Another Monopoly going down?

[Fanatical Meat]

I guess I don't really understand...I'm on Time Warner and use a Cable Card in a TiVo. What else am I supposed to get with this legislation?

Possibly greater variety in cable boxes or even a TV with one buit into it and no need for a cable card.

 

[SunnyD]

So you'll get a free or no cable box now. Big deal. Expect your normal cable subscription price to go up by $20/month to cover the difference.

 

[boomerang]

So you'll get a free or no cable box now. Big deal. Expect your normal cable subscription price to go up by $20/month to cover the difference.

The finger pointing when you have problems will be great too. The cable provider will say it's the fault of the box you own and the maker of the box will be saying it's the cable provider. Good times ahead!

 

[Linux23]

Yeah I can see supporting different boxes being a bitch for providers

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

It isn't partisan to point out simple facts. It's only partisan when you allow your biases to affect how you interpret or spin the facts.

:woosh:

 

[BxgJ]

The finger pointing when you have problems will be great too. The cable provider will say it's the fault of the box you own and the maker of the box will be saying it's the cable provider. Good times ahead!

Do you have problems often enough you need to call the cable co? I've had satellite for years and the only time I would need to call them is if the box actually breaks. It's the everyday experience interacting with the slow, crappy box that bugs me. And I get to pay for the privilege of being frustrated.

 

[lupi]

Yeah I can see supporting different boxes being a bitch for providers

As compared to the variety of cable modems out there?

It's all about adhering to the same standard.

 

[Strk]

As compared to the variety of cable modems out there?

It's all about adhering to the same standard.

Yeah, I'm confused by everything people are bitching about. We already do this with cable modems.

 

[boomerang]

Look at the features of Comcast's X1 box or Dish's Hopper series. I know you're all hoping for that kind of functionality and maybe you'll get it, and maybe you won't.

Maybe part of the deal will be not allowing fast forwarding through commercials. I've got an older Dish box and I can press a button four, six or eight times and the commercials are literally a fleeting memory. My X1 box doesn't offer that kind of refinement but the interaction with Comcast is impressive.

Another thing that is going on that most may not be considering is the feedback these boxes are providing to your carrier and that the carrier is then selling that eventually ends up with the networks. Ever wonder why you're never getting calls concerning what you're watching yet you read about the number of households that watched a sporting event or to be more current, a political debate? It's not because you've switched to cell service it's because your box is "phoning home". Your provider knows what you're watching, what you're recording, when you're watching it, the list goes on and on. I'll bet they know when you're clicking through channels looking for something to watch and how long you stayed before you moved on.

This will be a huge battle and the consumer will be shielded from most of what's transpiring.

But, having said all that, the government sees a lot of value in throwing the electorate a crumb from time to time and this is just the kind of crumb that keeps people fat, dumb and happy. They'll make it happen but there is no guarantee you'll be pleased with the results and that should be taken into consideration. Very little in life is as simple as we'd like it to be or as simple as it appears.

Somebody has got to play devil's advocate and I'm happy to do it.

 

[BxgJ]

Look at the features of Comcast's X1 box or Dish's Hopper series. I know you're all hoping for that kind of functionality and maybe you'll get it, and maybe you won't.

Maybe part of the deal will be not allowing fast forwarding through commercials. I've got an older Dish box and I can press a button four, six or eight times and the commercials are literally a fleeting memory. My X1 box doesn't offer that kind of refinement but the interaction with Comcast is impressive.

Another thing that is going on that most may not be considering is the feedback these boxes are providing to your carrier and that the carrier is then selling that eventually ends up with the networks. Ever wonder why you're never getting calls concerning what you're watching yet you read about the number of households that watched a sporting event or to be more current, a political debate? It's not because you've switched to cell service it's because your box is "phoning home". Your provider knows what you're watching, what you're recording, when you're watching it, the list goes on and on. I'll bet they know when you're clicking through channels looking for something to watch and how long you stayed before you moved on.

This will be a huge battle and the consumer will be shielded from most of what's transpiring.

But, having said all that, the government sees a lot of value in throwing the electorate a crumb from time to time and this is just the kind of crumb that keeps people fat, dumb and happy. They'll make it happen but there is no guarantee you'll be pleased with the results and that should be taken into consideration. Very little in life is as simple as we'd like it to be or as simple as it appears.

Somebody has got to play devil's advocate and I'm happy to do it.

You actually like your experience with those boxes???? For what you pay for them you could have the equivalent of a nice pc, with many times more functionality. People said the same stuff you are when you had to buy your phone from the telco, cell phones from the carrier, etc.

It's good to have the option of getting your 'cable box' from the provider, but the only thing that results from removing the third party option is limited innovation. And higher prices.

 

[Linux23]

Since when does a cable modem/router have a gui that users routinely interface with? There is no way for support to navigate the many different stb user interfaces that a customer would purchase.

I'd have an agreement that states that byostb means zero support. I'd be like telco and prove up to a demarc and once proven the customer would have to pay for support or get a leased stb.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Has everyone forgotten that just a few years ago all you needed was a cable ready TV for basic cable service, no need to pay for a box that you only use occasionally.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Since when does a cable modem/router have a gui that users routinely interface with? There is no way for support to navigate the many different stb user interfaces that a customer would purchase.

I'd have an agreement that states that byostb means zero support. I'd be like telco and prove up to a demarc and once proven the customer would have to pay for support or get a leased stb.

I think that would be fair, provide all the info needed for customer to setup their own STB (IP addresses, that kinda stuff) but then don't support the box itself. They should also do this for the router. Allow customers to use their own router/firewall, give them the details needed so that their internet, phone and TV will work, but they're on their own as far as device specific config. Like the ISP would not tell you how to setup a VLAN, but would tell you what the VLAN IDs are.

I hate that you are typically forced to use the ISP provided router now, as it usually has very specific config for the internet and TV to work. my ISP for example uses VLANs, which would not be so hard on it's own, but they also have some odd config as to how the TV works. Thankfully someone wrote a custom firmware for an Asus router that allows you to do pass through for the internet, that way I don't need to have a double NAT. My firewall actually pulls an IP directly.

 

[Linux23]

Red squirrel - I have a similar setup with my Fios router. I get a dhcp ip assigned direct to my router and hang the wan interface of my ISP router to my home routers LAN port so that the stbs have internet access to update guide data, vod etc.

 

[boomerang]

Has everyone forgotten that just a few years ago all you needed was a cable ready TV for basic cable service, no need to pay for a box that you only use occasionally.

What point are you making? Yes, many of us remember. The cable companies know all too well too. Cable Internet in part drove the changes as did high turnover in residential occupancy. Having unscrambled channels coming over the same line meant that Internet customers were getting some television for free. The cable providers went to a box versus putting blockers on the line. A box that was in your home versus dispatching a warm body to install something that could be easily disconnected if it was on the side of the house.

The box for basic cable isn't even truly a box it's about the size of a pack of cigarettes. At least that's how Comcast does it.

 

[destrekor]

The finger pointing when you have problems will be great too. The cable provider will say it's the fault of the box you own and the maker of the box will be saying it's the cable provider. Good times ahead!

When it comes to cable, it's not generally too bad when it comes to support for external equipment. On some providers you can bring your own cable modem instead of renting, and you can already use just about any CableCARD device out there. I used a Moxi for awhile and then migrated to an HTPC with an HDHomeRun Prime.

Dealing with support was never difficult at all. Perhaps out local cable company has great support, which I've always said, which is one benefit to the outrageous prices. But if it is any type of cable issue, it is very easy for them to look into it and see where the fault may be. If it's equipment, there's usually other symptoms, and if it's a line issue, they can usually provide a good diagnosis and get a tech out there to check into it.

Perhaps the "other symptoms" -- for your own hardware -- may be tricky for non-techy people, I do forget about that, but it was obvious to me when that was the case.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

What point are you making? Yes, many of us remember. The cable companies know all too well too. Cable Internet in part drove the changes as did high turnover in residential occupancy. Having unscrambled channels coming over the same line meant that Internet customers were getting some television for free. The cable providers went to a box versus putting blockers on the line. A box that was in your home versus dispatching a warm body to install something that could be easily disconnected if it was on the side of the house.

The box for basic cable isn't even truly a box it's about the size of a pack of cigarettes. At least that's how Comcast does it.

And how much do they charge for that box? Could someone sign up for basic cable and get five of those boxes for free? Could they use their TV remote or do they need to pay?

 

[destrekor]

What point are you making? Yes, many of us remember. The cable companies know all too well too. Cable Internet in part drove the changes as did high turnover in residential occupancy. Having unscrambled channels coming over the same line meant that Internet customers were getting some television for free. The cable providers went to a box versus putting blockers on the line. A box that was in your home versus dispatching a warm body to install something that could be easily disconnected if it was on the side of the house.

The box for basic cable isn't even truly a box it's about the size of a pack of cigarettes. At least that's how Comcast does it.

I cannot really blame the cable industry from moving away from Clear-QAM support. That was an old mandate that they had to provide public access channels in Clear-QAM on their lines to anyone that had an activated cable drop (which included internet with no cable package). But it honestly made no sense. It was nice while it lasted, certainly, but all those channels are provided through ATSC OTA tuners, so they took nothing away from people who were essentially taking advantage of the cable mandate. That was an old mandate that essentially stemmed from the era when cable was essentially a means of delivering OTA to people without antennas, and more reliably. But cable has evolved way, way beyond that.

But I think part of the move away from those wide-open channels also involved the move to pure digital, killing off analog to free up a ton of bandwidth on the cable lines. I'm fairly sure most of the cable industry, when meeting that mandate, was doing so with full-analog broadcasts. It may have been digital and HD on some channels, easily evident when there were subchannels present (11-2 as an example), but plenty of channels that were also provided, at least here, were still single-channel analog.

I thought more was involved but after a little research, it was still the same to the TV. But it seems that at least some cable providers used the opportunity to get rid of Clear QAM support while, at the same time, removing all the old analog channels to provide more carrier channels to utilize for digital video or data.

Here, they didn't roll out the digital adapters for TVs until that area moved to entirely digital, they didn't just blanket encrypt all the public channels in one fell swoop.

(this has provided me an excuse to further read into the actual underlying cable signals and technology. I like it. )

 

[JoeBleed]

I'd have an agreement that states that byostb means zero support. I'd be like telco and prove up to a demarc and once proven the customer would have to pay for support or get a leased stb.

I believe that's the way it was in the analog cable era after the FCC nixed the cable box entanglement. At least it was at my parents house and their cable provider. They probably knew from past experience, if they were going to screw you on rental fees, they had to own the whole cable plant inside and out.

even as a little kid i remember when we first got cable. the tech ran everything, setup the box and left. anytime they had a problem they tech would come inside to check the one outlet we had. granted, i can't say for sure if they charged for this, but i think i would have heard my dad gripe about it if they did. many years later (after the cable box died out), i know they'd like to try and blame inside wiring for the many problems we had, but would not come in and check it.

 

[dank69]

What point are you making? Yes, many of us remember. The cable companies know all too well too. Cable Internet in part drove the changes as did high turnover in residential occupancy. Having unscrambled channels coming over the same line meant that Internet customers were getting some television for free. The cable providers went to a box versus putting blockers on the line. A box that was in your home versus dispatching a warm body to install something that could be easily disconnected if it was on the side of the house.

The box for basic cable isn't even truly a box it's about the size of a pack of cigarettes. At least that's how Comcast does it.

Cable companies just wanted to charge you for each TV. It still grinds my gears that we have to pay extra for each TV.

 

[JoeBleed]

Also, here's a thought about someone's comment before with high housing turn over and being easier to kill cable to a house by the new people not having a cable box.

I would think, though i don't know, that if they are providing fully digital service now, wouldn't their distribution gear allow them to shut off service for a drop remotely just like the phone company can do? they don't need to go out and physically disconnect the service. I know some providers can do this based on some techs saying they had to do this before. It makes sense that would be true. All providers may not have this ability yet, but i would imagine they will soon.

 

[lupi]

And how much do they charge for that box? Could someone sign up for basic cable and get five of those boxes for free? Could they use their TV remote or do they need to pay?

From my memory of a long time ago, when things like HBO were first offered you had to have a box installed to descramble the signal and I don't believe there was a charge for that.

To a large degree, the current STBs do the same but the companies have found it convient to tach on eternal rental charges on it as an easy way to pad their income.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

From my memory of a long time ago, when things like HBO were first offered you had to have a box installed to descramble the signal and I don't believe there was a charge for that.

To a large degree, the current STBs do the same but the companies have found it convient to tach on eternal rental charges on it as an easy way to pad their income.

Exactly you get it.
I'd love a small HD TV for our bedroom however I refuse to pay $11 per month for another HD box so we can watch news and maybe comedy central for a few hours per month.

 

[destrekor]

Exactly you get it.
I'd love a small HD TV for our bedroom however I refuse to pay $11 per month for another HD box so we can watch news and maybe comedy central for a few hours per month.

You're cable company doesn't offer Digital Transport Adapters?

Ours does. It's a device that enables TVs to get a pretty healthy list of channels, but it is not a full cable box so you cannot get every channel. They were supposed to be free for the first year or two after the operator removed Clear-QAM, but I think even now they are only like $3/month. Ridiculous that it has to be a rental charge but much, much better than a full STB rental.

BTW, you can buy the DTAs (make sure it is a Transport adapter, not Tuning Adapter - these do different things: the latter is for SDV support with CableCARD), it seems they are like $30-40. Not sure if there is a specific compatibility list for each cable operator, or if they even support BYOD.

 

[Genx87]

Move past cable all together and into online TV. After the Superbowl I am back to no Cable TV.