[opendtv] Re: TiVo, media center PC makers alarmed by CableCard-cutting bill
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2013 20:07:28 +0000
The comments that accompanied that article showed that many people are awake.
Sometimes I have my doubts. It's almost comical to read the excuses by the
cable industry as to why they should be allowed to be totally walled in, and
then to make it sound like they're doing everyone a favor.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/tivo-media-center-pc-makers-alarmed-by-cablecard-cutting-bill/
TiVo, media center PC makers alarmed by CableCard-cutting bill
Cable operators could leave CableCard behind in their own hardware.
by Rob Pegoraro Aug 2 2013, 12:37pm EDT
The CableCard-that small slab that lets a TiVo tune into cable by
authenticating its connection-would lose a regulatory safeguard under a bill
nearing introduction in Congress.
The "'Consumer Video Device Cost Savings Act" proposes to squelch the authority
of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make cable operators use
CableCards in their own boxes-a rule enacted in 2007 that discourages
second-class treatment of third-party devices like TiVo DVRs.
"In today's competitive video marketplace, cable operators have no incentive to
make it more difficult for their customers to use preferred devices to access
their video programming," a draft dated July 24 reads. A subsequent draft from
earlier this week drops that finding and cites a shorter name, "Consumer Choice
in Video Devices Act." The bill, sponsored by Rep. Robert E. Latta (R-OH),
would bar any FCC "rule or policy that prohibits a multi-channel video
programming distributor from placing into service navigation devices for sale,
lease, or use that perform both conditional access and other functions in a
single integrated device." (Latta's office declined comment.)
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What kind of illogical contradictory BS is that? If cable operators had "no
incentive" to prevent independent devices from working within their walled
gardens, they wouldn't have spent the past 20 years finding one excuse after
another to ensure that status quo. Including working as hard as they can to
stop clear QAM on the basic tiers.
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The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) thinks that's a
good, overdue idea, citing $1 billion in added subscriber costs since 2007 and
an extra 500 million annual kilowatt hours of electrical use. (The former
number covers operator-leased hardware, although it can be cheaper to use a
CableCard with a tuner bought elsewhere.
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Quelle surprise! And that parenthetical comment is, like, DUH!
Always amazes me to see Congressmen so blatantly and overtly on the take.
The answer to this, of course, is for consumers to insist on Internet
distribution of what they want, as consumers have already been doing gradually.
That will obsolete all this anachronistic nonsense. Even CableCard, never mind
those pointless proprietary STBs, won't work well attached to iPads, especially
not when the iPad is outside the home. That's going to be the way out, not "the
successor to CableCard" that we're supposed to be waiting for. The successor to
CableCard is called IPsec.
Bert
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