New Technology
Relief in store for cable TV subscribers
By JOHN DUNBAR and DEBORAH YAO, Associated Press Writers 15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - It has been 11 years since Congress voted to break the cable television industry's stranglehold on set-top boxes — the devices that consumers need to receive digital programming and change channels.So why are you still paying $5 or more a month for that thing on top of your TV?
When Congress rewrote the nation's communications laws in 1996, it envisioned a thriving retail market where subscribers could actually buy their own boxes rather than make monthly payments to the cable company in perpetuity.
Things haven't quite worked out that way. The retail market for the boxes has failed to materialize, and the cable industry has filed numerous appeals and continued to press a furious lobbying and public relations campaign to make sure it never does, foes say.
Come July 1, the gloves come off. After two years of deadline extensions, that's when the
Federal Communications Commission will require cable companies to make hardware changes in all new set-top boxes that it hopes will lead to a competitive market.At the center of this melee is FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who has opposed cable's requests for another delay. He sees set-top boxes going the way of the black rotary-dial telephone that consumers once rented from the phone company.
When the government opened that market, it "led to more innovation and lower prices and better quality phones," he said. "I think the same thing can be true in this (cable box) market as well."
The cable industry disagrees. David Cohen, executive vice president of cable giant Comcast Corp. in Philadelphia and its top political liaison, said consumers won't benefit from the change.
"I'm not sure it's a piece of technology a consumer needs to own or wants to own," he said. Once a newer set-top box comes out, "Circuit City won't take their old box and give them a refund to get a new model. They have to buy a new box to get the newest and fanciest upgraded technology."
The FCC rules will only affect customers with digital cable, a population that has grown steadily. For the first time last year, there were more digital cable subscribers than analog, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the cable trade group.
I don't care what the AP headline writers say, I bet this is going to cost us more money.
Don't expect CNN to break this down for you. This has to be one of the worst days in history for cable news.