The FCC is moving forward with a plan it hopes will put an end to overpriced cable set top box rental fees. A new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) (pdf) outlined today aims to finally bring some much-needed competition to the cable set top box market. The proposal aims to create uniform rules for this hardware and software, ultimately giving the consumers the option of a variety of better, cheaper TV set top boxes.
The FCC notes that 99% of pay-TV subscribers are chained to their set-top boxes because cable and satellite operators have locked up the market.
"Lack of competition has meant few choices and high prices for consumers – on average, $231 in rental fees annually for the average American household," notes the FCC. "Altogether, U.S. consumers spend $20 billion a year to lease these devices. Since 1994, according to a recent analysis, the cost of cable set-top boxes has risen 185 percent while the cost of computers, televisions and mobile phones has dropped by 90 percent."
Of course this isn't the FCC's first attempt at imposing set top box competition.
Set top box competition was supposed to have been created by the FCC's CableCARD initiative. But this effort was scuttled after regulators passed problematic rules they then failed to enforce, while to protect set top box revenues and control, operators rarely advertised the technology and made installations frequently nightmarish and expensive. When CableCARD stats reflected this sabotage, the cable industry then consistently shrugged and incorrectly proclaimed consumers just weren't interested.
With billions in revenue at risk, cable providers are again trying to scuttle the FCC's new initiative before it can get off the ground, telling the
Wall Street Journal such a move would threaten consumer privacy:
quote:
They also warn that tech companies could gain unfair access to valuable consumer data—such as which channels they watch and when—and sell their own ads against the programming. Cable companies say they operate under stricter privacy standards.
And by "unfair," the cable industry means it's annoyed that the viewer data they sell would be made available to other companies like Google and TiVo, and the billions in fees for often painfully-outdated hardware they charge would ultimately disappear as consumers run to cheaper, better hardware (or ultimately, no set top box at all).