Cable Box Liberation Looms

June 24th, 2007 | by Mark Fleischmann

Coming July 1 is a long-awaited revolution in the deployment of cable boxes. For the first time, subscribers will have a chance to replace rented converter-descramblers with purchased ones. However, some are questioning whether this will save consumers money—or actually inflate cable bills.
 
Before we get to the juicy stuff, some background: Congress mandated as long ago as 1996 that consumers be able to buy our own cable boxes. That will require an “integration ban.” In other words, the security features have to be pried loose from the box itself. The mechanism for this is the CableCARD. It’s in limited deployment, but cable companies hate it. No, I’m serious; they really, really, really hate it. They see it as a loss of control, like giving the keys of the kingdom to their worst enemy—namely, their subscribers.
 
Perhaps I over dramatize. But only a little. There is little love lost between these two parties. Cable ops soak consumers for every penny they can get. Subscribers, in turn, have bestowed on the cable (and satellite) companies the lowest consumer satisfaction rating of any sector of American industry.
 
Between the cable industry’s incessant demand for waivers and the phlegmatic bureaucratic process of the Federal Communications Commission, the integration ban was postponed for—incredibly—more than a decade. However, after years of anticipation and hand-wringing, the FCC has finally set July 1 as the date for the integration ban. After that, cable companies are required to provide either CableCARD-compatible boxes or the cards themselves for CableCARD-ready sets. And they will be required to make them work, something they've often shirked up till now.
 
To Rent or Not to Rent?
 
If you want to hold onto your existing box, that’s cool. The FCC won’t break into your living room and confiscate it at gunpoint. But consumers will have a new choice in cable boxes: rent or buy? Or as Hamlet would put it, to rent or not to rent? That is the question.
 
Cable companies would prefer that you rent, pointing out that the existing CableCARD standard doesn’t support video on demand. True, there are boxes and a limited number of TVs that do support a VOD-capable card, but the cable and TV-making industries (no love lost between them either) haven’t been able to agree on a second-generation standard. Renting also ensures that as new features become available, the cable operator bears the up-front cost of implementing them.
 
Still, those rental fees add up, and in some circumstances you may be able to save long-term by purchasing a cheap box and sticking with it for as long as possible. So for the first time you’ll have the option to go to, say, Best Buy and purchase a box from the likes of LG or RCA (there will probably be many other choices in years to come). Whether the purchase will make sense will depend on several variables, including what your cable operator charges for rentals, the kind of box you buy, how long it lasts before going kaput, and whether you’ll eventually want to ditch it for a new box with, say, a DVR, or a high-def DVR, or a fancier high-def DVR, or other new features—like home networking—or wonders yet to be imagined.
 
According to Mike Hughlett of the Chicago Tribune, consumer joy at our newfound freedom may wilt in the face of good old cable-company opportunism. He writes: “consumers’ monthly cable bills are likely to raise a few dollars after the new rule takes effect. That’s because the cable box born from the regulation costs more to produce, a cost likely to get passed down to TV watchers, analysts and cable operators say.” While cable ops and Wall Street analysts friendly to them may not be the most unbiased sources of information, this is an issue to watch when the integration ban begins.
 
The DRM Angle
 
Foes of digital rights management should note that there’s a DRM angle here, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains in its TiVo-to-Go postmortem. The original CableCARD agreement—between major cable operators and TV makers, as brokered by the FCC—allowed DRM but limited its potential abuses. In the latter category were some especially ugly things, like “selectable output control” and the “down-res” of HDTV.
 
Selectable output control would have enabled the cable industry to simply shut down, say, the analog (but high-def-capable) component video output on the box. Kiss your first- or second-generation HDTV goodbye! Even more offensive was the possibility of high-def signals suffering down-res to standard-def, truly a mockery of the HDTV revolution. The integration ban will bolster these restrictions on DRM and potentially boost innovation in future devices using a single, government-standardized DRM scheme—proving that there are times when government intervention is good for you.
 
Whatever happens, starting on July 1, cable subscribers will suddenly find themselves living in a brave new deregulated world. How soon will they start taking advantage of their newfound freedom? Who will end up paying less? Who will end up paying more? And what kind of innovation will be spurred by the integration ban—as TV makers, TiVo, and other companies step up to the plate with new products? At this moment, we can only guess.
 
What do you think? Are you hankering to buy your own cable box, with or without DVR? And what’s been your experience with CableCARD-compatible TiVos and other devices? Tell me all! More than ever, what happens in the future is up to you.
 
Here’s the one thing I’m certain of—I’ve always found my readers like having more freedom, not less.
 
Mark Fleischmann is the author of the annually updated book Practical Home Theater.
 


Post Your Comment...Comments

Ian Bell on Jun 24th, 2007 at 10:17 PM:

This is going to be a tough one for consumers. Your gut tells you that you should buy your own box, but believe me, you will want to lease one from your cable provider. And here is a good example why.

This past weekend, I had my Comcast internet service stop working. It was about 10:30PM and I was in the middle of working on the site (of all things). I called Comcast and explained the problem and they scheduled a technician to come out and check things over. I have had a Linksys cable modem for about 3 years now, one I purchased from Fry's after my original Comcast modem died on me. I figured I could save some money in the long-term by purchasing my own.

Well when the technician came out, he said the problem is that Comcast moved my account to another "node" and I am now on a frequency that my current cable modem does not support. He says only their "newer" modems support this, and proceeded to hook up a Comcast cable modem. At an extra $2/mo I figured it was worth the hassle of just leasing the new modem.

The kicker here is that when the technician finished up, he said I owed $49 dollars for him to come out and fix the interuption in service since it was my own modem that was the problem, and not theirs. If it would have been a leased modem, the call would have been at no charge. In my mind, I think it's their problem since they moved me to a new node. But this would not be a battle I would win - I am out $49 bucks.

The moral of the story? Buy a leased cable box, or in my case a cable modem. Because once you have a problem with that box, it's up to your TV provider to fix it - at their cost. And at an extra $5-$10/mo that may seem like a lot, but you are at least safe when they decide to upgrade their service, your box will either support it without a hitch, or get upgraded for free. You are not left with a cable box that doesn't work with your TV provider (like I am now hosed with this Linksys modem).

Kirby on Oct 5th, 2007 at 7:30 AM:

I know exactly what you are saying about the cable company. In my town the cable repair guy will walk into a house, look around and point at the first thing he sees that does not belong to the cable company, proclaiming it to be the problem. This happens every time. I worked for a computer store when cable modems were a new concept around her and we sold many. The cable repair guy had about half our customers coming back and saying their cable modem was bad. In all of them, I think 1 was legitimately bad.

As far as I am concerned, that is precisely the reason NOT to rent the equipment from the cable company. In fact, with so many choices out there today, a $49 bill for something that they could have told me over the phone BEFORE sending a technician would simply prompt me to switch providers. I am pretty sure the cable repair people are trained to blame consumer equipment and trained to charge whenever the consumer's equipment is involved, even if the consumer's equipment wasn't the direct cause, as was your case. They are losing on the legal front, so they are conditioning us on the home front to need them and be happy about it. Your story tells of a perfectly executed scam, basically. They change something, blame it on your equipment, tell you it will only cost you $2 more a month for their equipment, install it and, when everything is done and it is too late, present you with a bill and explain to you that they stand behind their equipment, but you had gone out and gotten something inferior. So, like a good little consumer, you pay the bill, which is likely more than they paid for the low end equipment they are often known to provide and then they get your $2 a month besides. Besides that, you are conditioned to 'know better' than to try to think for yourself again.

Personally, I can't wait to buy my own box, but I won't do it until the features are there. It has to be able to do at least what my current box does (video on demand and built in guide). I also don't see a benefit to buying one until a 'hackable' one comes out. I want one I can 'play with'. I'm not talking about getting channels I'm not paying for or anything, but it would be nice to have one where I can move content from the box to my computer and then to a DVD. Who doesn't have an old VHS of a football game or some show we just love recorded off the TV? Why should we no longer be able to do that, and in HD to boot?

Now that the 'packaged channels' have been challenged in court I can't wait for the cable companies to go down another notch. I figured it out one day and something like 63% of the channels I was paying for were channels I would never watch! I'm not talking about things that had programs that just didn't normally interest me. I'm talking about channels which were completely useless to me. Spanish channels for an English speaker, religious channels for an atheist, sports channels for a geek, music channels for someone who realizes how much less electricity is used by playing music on a stereo instead of a television. I can't wait to tell the cable company that I no longer need their box or remote and, by the way, I'm dropping more than half the channels you've forced on me over the past 5 years. Quite frankly, I don't care if it does cost me more, as long as the profits don't go to the cable company.

Jeff Cohen on May 9th, 2008 at 10:32 AM:

Here's the new twist:

I went to my local cable office with a set-top box that I purchased from an ebay storefront.

I explained that I had very old TVs and bought the set-top box as an alternative to getting a digital converter for the switchover next February.

My problem? The serial number of the set-top box was not in Time Warner's system. And the customer service rep on the phone had told me to bring it in to have the serial number entered into the system. Which the rep at the office tried to do. And the system would not take it.

A supervisor came over and told me, "You can buy equipment, but we can't enter the serial number of equipment that we don't lease to you."

Now, even if I bring in the documentation showing that consumers can own the equipment, what does that do? THEIR SYSTEM WON'T LET THEM ENTER NON-TIME WARNER SERIAL NUMBERS!

Michael O'Hara on Jul 8th, 2008 at 5:40 PM:

I just called Cox Comunications and they told me if I buy my own box I will only be able to get up to Channel 99. Is this true?

Michael O'Hara on Jul 8th, 2008 at 5:40 PM:

I just called Cox Comunications and they told me if I buy my own box I will only be able to get up to Channel 99. Is this true?

alan on Jul 21st, 2008 at 8:16 AM:

Cable box info

Comment on this article




Please keep your comments relevant to this article. Email addresses are not displayed, they are only required to verify you are human.

When you submit your comment, an email will be sent to your email address with a confirmation link. Once you have clicked on that confirmation link your comment will be posted.

HTML is not allowed.


Join our newsletter to keep up to date on the latest Digital Trends content like Videos, Reviews, News and more delivered directly to your email!


Plus, get early access to contests and specials from our partners. Join today!





Loading...