http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/fcc-tom-wheeler-set-top-box-cable-1201698574/
The "industry" objects.
The "industry" objects.
FCC proposes an open/universal cable box -
- Thread starter DLD
- Start date
Actually, the industry is correct. I know, it's hard to believe, but it really is not a protectionist view. The cable and telcos beat each other up on a daily basis trying to outdo each other. You don't see it, but its a fiercely competitive business. As odd as this sounds, an open box would stifle innovation and would not help things in regards to competition. Yes, it would be great to have more competition, but this won't help.
AT&T does not design its own products. Neither does cable. Cable companies and telcos rely on equipment manufacturers to come up with products. In a very competitive market, cable and telco equipment vendors dream up new ideas on how to make the internet and television delivery better. Each vendor pitches ideas and bids to win contracts with providers. If there was an open interface, it would become the lowest common denominator. There would be no reason to compete with new ideas as there would be one standard.
A standard box would give you....... Well, ..... it reminds me of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRKwriprYw
AT&T does not design its own products. Neither does cable. Cable companies and telcos rely on equipment manufacturers to come up with products. In a very competitive market, cable and telco equipment vendors dream up new ideas on how to make the internet and television delivery better. Each vendor pitches ideas and bids to win contracts with providers. If there was an open interface, it would become the lowest common denominator. There would be no reason to compete with new ideas as there would be one standard.
A standard box would give you....... Well, ..... it reminds me of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRKwriprYw
cpreston
Veteran
In the end, I don't think it will matter whether traditional cable television is controlled by the provider or an open source. At some point, it's just all going to end up on the internet as streaming or downloadable content, which more closely resembles an open interface. Of course, we will all still have to pay for the cable companies router, unless something happens.
I don't buy into this idea at all. If the platform spec becomes standardized, then any company can compete at producing the best implementation of the device. There will definitely be low-ball companies that try and produce the cheapest device that will fulfill the spec, but then there will also be companies that bring Apple-style design to the platform, and people will be happy to pay the premium for a better looking, better made, better performing device.
It's like saying that all computers have to use an Intel Celeron CPU, when some companies might put an i5 or i7 CPU in their device and offer a ton of additional features that the minimum spec device can't do.
The cable and telco companies are after maximum profits so they will do everything they can to limit an open and competitive platform because this would mean that they would actually have to compete on their service, products, and pricing, which is something they are truly terrified of.
Bruce Watson
Veteran
'Bout damn time. Consumers will like this because consumers like competition. This will force cable providers to compete for what is now just an extra fee that nearly all consumers are forced to pay. This FCC decision is a good thing for consumers.
But it's only consumers who like competition. Corporations hate competition with a passion and will fight this decision tooth and nail, delaying implementation as long as possible. Doesn't matter what the PR peeps say; watch what they do. And what they do is buy the competition to either shut them down, or increase their monopsony. Want proof? Just look at what's happened in telecom since the FCC "broke up" ATT (at ATT's request) in 1982. What's happened since then is nothing more or less than industry wide consolidation, and we're nearly back to the point of having a single nationwide telecom provider.
This isn't anything new or special, it's just Econ 101. The end game of unregulated capitalism is a single corporation that does and controls everything. Sane economies have strong regulation to prevent this from happening. Too much.
combatentropy
Veteran
I disagree with Paul F that an open standard would stifle innovation. Proprietary protocols stifle innovation and lock you in to a certain vendor. Open standards create a level playing field where all can compete on mere quality of implementation.
On the other hand, I don't care anymore. A universal cable box has been invented and implemented and it's called the Internet.
On the other hand, I don't care anymore. A universal cable box has been invented and implemented and it's called the Internet.
Sure, they want to maximize profits. Who doesn't. But that has nothing to do with what really goes on within the telco and cable industries. The cable box has no affect on competition. The issue has to do with access to customers, which is restricted by practicalities. Unfortunately, there aren't any decent solutions to the problem and so we have what we have.
As to an open interface:
Cable has a standard called DOCSIS that defines how the hardware and software works on the cable. Anyone can make a DOCSIS compliant box and many vendors do so. A Cable consortium came up with an entity called Cablelabs who's purpose is to define a standard so that the cable companies do have a standard interface that works the same for everyone. So they already have a standard. No, it is not an open standard. But since anyone can attempt to compete and make a box complying to the standard, its open hunting for anyone that wants to play.
Telcos have open standards for their equipment. Anyone can play.
As to competition:
An common box will do nothing for competition for that is not where the competition is limited. The competition is limited in that there are only so many ways to get internet and television to your residence. Currently, cable, telco, and satellite are the main players.
Satellite - Anyone can throw a satellite into space and compete. So this is wide open for completion. But it is a limited technology that has no return path for internet.
Telcos - Telcos are regulated by Congress. Anyone can get access to the telco lines and compete with them; at least for phone and internet. There is no practical technical way for them to share the lines for television and for certain deployments of internet, if they were to share the lines, your service would actually get worse. It's very complicated technology that can't be practically shared. So there's a problem here. There's lines going to your house and only one company can practically use them.
Cable - There is only one cable company per region. A cable company owns the coax and no one else can play. Congress has not regulated cable on this point. Get Congress to open up cable to competition. It would be technically very messy. The costs to do so would go up.
So there's the problem - there isn't a good way to get competition going. A box isn't going to fix it.
One example of where competition has worked is in wireless. While companies grab up spectrum and have a hold on capacity, there is a thing called an MVNO, which is a company that buys wireless service from the majors (Verizon, ATT) and then resell it to customers at a discount. The price is good but the service and support are legendarily poor. An example is T-Mobile. But what that competition did is force Verizon to abandon difficult to understand contracts and now offer very simple, easy to understand deals.
I wonder if the TV manufacturers will be able to build in some sort of a modem into their models at some point. It'll have to be DOCSIS compatible, naturally, but it should be quite easily done from a technical POV.
And this dovetails nicely into the above.
1) Les Moonves wants to take CBS into the paid digital world.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ex...6-2?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=referral
2) Comcast is going DOCSIS 3.1, promising 2Gb/s symmetrical.
http://corporate.comcast.com/news-i...n-atlanta-chicago-detroit-miami-and-nashville
combatentropy
Veteran
For $5.99 a month? He needs to figure out how to do it for that much a year.
I think all the studios should stream their stuff from their own websites. Want to watch something on CBS? Tune to cbs.com. Is your show on Turner Classic Movies? Go to tcm.com. These "channels" must get their money through ads or charge a reasonable price per channel. If I'm going to subscribe to several channels, they need to be about a dollar per month.
Or, instead of each setting up their own high-bandwidth servers, CBS and the rest outsource their distribution to clearinghouses, like Netflix, Youtube, and Amazon.
People are conflating the issues here. This is not about content. This is not about competition for content. This is not about telco vs cable. It is only about competition for the box that you use to interface with the service you select. Let's say you pick telco. With open source for the box you can choose from 2 maybe a dozen boxes that work with your telco service. Maybe you get one because the channel guide has a pink border and you like pink, who knows. But at least there would be a choice of boxes not just the one that the telco service gives you
combatentropy
Veteran
No, we're not conflating the issues. We've just moved on.
That's going to be a tough price to hit. They already charge along those lines to the Cable companies. ESPN costs over $2.50 per subscriber per month to Comcast. That's a price negotiated with millions of customers. So I'd expect you would pay over twice that. A typical medium interest channel is $.50/month/sub.
You still need an internet provider, which is the cable and telco companies. If you stop subscribing to their television offerings and start filling up the internet with live HD streaming, then they will have to build out the network to support that. Then the price for internet will go up to cover the cost of handling the increased bandwidth and the loss of revenue for the television. There's no free lunch.
combatentropy
Veteran
You're saying that internet service providers like Time Warner and AT&T will raise the price of Internet access if all we do is pay them for Internet, not buying their cable channels. While that may be true, I doubt that they would have to, to cover costs and make a decent profit.
Even now, buoyed by our cable subscriptions, U.S. prices are way higher than Europe's, and the consensus is that it's because of monopolies and lobbying (Engadget, New York Times, PBS).
Even now, buoyed by our cable subscriptions, U.S. prices are way higher than Europe's, and the consensus is that it's because of monopolies and lobbying (Engadget, New York Times, PBS).
Your right. Comcast is swimming in money. They should be embarrassed at how much money they make. Take a look at their annual report. It's amazing. But hey, anyone can be a shareholder. Regardless, they want to keep it that way. So they need to keep revenue up.
If you and I and 10,000 other people in our municipality are watching a CBS show at 8:00pm, then that is shared bandwidth and infrastructure. If you and I and 10,000 other people watch a CBS show independently, but at the same time, the bandwidth goes up 10,000x . The cost of bandwidth goes up well, not 10,000x, but it goes up.
Of course, we won't all watch it at the same time, but you get the point. There's no magic here. They are going to keep their profit margin at a certain level. So if costs go up, so do prices.
Europe is a significantly different market. Consider that each country is the size of a state. The population density is much higher. So the cost of infrastructure is lower. Another difference is that the European governments invested significantly in getting good infrastructure to everyone. Overall, I would characterize their internet infrastructure as better. But their TV stinks. In the UK, the biggest cable provider offers, (quoting them) "11 channels in glorious HD". Seriously, 11 channels. So it is difficult to compare Europe to the US. They are quite different.
The FCC chairman makes set top boxes universal and this is going to make for better offerings for subscribers and more competition? Hilarious.
[edit] - I should re-characterize UK television. They are lucky to have fewer HD channels of crap to watch than we do.
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combatentropy
Veteran
How much is it per mile to lay cable? (Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)
How much has the US government given to subsidize internet access? (Answer: billions)
Are US ISPs operating at an obscene margin? (Answer: Look at your own post. Something about "They should be embarrassed at how much money they make.")
What happened in Europe when they too had a similar lack of competition? (Answer: the same thing, see my citations above)
How much is internet access from the US company Google Fiber? (Answer: $0)
How much is gigabit internet access from Google Fiber? (Answer: $20 more than I pay AT&T for 15 mbps)
Is Google Fiber maybe then operating at a loss, held up by the larger Google advertising behemoth (Answer: as soon as Google gigabit internet was announced in a certain city, AT&T announced the same speed for the same price).
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They have that already but they limit the free (AKA ad supported) viewing to (usually) four episodes, as per their agreement with the producers of a program. What Les wants to do is to have unlimited viewing for the shows that CBS airs. Included in the roster will be all the Viacom/Paramount shows that have been made for the Comedy Central, CW (half owned), Decades, Nickelodeon, Showtime, MTV and so on, with the subsequent association with the independent producers and/or smaller studios. In this situation, they'll have a far greater advantage visavis Netflix, Hulu and Amazon by being able to promote their assets to a far wider audience, etc. It's a long term move.