TV 4K for $199 and make a nice profit on it, there's no way it costs Spectrum $750 - $1200 per box.
Ummm ... Actually..
The CableCard (tm) thingy runs about $500 retail and you need one of those in there to decode the cable video. So I'm guessing they are paying around $400 for the hardware in bulk and have to provide their own branded software on top of that. I'm *sure* they have a bunch of people who get paid license fees for the various off the shelf software components as well. Remember this thing does all sorts of things that the Apple TV doesn't try to but it does pretty much everything the AppleTV does. The QAM tuner decoding isn't on that AppleTV box, but the streaming part they share, then there is the encryption stuff that AppleTV doesn't do.
However, they pay way too much.
I use a network CableCard (tm) tuner that gets me 3 channels, then I use an old windows 7 box to run Media Center and Xbox 360's at each TV. I only get 1080p resolution, but for TV viewing that is plenty. I also get DVR ability with Media Center which is really nice. I will morn the passing of Windows 7 when it's finally cut lose by Microsoft and I will likely punt on Cable at that point anyway. My whole investment for 3 TV's is about $400, but it's been a couple of years since I purchased it all.
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So I'm guessing they are paying around $400 for the hardware in bulk
Let's go with that for a second or two.... Please explain why the rental price is constantly increasing? The cost of computing hardware is dropping each year. Why doesn't the set top box (which is, effectively, a computer) rental fee drop as well? OK, let me ask that a different way --- if the rental fee of a set top box rises over the years, what is the basis for that rise? What part or aspect of a set top box costs more for the cable company to purchase as time progresses?
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I'm OP anon from before. The person above is correct. The prices are heavily inflated. I will explain why. I worked at corporate in Philly and while yes I didn't know any hardware folks my team did take boxes apart and do user testing.
First of all it's not one box. There's constant version changes. There are a few dozen SKUs in the system from dozens of manufacturers. Over the years there are many variations of boxes in the wild. R&D keeps fucking with them continuously. Job security masked as "improvem
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Windows 7 won't spontaneously combust after 2020, and if the guide shits the bed, there are instructions out there to convert WMC to SchedulesDirect.
WMC will continue long into the future I'm thinking ....
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Java 6 =~ Java 1.6. They changed their version numbering scheme, so it's only 3 revisions newer. Of course it is still a 6-year gap.
and in 2016+ they still had DCT2000 boxes in use (Score:2)
and in 2016+ they still had DCT2000 boxes in use. Yes the old boxes from around 2000 where still use in 2016.
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No one really knows but it's between $750 and $1200 per box.
Ha! No.
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I've built them and that would be way over priced (Score:3)
I've built things with essentially the same hardware (DVRs).
If any cable company is paying that much, they're getting ripped off. (That's possible, companies often pay way too much for stuff.)
For the non-DVR version, the Roku IT is similar hardware for $129 retail (maybe $80 wholesale). The unit the cable company rents you might have a nicer case, so let's be generous and call it $100.
For the DVR version, a reciever / DVR like the Humax FVP-5000T is about $200 retail.
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You have to add all the CableCard stuff to decrypt all those channels they chose to protect, license fees for the software and the customizations required for branding and marketing. So where the hardware may be as you say, the software and logistics of managing it all costs money too. Then there is the "free" install that you pay for too...
I suspect you may be a bit low on your cost estimate.
Re:I used to work for Comcast. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm fairly certain you're off by an order of magnitude - $75-120 seems much more reasonable for what you get, and what comparable devices cost; Especially true in Canada where you can rent or buy the cable box (but you can only use theirs). The buy option is free and clear - you go to the store, pick up the box and pay. They don't ask if you're a subscriber or anything. You can do anything with them - use them, blow them up, disassemble them, etc.
If those boxes really cost several hundred bucks to make, the cable companies would certainly not make it possible to you to buy it for 1/10th the cost with no obligations to be a subscriber.
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Over here (in Europe) my ISP provides a set-top-box (STB). They usually rent it for about 2EUR/month on top of the normal service fee providing that you sign up for 2 year contract. Long time ago it used to be that after 2 years, the device became the property of the subscriber (nowadays they just prolong the rental indefinitely). That sums to 24*2=48 EUR for STB. The other option is to buy it outright for price of about 100 EUR, but they really do not like talking about it and push towards the rental opti
Re:I used to work for Comcast. (Score:5, Informative)
While it's always *possible* to build something more expensive than it needs to be, you used to be able to buy a CableCard tuner retail for around $100.
According to the old regs at least, the cable companies were banned from providing equipment with integrated encryption. They had to use a removable CableCard, so that instead of leasing a device from them you could purchase your own device and transfer the CableCard to your own equipment. The thing is, very few people knew about this, and the cable companies didn't go out of their way to inform them. The kind of people who knew are the kind of people who are cord cutters anyway.
The ban expired in 2015, which not coincidentally was when a new, encryption integrated cable box appeared on my doorstep -- which was quite manifestly a cheap P.O.S.; I'd be amazed if it cost the cable companies more than $20 to acquire in bulk. CableCard boxes are no longer available from retailers.
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I call BS. I am quite sure that Comcast's accounting department knows exactly what a set top box costs. Additionally, I think your guess (and that seems to be all it is, since you admit you do not know) is way too high.
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I worked once directly with an SOC supplier that makes set top box solutions. We only needed 7,000 systems making us a tier 5 customer, their lowest rank. I asked what a tier 1 supplier was, apparently anyone who orders in 1,000,000 up quantities. When I asked who could possibly be
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the Raspberry Pi is still stuck with 1 usb bus for all IO.
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