set top box

You still need, and need to pay for, one of these.

When – or if – the Federal Communications Commission adopts new rules that loosen restrictions on the hardware consumers can use to watch video from cable companies and other pay TV providers, it won’t mean the end of equipment fees tacked on to your monthly bill.

The FCC’s preliminary notice of proposed rule making focused on opening up the market for competing hardware, but that provoked a firestorm of protests and intense lobbying efforts by the industry.… More

Just give me a little more, um, time.

A plan to require cable companies (and other pay TV operators) to open up their systems to third party set top boxes hit a wall this morning, as the Federal Communications Commission pulled the item from its monthly meeting agenda, just minutes before it was supposed to begin.

As crafted by FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, the plan would have required cable (and satellite and telephone) companies to build apps that would run on boxes made and purchased and installed by pretty much anyone.… More

Shhhh. No one else is supposed to know.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s plan to set up an industry licensing board to review apps created by pay TV providers that will allow third-party set top boxes to access their programming is slowing down, if not dead in the water. The senior republican and democrat on the house judiciary committee – Bob Goodlatte (R – Virginia) and John Conyers (D – Michigan) – released a joint statement yesterday blasting the plan, saying “there are many unresolved questions about this proposal, not the least of which is the fundamental question of whether the Federal Communication Commission even has the authority to create such a regime”.… More

The Federal Communications Commission has backed off from requiring pay-TV companies – cable, telco, satellite – to open up their networks and allow consumers to buy and use a set top boxes made by third party companies. Instead, the FCC is pushing a hybrid plan – given the litigious response from the industry, I wouldn’t call it a compromise – that would have pay TV operators create apps that can run on third-party boxes.

The FCC has only released a summary of the proposed new rules.… More

The Federal Communication Commission’s decision to move ahead with writing new rules for set top boxes was made on a party line 3 to 2 vote. But that’s not the way the vote on the final rules will necessarily go.

FCC chair Tom Wheeler is all for the draft rules as written – no surprise, his office wrote them. So is Mignon Clyburn, a fellow democrat. The third democrat, Jessica Rosenworcel is not as enthusiastic, though…

This rulemaking is complicated…The most successful regulatory efforts are simple ones.