FCC unties cable boxes from cable companies

According to Dow Jones, the FCC has shot down Comcast's request to be exempt from new rules intended to open up the playing field for cable boxes, leaving an appeal the company's only hope of keeping its customers tied to its own set-top boxes. Under the new rules, which are set to go into effect July 1st, cable companies will not be allowed to use integrated security features that tie their cable boxes directly to their own service. Instead, customers would be able to simply get a cable card from their cable company and pop it into their set-top box of choice -- the idea being, from the FCC's perspective, to open up a new marketplace for cable boxes, ultimately reducing the cost for consumers. Not surprisingly, Comcast sees things a little differently, calling the FCC decision "regrettable" and adding that "it amounts to an FCC tax of hundreds of millions of dollars on consumers with no countervailing benefits." The FCC has apparently given some smaller cable companies a bit of leeway with the deadline, however, saying they won't enforce action against companies that have already placed orders for new cable boxes but aren't expected to get them by July 1st.

[Via Slashdot]

[Joe V @ Jan 13th 2007 4:47PM]

About bloody time. Now let's take back the monopolistic franchise rights that cable companies enjoy in their respective turfs. Maybe even require the option of a la carte channel subscriptions.

[applesucksLeo @ Jan 13th 2007 4:49PM]

Sounds good but...the cable companies won`t be forced to provide cable cards so what good is it?

[jptech @ Jan 13th 2007 5:58PM]

no cable card, no customer.

it's that simple.

comcast will have to comply to compete

[Kenban @ Jan 13th 2007 5:04PM]

Cable companies ARE required to provide cable cards.

I think the real problem is you pay a fee to rent a cable box or pay a fee to rent a cable card. Either way its a monthly fee.

[DudeinAmerica @ Jan 13th 2007 5:15PM]

C'mon Apple, Creative, Samsung, Linksys, Logitech, and panasonic... make me some cable boxes!


Feature Requests:
WIFI to other TV's and Computers
HI-Def Recording for football (american, not that soccer stuff) game
Combo blu-ray player
Myth TV / Freevo integration

[Jeff.a.Hogue @ Jan 13th 2007 5:12PM]

Thank god for this. Hopefully the FCC's predictions actually come through. Cable boxes are ridiculously expensive for what they are, and it's insane that when you sign up you only have one (if you're lucky two) choice.

[Porsche 911 @ Jan 13th 2007 6:18PM]

I have noticed that you have forgotten one key word and that is Sony. Since you did mention Blu-Ray, it would be awesome if Sony can make a Blu-Ray recorder, DVR, and cable box all-in-one, maybe this can be one of those high end cable boxes, at least we will have an option to burn our TV shows on Blu-Ray. This can decrease all the wiring clutter and it would use one HDMI instead of three for three separate devices. Now it should also feature Dolby Digital TrueHD 7.1, DTS HD Master Audio 7.1, THX Ultra 2 7.1, 1080p, x.v.Color, Java support, Flash, Shockwave, WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0, and HD-TV tuner.

[Michael @ Jan 13th 2007 5:17PM]

This is good news. Now maybe I can finally get and internal TV card for my computer that can do on-demand and all that fun stuff without having to have a big external comcast box.

And I agree with Joe V, hopefully thew government will ban this whole monopoly of one cable provider per area/complex.

[Joshua @ Jan 13th 2007 5:31PM]

Good job, FCC. And I agree with Joe V and Michael, too, about the franchise crap.

[Adrian Williams @ Jan 13th 2007 5:59PM]

My only problem is Who should you call if something goes wrong Comcast will deny its on their end and good luck calling the box manufacturer

[Adam Hunter @ Jan 13th 2007 6:18PM]

What everyone seems to be missing is that if you use an unsupported box (meaning one Comcast doesn't rent to you) you won't get additional features like On Demand.

[Ted Brown @ Jan 13th 2007 6:23PM]

"What everyone seems to be missing is that if you use an unsupported box (meaning one Comcast doesn't rent to you) you won't get additional features like On Demand."

Yeah until cablecard 2.0 comes out.

[Sam @ Jan 13th 2007 6:29PM]

Hopefully this encourages them to bring cablecard 2.0 out since some customers will not have access to OnDemand, which eliminates a potential source of pay-per-view revenue.

[Jeff @ Jan 13th 2007 6:38PM]

Yeah! Damn those FCC goons, letting the customer decide what's best for them!

[jesse @ Jan 13th 2007 6:39PM]

This is fine if you want to buy your box instead of comcast or your cable company providing it with your service. so instead of renting a box and turning it in when you want a new one you can buy a box for 100's of dollars (the tivo series 3 is 800?) and then when a new one comes out yours is obsolete. I dont see how this helps consumers.

[Jeff @ Jan 13th 2007 8:49PM]

This in no way prevents your cable company from renting/leasing you a cable box. All it does is make it so they can't prevent you from using a different one. For example, I lease my cable modem, but I can go out and buy my own if I want.

[Cody @ Jan 13th 2007 8:49PM]

I feel exactly the same way you do Jesse.
I keep trying to figure out how this will really matter. Electronics companies will undoubtedly figure out what you just have and determine that there really is not much of a market for ownable cable boxes, and we will be stuck in the same crappy situation we are in now.

The only way i could see this working is if basic no thrills cable boxes were pretty damn cheap, while the high-tech DVR ones had better software than the cable company's and still had no subscription fee. But either way, I still don't know how far this untied cable box idea will really get.

[Count Porkula @ Jan 13th 2007 6:48PM]

Umm, Porsche 911,

Exactly what planet are you living on? Sony is the biggest supporter of DRM in the industry. They're the ones who gave us the free rootkit with their music CDs and they're a huge supporter of the RIAA and MPAA. There's no way on God's green earth they're going to introduce a feature allowing you to record media into their cable box. Don't believe me? Look at the new Tivo Series 3. No burning capability of any kind simply as a result of pressure from the MPAA and the like. There is just no reason to buy ANYTHING with the Sony name on it. Ugghhhh.......

[adam @ Jan 13th 2007 7:16PM]

Count Porkula -- Sony TVs are fine pieces of electronics. Do not group the software and music portions of sony with their TV unit. They are not the same.

[Trizero @ Jan 13th 2007 7:42PM]

adam -- Yes, they do make nice TV's. Nontheless, this wouldn't change the all-but-true fact that they wouldn't EVER allow something so free and good for the consumer to happen. They're completely against the idea of burning TV shows through Blue-Ray, at least without enough DRM's to keep it from only being played on the box you made it on. God forbid it breaking..

[Gilbert J. Garcia @ Jan 13th 2007 8:22PM]

I like that the cable companies only defense is to complain about taxes. Saying they'll tax us millions. Well millions split several millions ways doesn't sound that bad. It probably amounts to like a 10 cent cost the average consumer of cable. Not bad for a cheap cable box from a company of your choice. "No countervailing benefits"! bah hog wash thats just like saying theres no benefits by providing competition for Ford and Chevy. Look at the great cars the Japanese make!

[Ted Brown @ Jan 13th 2007 8:57PM]

When will we be able to plug a cablecard into a HTPC?

[dan @ Jan 13th 2007 9:54PM]

The FCC did exactly the same thing in 1980 with the phone
companies. Until that time, you had to have a phone rented to you
by the phone company. The FCC said bullshit and said people
could buy whatever phone they wanted. The phone companies said
it would cost consumers tons more and complicate their lives,
those poor stupid consumers.
All the sudden everyone started making phones. The phone that used to cost $100 within a few years cost $20.

Wash, rinse, repeat.
Dan

[bob @ Jan 13th 2007 10:28PM]

What exactly is the point of this? What would stop the cable company from raising the cost of the CableCard? And what exactly do you save by buying your own cable box? If it fails will you shell out another couple hundred for another box? I can guarantee it won't be 9.99. You would rather pay hundreds than the $5-$8 a month now? Who will regulate the quality of the boxes you buy? And people stating a la carte...who would i.e. have ABC on an off season? Would they go out of business not being able to provide advertisers with as many viewers as say CBS? Won't all of these channels not making advertising money shut them down?

[Zach @ Jan 14th 2007 1:07PM]

Great job. Now the FCC needs to take on the cell phone companies there are several things that need to be done about them.

-limit to one year contract.
-seperate phone and service sales entirely
-bring text message charges back to reality
-bring internet cost to realistic levels
-make it easier to keep numbers
-eventually do away with contracts (pay only for the service you get, not have to repay for phone)

[Keyth Halloween @ Jan 14th 2007 4:07PM]

Cable companies are all slime. I dropped Comcast and haven't looked back. Between ATSC broadcasts over the air, iTunes Store downloads, Netflix rentals, and Xbox Live Marketplace downloads, I've pretty much eliminated the need for cable, and I STILL pay less each month than I did with Comcast.

The cable companies may not offer ala carte, but it's here nonetheless if you have a decent DSL line, an XBox 360 and a Mac.

Add in Apple TV and IPTV from Microsoft, and I'll be able to avoid the cable companies forevermore. And good riddance to them, too! They keep hiking prices, charging rental fees for equipment, and provide lousy customer service. The actual video quality of cable is awful compared to over-the-air HD broadcasts and a lot of the download options, and with TV show/movie downloads I have on-demand viewing that doesn't cost extra, like Comcast's "On-Demand" does.

Everybody should ditch the cable companies and switch to the DSL/360/iTunes/Netflix solution. Maybe if cable companies lost customers in droves, they'd come to their senses and stop being such bastards.

[CM @ Jan 14th 2007 7:55PM]

The FCC ruling is more complicated than expressed in the blurb.

The basic intent, as far as I understand it, is to make all cable boxes use a standardized security system: either CableCard or a new downloadable security system.

A possible benefit is that future TVs can have a built-in cable box that is guaranteed to be compatible with your digital cable system, whatever service provider you have.

Remember when TVs didn't need a set-top box? They just had a built-in tuner that received channels no matter where in the country you were.

The new FCC rule in no way requires consumers to buy their own cable boxes. It just _allows_ that, and guarantees that any box a consumer buys will work with any cable system.

The cable companies are just complaining that this new standard will make their cable boxes more expensive. This is generally BS. They may initially cost a bit more, but would eventually be cheaper as the market for the standard parts increases to encompass all cable companies.

[The Hague @ Jan 15th 2007 1:01AM]

The ONLY reason I did not switch to DirecTV after I got an HDTV is Time Warner Cable in Santa Monica supported cable cards in my TiVo Series 3.

The Series 3 is an incredibly expensive device. A free market price, protected by the FCC. Well worth every penny.

Without these rules from the FCC, TiVo would literally have died as a company.

No one can seriously sit here and say that the interface on even the newest non-TiVo DVRs is worth anything.

There's a good reason At&t went along with iPhone. They weren't going to build anything better, for years.

So, because of choice, cable gets my $150/month instead of DirecTV.

[ve @ Jan 15th 2007 6:20PM]

doesnt the cable company's practice of requiring (and charging) consumers to use only their box to access their cable service constitute illegal tying under the anti-trust laws? Particularly in most markets where a single cable company has a monopoly on the whole cable system? It seems the FCC rules will bring the cable business in-line with the anti-trust laws.

Any competition lawyers out there care to explain?

[KirkH @ Jan 15th 2007 8:28PM]

What this ruling boils down to is support for open standards. Until now, you were forced to get a cable box from your local cable company. Now, this ruling will allow you to use any third party cable box since any sort of proprietary security 'features' will be illegal. I love it!

This ruling will absolutely allow people to eventually have cable cards in their HTPCs - why not? I think anyone whose has used one of those craptacular Comcast DVRs will be as ecstatic as I am about this. Tivo's already ahead of the game then with their Series 3 box. I'm just waiting for CableCard 2.0 support and I will GLADLY return that slow, lame cable box to Comcast. Yes, I'll pay a lot more for Tivo, but sometimes it's hard to put a price on comfort.

[jerry @ Jan 30th 2007 4:30PM]

I think whenever a company says that it will cost consumers more then you can bet 9 out of tens times they're lying.

[horngreen @ Feb 25th 2007 6:49PM]

The FCC did exactly the same thing in 1980 with the phone
companies. Until that time, you had to have a phone rented to you
by the phone company. The FCC said bullshit and said people
could buy whatever phone they wanted. The phone companies said
it would cost consumers tons more and complicate their lives,
those poor stupid consumers.
All of a sudden everyone started making phones. The phone that used to cost $100 within a few years cost $20.


With taxes my cable DVR box with remote costs $20/month or $240/year. In another year, I'll be able to buy a 3rd party DVR that has DCAS . And will pocket $240/year by owning and not renting.

[Fish @ Mar 9th 2007 10:24PM]

BUYER BEWARE !

This will be a nightmare for anyone buying a box and and then putting a Comcast card in it.

I can hear that tech support person on the phone explaining to the customer that it is not a Comcast problem but the generic box they bought and too please call them for support because Comcast does not support third party vendors.

Now the customer gets bounced back and forth between vendors.....

BUYER BEWARE !

[John K @ Sep 24th 2007 5:32PM]

There's a very basic problem with the conversion to DTV that no one seems to be addressing. One can now get "premium" analog CATV service, without a rented set-top box, that includes what I would call Tier-1 and Tier-2 channels where the tier-1 are the basic local channels and the tier-2 channels include such as TNT, USA, HISTORY, DISCOVERY, FOX NEWS, etc. Tier-3 would be the pay-for-view and HBO type channels that are scrambled therefore require a cable-company descrambler box. In this move to DTV it appears that the cable companies (FIOS included) intend to start scrambling the TIER-2 channels thus requiring use of their (rented) descrambler box. This, it seems, is what prevents TV manufacturers from incorporating circuitry to tune into the upper tier channels. Certainly TV manufacturers could build their tuners to receive any DTV channel, but not scrambled ones (e.g., HBO). In other words, to recieve the TIER-1 and TIER-2 channels that you now get in a typical analog CATV package, you're going to have to rent a box for every TV you now have just to get those same channels. I suspect that a lot of consumers don't realize this. Futher, you're going to be forced to rent a set-top box for each digital-capable TV you want to drive. If that's so what's the point in investing in TVs with expensive multi-channel digital tuners built in when all you're going to need is a basic tuner that accepts the set-top box output to only one channel? In the end we're going to forced to pay significantly more for the same channels we get now. Given that virtually 75% of the stuff they sell us now is unoriginal re-runs I don't particuarly want to pay even more for something I consider overpriced in the first place, even if it is in a higher visual quality.

[Shane @ Apr 29th 2008 12:48PM]

Actually, this means that the Cable Companies will be FORCED to provision any privately owned boxes. I work for a company that sells digital recievers, including the Motorola DCP-501. We have a large success rate with many cable companies over America in provisioning these boxes, with or without the use of a cable card.

Take the DCP-501. It does NOT support a cable card. Yet, these are brand new units, in factory sealed boxes, straight from Motorola. It has a built in DCT-2000 series digital converter. Since it doesn't support the cable card, the cable companies have been provisioning them using the serial numbers.

Now, the customers that have the units that we sell have them provisioned, and are using them like they are from the cable companies, saving them money on the rental fees every month.