FCC rules you can get cable through Apple, Google, Amazon, Android, etc

[CtW]

Source: http://nerdist.com/fcc-ruling-cable-apple-tv-android-tv-google-amazon/\

Quote

This week, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that you can get your cable through devices besides your company’s cable box. The ruling means that instead of having to rent the box from, say, Time Warner or ATT Uverse, you will be able to add that subscription onto your Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV and Roku boxes. You still have to have a cable subscription, but the massive rental fees will be a thing of the past. What does that really mean? Well, it’s going to give cable companies some competition and hopefully reduce the amount of money you have to spend every month. It’s not a done deal yet, but this is the first step in what is likely inevitable as industry standards change and people are cutting the cord in droves. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler tweeted this today:

 

Quote

Cable companies seem to be realizing, finally, that many consumers are fed up with their customer service. Time Warner, which had a less-than-stellar reputation, has even started a campaign to make themselves look better with shorter wait times for customer service calls and two hour windows for house calls. How we get our entertainment has been rapidly changing since the introduction of streaming services. Netflix and Amazon have been producing their own content, people are watching on phones and tablets, and even basic cable channels have apps you can get almost anywhere. Major cable channels like HBO already allow you to watch their shows without a separate cable subscription for a fee.

In a press release, Massachusetts Senator Edward J. Markey said, “The FCC’s new framework for innovators and companies to develop new technologies that allow consumers to access video programming without having to rent a box from their pay-TV provider is smart, fair and a long time in coming. The FCC’s action will help ensure that consumers are not captive to high video box leasing fees forever.”

This is amazing news for those who have been thinking about cutting the cord but still want to access their favorite channels. This should also hopefully lead to the democratization of the cable box as well as some innovations in that area. I personally consume most of my television online using the service my cable provider has (Xfinity TV Home) that has allowed me to view some on-demand and live content, but this ruling will enable much more than that. 

[PlayStation 2]

yes

[Deaco]

Good riddance i say. hopefully Australia follows on this soon because my $100 phone has more performance than the box Foxtel are renting out. The damn thing freezes on every button press. not fun.

[SuperCookie78]

I'm so happy right now. does this mean we don't need a stupid cable card anymore for htpc's? 

[ivan134]

But, but, when there's a monopoly, companies set the right price otherwise people won't buy their products.

/s

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, ivan134 said:

But, but, when there's a monopoly, companies set the right price otherwise people won't buy their products.

/s

Well when the companies collude with each other and divvy up a country into sections for each company, of course they don't set the right price.

[Guest Kloaked]

Extremely glad that they were able to move forward in this. I was crossing my fingers for this for so long.

[CtW]

41 minutes ago, SuperCookie78 said:

I'm so happy right now. does this mean we don't need a stupid cable card anymore for htpc's? 

I'd assume so as the requirement to watch live TV is now just going to be a cable subscription.

[SurvivorNVL]

Now let's see Apple, Google, and Amazon providing T.V., and then Internet.  Gimme nationwide fiber from either of them at competitive prices and I will be happy.

[Trik'Stari]

Get rekt DirectTV

 

A thought for @LinusTech Will we be able to build our own DVR boxes, with reasonable amounts of storage, and the ability to record more than two programs at once (without having to watch one of said programs)?

 

Our DirecTV box maybe records a hundred hours of TV total, and you can only record two programs at once. One of them has to be the "on screen channel". Meaning you basically have to be watching it.

[patrickjp93]

4 hours ago, ivan134 said:

But, but, when there's a monopoly, companies set the right price otherwise people won't buy their products.

/s

If you're going to make fun of economic theory, at least know what you're quoting/saying. Even monopolies have to incentivize buyers. That comes down to addressing needs of various market segments at prices which are optimal to maximize TOTAL profit (not profit per item as some would have you believe). What is this magical price? It's where their known marginal cost curve meets their theoretical (based on market demand research) marginal revenue curve. Monopolies cannot just set prices however arbitrarily high you can imagine. They would end up losing out on profits which would anger shareholders which would disincentivize other investors from bringing in new money, etc..

 

Generally you have 2 kinds of markets: elastic demand and inelastic demand. Elastic demand markets consist of non-life-essential commodities and luxuries. Inelastic demand markets consist of necessities be it food, life-saving drugs, etc.. If you sell in an elastic market, raising prices at all will have a visible effect on declining sales numbers. Dropping prices will increase sales visibly. For inelastic markets, big swings in price do not have such effects. Sales barely moves, as demand is fairly constant, and the items aren't called necessities without reason. It's in these rare instances of inelastic demand monopoly situations that government should step in and (in a perfect world) always bust up the monopoly into multiple companies or at the very least forcibly revoke their ability to have exclusive rights to their key patents. For elastic-demand markets, products have to improve for people to be willing to buy, and the price has to be fair to the consumer to be willing to part with money. This is why complaining about Intel as a virtual monopoly is quite stupid. There is plenty of competition abounding from the big iron servers to tablets and phones. While ARM is years away from catching up to Intel's raw performance, eventually it may be possible. In order to stay ahead of that, Intel will continue to innovate both in performance and power consumption. The news about 10nm delays is not good for Intel's stock price or fresh investor revenue. Neither is the stagnation of the PC market. No company wants to lose out on profit if the perceived effort to get it is outweighed by the benefit. Otellini I'm sure to this day kicks himself over missing the smartphone boat, but Kirzanich is on top of Internet of Things which will be huge in time. Intel will continue to push the envelope every way it can.

 

Will it try to get away with doing the minimum to get the layperson to buy a new processor? Yes. Every company does that. AMD/ATI put the minimal effort into supporting GCN. They had great hardware but poor driver optimization for years until most recently when hardware improvements could no longer be made (Fiji is ROP-starved but GCN is limited to 64 so...). Nvidia took the polar opposite approach to obtain the result that is Maxwell. Intel has been improving instructions tailored toward enterprise use because that's where the bulk of its revenue comes from. It does the minimum it has to to get the optimal number of buyers at the optimal price to defray the R&D and production costs. Monopoly in an elastic demand market is not a problem. Complacency brings competition. Lack of innovation leads to loss of sales, profits, and investment. Even Intel can't just sit back on its laurels.

 

And sorry but cable TV is a luxury and elastic demand market. I've gone nearly 4 years without it in college and rarely even watch it at home. The few series I do want to watch I can buy straight from Amazon for a much cheaper price than a monthly subscription to cable complete with rental costs of the boxes. There are some instances where governments have been bought and enforce monopolies (this is the worst-case scenario), but voters need to learn to not be raving lunatics or drool monkeys. You get what you deserve.

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

If you're going to make fun of economic theory, at least know what you're quoting/saying. Even monopolies have to incentivize buyers. That comes down to addressing needs of various market segments at prices which are optimal to maximize TOTAL profit (not profit per item as some would have you believe). What is this magical price? It's where their known marginal cost curve meets their theoretical (based on market demand research) marginal revenue curve. Monopolies cannot just set prices however arbitrarily high you can imagine. They would end up losing out on profits which would anger shareholders which would disincentivize other investors from bringing in new money, etc..

 

Generally you have 2 kinds of markets: elastic demand and inelastic demand. Elastic demand markets consist of non-life-essential commodities and luxuries. Inelastic demand markets consist of necessities be it food, life-saving drugs, etc.. If you sell in an elastic market, raising prices at all will have a visible effect on declining sales numbers. Dropping prices will increase sales visibly. For inelastic markets, big swings in price do not have such effects. Sales barely moves, as demand is fairly constant, and the items aren't called necessities without reason. It's in these rare instances of inelastic demand monopoly situations that government should step in and (in a perfect world) always bust up the monopoly into multiple companies or at the very least forcibly revoke their ability to have exclusive rights to their key patents. For elastic-demand markets, products have to improve for people to be willing to buy, and the price has to be fair to the consumer to be willing to part with money. This is why complaining about Intel as a virtual monopoly is quite stupid. There is plenty of competition abounding from the big iron servers to tablets and phones. While ARM is years away from catching up to Intel's raw performance, eventually it may be possible. In order to stay ahead of that, Intel will continue to innovate both in performance and power consumption. The news about 10nm delays is not good for Intel's stock price or fresh investor revenue. Neither is the stagnation of the PC market. No company wants to lose out on profit if the perceived effort to get it is outweighed by the benefit. Otellini I'm sure to this day kicks himself over missing the smartphone boat, but Kirzanich is on top of Internet of Things which will be huge in time. Intel will continue to push the envelope every way it can.

 

Will it try to get away with doing the minimum to get the layperson to buy a new processor? Yes. Every company does that. AMD/ATI put the minimal effort into supporting GCN. They had great hardware but poor driver optimization for years until most recently when hardware improvements could no longer be made (Fiji is ROP-starved but GCN is limited to 64 so...). Nvidia took the polar opposite approach to obtain the result that is Maxwell. Intel has been improving instructions tailored toward enterprise use because that's where the bulk of its revenue comes from. It does the minimum it has to to get the optimal number of buyers at the optimal price to defray the R&D and production costs. Monopoly in an elastic demand market is not a problem. Complacency brings competition. Lack of innovation leads to loss of sales, profits, and investment. Even Intel can't just sit back on its laurels.

Which is why I tell people they shouldn't defend companies, even AMD, in any circumstance as its very rarely not their fault if bad things happen to them.

[Sparviero]

When I've compared TiVo and my cable provider the price was a wash. I really hope this new system will work. The rental fees are inane. However it seems the cable companies are just threatening to require we use more boxes or other innovative charges for consumers. 

[GeekJump]

I was waiting for this to happen. Rental fees are extreme at $10-$35 PER box. Worst is you can't just buy boxes out right because they don't accept it (same thing is starting to happen to modems with Comcast).

 

When Comcast introduced their Xfinity app I was disappointed I couldn't use it with of my devices. It worked temporarily on my 360 and Android stuff but the library was extremely limited compared to their TV on-demand library.When they introduced X1 I was hoping it would change, but nope. I can watch shows I record on my computer now but not really helpful when I can just watch it next day on it anyway.

 

I feel if this goes through they will just do the same thing with limited show/movie options or find a way around it. 

Comcast: "Oh you want to use your roku for cable? That's will be an additional $10/month surcharge".

 

And can we just switch to internet streaming for cable? TV cables are so bulky and my house is old so they aren't hidden. If it really works through those streaming boxes it will be SOOOOOOOOO nice and clean :3 (I understand some places have poop internet but it will be nice in places with good speeds)

[dragosudeki]

On 2/21/2016 at 2:18 AM, patrickjp93 said:

snip

Very informative post for a reply to a /s post. 

[patrickjp93]

3 minutes ago, dragosudeki said:

Very informative post for a reply to a /s post. 

I was in a very pissy mood after dealing with the morons at wccf. I couldn't see the sarcasm through the haze that was being angry at stupid people.

[allindaze]

On 2/21/2016 at 9:40 PM, Trik'Stari said:

Get rekt DirectTV

-snip-

A thought for @LinusTech Will we be able to build our own DVR boxes, with reasonable amounts of storage, and the ability to record more than two programs at once (without having to watch one of said programs)?

 

Our DirecTV box maybe records a hundred hours of TV total, and you can only record two programs at once. One of them has to be the "on screen channel". Meaning you basically have to be watching it.

Good question. I'm wondering how long from now it will take for companies like Roku to implement cable subscription apps to their hardware. I am so ready but hope it's not a year or two until companies decide to release boxes that we can buy. I wonder if there's already good DVR cable boxes (maybe the exact same ones Xfinity uses) that we can buy and start using today.

[Trik'Stari]

8 hours ago, allindaze said:

Good question. I'm wondering how long from now it will take for companies like Roku to implement cable subscription apps to their hardware. I am so ready but hope it's not a year or two until companies decide to release boxes that we can buy. I wonder if there's already good DVR cable boxes (maybe the exact same ones Xfinity uses) that we can buy and start using today.

If the major cable companies like DirecTV and Comcast are smart, (which is a stretch, to be sure), they'll just create an app, which is the OS used on their cable boxes now, and just change it to support most modern "standard" computer hardware.

 

Specifically, an I3 with 4gb of DDR3 and a couple of 1tb HDD's. Because some of us want to record several thousands of hours worth of TV. Not just a hundred.

 

Then lock the ISO of said OS, to require a specific key, given to people who have subscriptions, and require a network connection. Basically DRM for cable and satellite TV. How lord GabeN doesn't jump all over this, is beyond me.

[vanished]

About time.  I think a decent chunk of the anger towards and general irritation with cable companies is having to use the all-too-often terrible cable boxes that are slow, buggy, etc.

[Lethal Seraph]

I sure hope this thing pushes through. Even though the connection we have at my girlfriend's apartment is 15/1 for $35, I still think that's overprice....but it isn't as bad as one the back home to my parents place.

[ShaithEatery]

If there is ever a way to make a Kodi plugin to directly pull in your cable subscription, I may actually consider paying for a subscription.

[corsairian]

This is cool. I want to move away from my cable box. 

[SansVarnic]

Well I cant say that the FCC isn't making good use of their new found power....

/s