If you’ve got Verizon FiOS and you’re paying fees each month for multiple cable boxes, you may be wasting a lot of money. The pay-TV provider has an app that will give you live access to FiOS on your TV through a number of devices that are less expensive than a leased set-top box. Is it deceptive for Verizon to let its customers continue paying for leased boxes without advising them of cheaper options? [More]
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Verizon FiOS Customers Say They Were Tricked Into Paying For Unnecessary Set-Top Boxes
By 4.12.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Trilogy Of Set-Top Terror: Cable Box Horror Stories From Consumerist Readers
By 9.15.16
Earlier this week, we asked readers to send in their tales of set-top woe when dealing with their cable and satellite providers. We’ve already received a number of emails and we’re just beginning to sort through them, but here are a couple that caught our eye. [More]
Do You Have A Cable Box Horror Story? Tell Us All About It
September 14, 2016
Between the FCC’s efforts to reform the set-top box market and the cable industry’s thinly veiled threats of litigation — not to mention divided opinions on the issue on Capitol Hill — the old cable box is a big topic of conversation these days. And while much of the focus has been on the billions of dollars the cable and satellite companies make from monthly lease fees on these devices, we’d like to hear from people who have had to go toe-to-toe with their pay-TV provider over their set-top boxes. [More]
Cable Lobbying Group’s Set-Top Box Plan: App That Doesn’t Do The Things You Want
By 7.25.16
It’s been nearly six months since the FCC first proposed doing something about the cable set-top box market. Since then, the White House and Congress have both had their say about it, while all along the cable industry has been lobbying and complaining incessantly. But behind all that, the FCC and the industry are at least talking to each other to try to hash out what the future could look like. Unfortunately, if industry gets its way, that future could leave a lot of consumers’ favorite features behind their TV providers’ big fat “pay me” gates. [More]
The Cable Industry Is Either Incredibly Stupid, Or Thinks You Are Really Gullible
By 3.23.16
The Comcast-connected faux grassroots group created to protect the cable industry’s $20 billion annual revenue stream of set-top box rental fees is now claiming that it caught FCC Chair Tom Wheeler in a real “gotcha” moment, proving that there is indeed no need for competition on these devices. But either this group has no idea what it’s talking about, or it thinks the American consumer is incredibly gullible. [More]
