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FCC Votes to Unlock the Cable Box

posted by martyb on Friday February 19 2016, @06:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the key-to-ala-carte dept.

arulatas writes:

Surprisingly the FCC has decided to continue on with its process to force cable providers to unlock the set-top box for cable access that consumers are already paying to view. Will this lead to better options and better pricing across the board as newer hardware is allowed to access the cable signals the way consumers want?

See: http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/02/fcc-votes-to-unlock-the-cable-box-over-republican-opposition/

Prior coverage: FCC Says It Will "Unlock the Set-Top Box"

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Gravis on Friday February 19 2016, @09:45AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Friday February 19 2016, @09:45AM (#306789)

    The FCC is essentially trying to create a software-based replacement for CableCard.

    CableCARDs were an olive branch from the FCC to cable companies to let them still control the signal transmission protocol but have to have a standard interface for TVs (CableCARDs). Cable companies resisted the proliferation of CableCARDs so much that it killed them before they ever became a thing, just like cable companies wanted. The FCC seems to understand that cable companies are unwilling to act in good faith so now they are standardizing mandating the protocol that set-top boxes use. By mandating the use of a standard open protocol, anyone can implement the equivalent of a CableCARD. However, now that TVs are coming with serious processors in them, i think the new generation of TVs will be decoding this standardized protocol on their own. While a good thing, this also means a tighter integration of network based streaming video services which sounds good but has proven to be poorly implemented on "Smart TVs".

    If you are skeptical about the effect this might have then you should just look at what happened with cable modems. Before the DOCSIS standard, cable modems were all ISP specific, expensive and slow which is what happened with the set top box. After the DOCSIS standard, things got faster, more compatible and far less expensive.

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