With the FCC officially dropping set-top box reform from its agenda, the best we can hope for is a gradual shift toward app-based access to pay-TV programming. Comcast and Roku helped nudge things an inch in that direction today, announcing an Xfinity TV app that comes with as many questions as it does benefits. [More]
set-top box
Congressional Committee Officially Asks FCC To Kill Set-Top Box Reform
By 1.27.17
If you had any hope of being able to get your cable box from someone other than your cable company (or paying Tivo’s ridiculously high prices and subscription fees), you should probably just throw that hope into the garbage bin. One Congressional committee — the head of which has been heavily funded by the pay-TV and broadcast industries — has officially called on new FCC Chair Ajit Pai to scuttle the agency’s stalled efforts to make set-top boxes better and more affordable. [More]
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]
FCC Explains Cable Set-Top Box Proposal, Everything Else It Does To Senate (Again)
By 9.15.16
Election years beget a compressed Congressional schedule. The House and Senate just got back to work in D.C. after a six-week break, and will be taking another six-week break as soon as we hit October 1 (picking up again after the election), so everything the committees want to do has to get done now. Like bringing in all five FCC commissioners for another episode of everyone’s favorite series, The FCC Explains And Defends Literally Everything It’s Doing. [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]
Comcast Already Crying That FCC Set-Top Box Proposal Violates Federal Law
By 9.8.16
Within minutes of FCC Chair Tom Wheeler unveiling his final proposal for reforming the multibillion-dollar set-top box market, Comcast was already firing back, accusing the Commission of violating the law and hinting at a legal challenge to come. [More]
Final FCC Set-Top Box Proposal: Free Apps And Integrated Search For All
By 9.8.16
Remember how earlier this week the rumor mill had it that the FCC’s long-awaited final set-top box proposal was due out this week? The gossips were right; chairman Tom Wheeler’s office circulated it today. [More]
Revised FCC Set-Top Box Proposal Inches Closer To Reality
By 9.6.16
Early this year, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler put forth a proposal: how about doing away with those set-top boxes you’re required to rent, for lots of money, in order to watch pay-TV? After all, it’s 2016, surely we can do better? Naturally, the suggestion became an instant political football. But after seven months of working it out, the rumor mill says a compromise is on its way. [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]
FCC, Congress Go At It About Pretty Much Everything Once Again
By 7.12.16
The more the FCC actually tries to create or change regulations around communications companies, the more often chairman Tom Wheeler and the other four commissioners find themselves ordered to Capitol Hill for some kind of hearing. And so today in the continuing series, “The FCC And A Congressional Committee Argue With Each Other,” we learned more about privacy, set-top boxes, and zero-rating. [More]
