Competition? 99% Still Rent Cable Box

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I'm not surprised by this number. Does the average consumer even know there is an alternative to renting a cable box?

“Consumers should have the same range of choices for their video set-top boxes as they have for their mobile phones,” said Markey. "When Congress last year regrettably removed the requirement that cable company services be compatible with set-top boxes purchased in the marketplace rather than rented directly from the provider, we doomed consumers to being captive to cable company rental fees forever."
 
This might be more of a short term issue ... given the massive investment in internet infrastructure I would expect that more and more folks will pursue the "cord cutting" options and there is lots of competition there as most internet companies don't have unique rental options (except for modems which usually have much cheaper purchased alternatives than set-top boxes) ... I think this rental problem has maybe a decade more (at most)
 
kbrickley said:
This might be more of a short term issue
Click to expand...


It's actually getting worse.

My Cable company (Cox) is switching to all digital.
The excuse is that it will allow them to provide more channels by eliminating the old analog channels.
But that doesn't explain why they are also getting rid of the open quam channels and encrypting everything.
This means that I will now need a cable box for EVERY TV in the house. Even the TV in the guest room that might get used once or twice a year.

The real reason is about more profits for the cable company.
By encrypting everything, they will no longer have to send out a tech to disconnect the cable when someone cancels service. They can just disable any cable boxes. Same with new people signing up, just enable their cable boxes.


However, the jokes on them. I don't have a cable box, just a single cable card in my HTPC connected to my main TV. Since the old TV's (tube) will not longer get any channels (I have zero antenna reception where I live), and we rarely use them anyways, it's a good excuse to just get rid of them. Just means we'll be watching less TV.
 
I'll be honest, I never knew I could have a set top that I could purchase. I'll take a look into it. Does it work for Fios as well? I'm only looking at it to save money in the long run.
 
Well, this might be a good market to get into and develop alternative STB's.
 
nutzo said:
It's actually getting worse.

My Cable company (Cox) is switching to all digital.
The excuse is that it will allow them to provide more channels by eliminating the old analog channels.
But that doesn't explain why they are also getting rid of the open quam channels and encrypting everything.
Click to expand...

Comcast did that nearly a decade ago. Count yourself as fortunate that you had clear QAM this long!
 
When Congress last year regrettably removed the requirement that cable company services be compatible with set-top boxes purchased in the marketplace rather than rented directly from the provider
Click to expand...

Is this REALLY something that needs to be handled by the government? I mean if you don't like using their product, then just do not use it. They should not be forced by the government to do something just because the population feels it's entitled to something.

Look at this way. Why should manufacturers of 3d party set top boxes be guaranteed a market base, instead of having to demonstrate their value like any other company does?
 
westrock2000 said:
Is this REALLY something that needs to be handled by the government? I mean if you don't like using their product, then just do not use it. They should not be forced by the government to do something just because the population feels it's entitled to something.

Look at this way. Why should manufacturers of 3d party set top boxes be guaranteed a market base, instead of having to demonstrate their value like any other company does?
Click to expand...

What value can they demonstrate if you arent able to use the product due to monopolistic business practices by the cable.companies? Woo what a great paperweight, I'll buy 5!
 
In my area, TWC encrypts everything except the home shopping channels and a few weird channels like one station that plays only NASA content from the 80s.
 
Ruoh said:
Comcast did that nearly a decade ago. Count yourself as fortunate that you had clear QAM this long!
Click to expand...

Yup, same with Charter. I'm surprised there's still cable companies out there that didn't already do that.
 
I would have loved to have DirecTV with my own box, maybe then they wouldn't charge me $10/month for DVRing stuff... it would be nice if they didn't charge $10/month extra for HD channels but they're going to squeeze the customer dry with what it believes it can still argue is a "premium" service.
 
nutzo said:
It's actually getting worse.

My Cable company (Cox) is switching to all digital.
The excuse is that it will allow them to provide more channels by eliminating the old analog channels.
But that doesn't explain why they are also getting rid of the open quam channels and encrypting everything.
This means that I will now need a cable box for EVERY TV in the house. Even the TV in the guest room that might get used once or twice a year.

The real reason is about more profits for the cable company.
By encrypting everything, they will no longer have to send out a tech to disconnect the cable when someone cancels service. They can just disable any cable boxes. Same with new people signing up, just enable their cable boxes.


However, the jokes on them. I don't have a cable box, just a single cable card in my HTPC connected to my main TV. Since the old TV's (tube) will not longer get any channels (I have zero antenna reception where I live), and we rarely use them anyways, it's a good excuse to just get rid of them. Just means we'll be watching less TV.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of it more along the lines of I suspect that more and more people will abandon cable for internet services over the next decade ... I am close ... I still use both cable and internet from Comcast but if they don't institute a cap in my area over the next couple of years I might just go internet (especially as more and more content moves into both venues) ... I am not driven by sports consumption so almost everything I want could be delivered via the net (although it is not there just quite yet)
 
Ruoh said:
Comcast did that nearly a decade ago. Count yourself as fortunate that you had clear QAM this long!
Click to expand...

The clear QAM was only on the local channels, but it was still nice to at least be able to watch the news.

If they drop the support for cable cards (or if Microsoft stops updating the guide in media center) I'll likely just drop cable and switch to satellite, as without the open channels for the extra TV's or the ability to use my own DVR, there is no longer any advantage to sticking with cable.
 
nutzo said:
The real reason is about more profits for the cable company.
Click to expand...

Not defending the cable company as they all suck but moving everything to digital is better in the long run profits aside.

Something like up to 5 Cable cards should be free imo. I think Comcast gives you one free.
 
Nobody cares you know why? Cause everyone is thinking of cutting cable all together. Which means no more renting cable boxes. Fix two problems in one move. Cable though has to deal with even more cable cutting which I believe is far more problematic than charging people a monthly fee for renting a stupid box from the 1990's.
 
Ashbringer said:
Nobody cares you know why? Cause everyone is thinking of cutting cable all together. Which means no more renting cable boxes. Fix two problems in one move. Cable though has to deal with even more cable cutting which I believe is far more problematic than charging people a monthly fee for renting a stupid box from the 1990's.
Click to expand...
Everyone might be thinking about it, but numbers show that not most people still don't. Granted the consumer ultimately is in the drivers seat even with limited choices, they can very easily threaten to cancel and renegotiate new rates that includes a free box rental.
 
The problem I have is I love the DVR, and I'd have to pay somebody for guide data.

cost of CableCard + cost of guide = very close to the cost of my DVR rental.
 
westrock2000 said:
Is this REALLY something that needs to be handled by the government? I mean if you don't like using their product, then just do not use it. They should not be forced by the government to do something just because the population feels it's entitled to something.

Look at this way. Why should manufacturers of 3d party set top boxes be guaranteed a market base, instead of having to demonstrate their value like any other company does?
Click to expand...

Yes, this is something that needs to be regulated by the government. As these are monopolies and little to no competition exists in most markets it needs to be regulated like a public utility. Not to mention the fact that most carriers (FiOS will do this) can raise the prices on STB's on a whim outside your contract because they were not part of contract pricing. And who is to say they can't charge what they want to?

Right now I pay $40 in equipment fees to Verizon. They drop these "great" package prices out there in the public and then get you on the back end with equipment. And you can't even lease to own, buy or anything. It's just straight rentals - forever. What a sham.
 
Yea, you get your own box so they just charge the same rental fee for the cable card required to use the box with their service... All so you can watch shit filled to the brim with commercials.... And they wonder why subscription rates are dropping.... Glad I got rid of cable many years ago.

Although now they are offering me cable + internet for cheaper than I pay for just internet. I'm tempted to get that and tell them not to waste their time installing a cable box since it won't be used. But then they get to artificially inflate their numbers of cable subscribers.... decisions decisions.
 
Yeesh, makes me glad we dropped cable 4 years ago. How do people even have time to watch enough TV to make it worth it? I've got so many projects around the house, so many hobbies, and so many games to play that I wouldn't have time to watch it even if we still *had* cable!
 
My problem with TV is stupid commercials they flash as such a rapid pace wiping out any thought you had for yourself. Trying to give the viewer a seizure or brand them with a mental image of something they needs to buy.
 
Cable TV going all digital also eliminates stealing of cable TV because each device needs to be registered with the cable company. In college the adviser for the dorm had an apartment in the dorm with cable TV. There were so many splitters on that cable with students stealing cable TV that I can't believe anyone got a good signal.
 
defaultluser said:
The problem I have is I love the DVR, and I'd have to pay somebody for guide data.

cost of CableCard + cost of guide = very close to the cost of my DVR rental.
Click to expand...

I have a cable card in a Silicon Dust triple tuner on the network and pointed my Win 8.1 Media Center HTPC at it. WMC handles the guide and DVR recording, not to mention all kinds of other media playback.

In short, the only "hardware" Comcast has in my home is the cable card.
 
The Forever Rental is a total scam.
Those boxes have been paid for over and over again.
A company like Comcast will go ballistic when trying to recover this gear.
Changing use and penalties for a piece of junk that's gathering dust somewhere well past its life span.
 
Since Charter went all digital, my parents now have a cable box connected to their kitchen TV that is bigger than the TV.
 
STOP paying for cable.

Stop, stop, stop. Stop supporting the system you hate so much.

We cut the cord 2+ years ago and are HAPPY we did it. Stop worrying about whether you are watching something on it's first air date. We havn't seen a commercial in years. We can watch 20 mins of a show, go do something, come back, finish it... never having to skip a commercial or set a record time or worry about the live TV pause running out of time.

It's just habit. A habit ingrained from childhood for us. Break it. It's a curse. Life is substantially BETTER separated from the real time programming networks.
 
BreezeDM said:
Since Charter went all digital, my parents now have a cable box connected to their kitchen TV that is bigger than the TV.
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah. This is actually a big reason why I cut cable and got rid of any tivo boxes I had. They are just too damn big. Now i have roku and/or apple tvs attached to the back of my tvs. I use logitech harmony hubs to control everything. While it requires ~200 investment per tv, it allows them all to have minimal clutter and be wall hung w/o having to route crap through walls. For OTA dvr I just picked up a tablo and it streams to the roku's natively and I can airplay it from my iPad to my systems with apple tv's.

Hopefully one day a tv will just be like a piece of wall art. Hang it on a hook and it just works. Guessing that will require oled and possibly some advancements in speaker technology, but it'll eventually happen.
 
westrock2000 said:
Is this REALLY something that needs to be handled by the government? I mean if you don't like using their product, then just do not use it. They should not be forced by the government to do something just because the population feels it's entitled to something.

Look at this way. Why should manufacturers of 3d party set top boxes be guaranteed a market base, instead of having to demonstrate their value like any other company does?
Click to expand...


Sure, I'll go for your plan as soon as the government stops giving them a monopoly in my municipality.
 
kbrickley said:
This might be more of a short term issue ... given the massive investment in internet infrastructure I would expect that more and more folks will pursue the "cord cutting" options and there is lots of competition there as most internet companies don't have unique rental options (except for modems which usually have much cheaper purchased alternatives than set-top boxes) ... I think this rental problem has maybe a decade more (at most)
Click to expand...

Maybe, but as I recall, they were supposed to give cable cards away for free. That should be the law of the land. Cable and content providers want to have DRM, fine. You have to provide me with a way to decrypt it free of charge. That can be your box or a cable card.

Then again, the satellite folks aren't much better these days, with their pay us 100 bucks for a new box and give it back to us if you cancel (or get another new box).

As for cord cutting, we'll see. As it stands, there are caps on usage, and htose caps make streaming 4k Video prohibitively expensive, never mind that 10 years from now those cord cutting options will cost every bit as much (if not more) than the ones you get from cable. It's long been known (at least 25 years) that when we get ala carte, we'll pay more to get less.
 
westrock2000 said:
Is this REALLY something that needs to be handled by the government? I mean if you don't like using their product, then just do not use it. They should not be forced by the government to do something just because the population feels it's entitled to something.

Look at this way. Why should manufacturers of 3d party set top boxes be guaranteed a market base, instead of having to demonstrate their value like any other company does?
Click to expand...

Exactly. ISPs should quit supporting cable modems that don't come from them. :rolleyes:
 
Tivo. But it sure as hell ain't cheapler. It's just magnitudes better.
 
Im moving to Comcast after years with Dish. I looked at the cable card option, which on their website is still available. What could I save etc. A whopping $2.50 a moth versus using their box. Gee let me run out and get that $500 TiVo right away.
 
kydsid said:
Im moving to Comcast after years with Dish. I looked at the cable card option, which on their website is still available. What could I save etc. A whopping $2.50 a moth versus using their box. Gee let me run out and get that $500 TiVo right away.
Click to expand...

You haven't recorded a bunch of shit you'll never watch with so much ease until you've done it with a Tivo Romio Pro.

I have two of them :)
 
Haven't had Cable TV service in a couple years now and I haven't missed out on anything. Dropped their Internet service about a year ago as well. Fiber FTMFW
 
ocellaris said:
In my area, TWC encrypts everything except the home shopping channels and a few weird channels like one station that plays only NASA content from the 80s.
Click to expand...

From the 80's? Not even the glory days of the 60's? That's absurd!
 
No cable server. Also, a few of the networks are now allowing access to live TV (and all their on-demand stuff next day) via their own Hulu-esque sub package. CBS is one of them. As more and more jump on board, I'd imagine you'll start seeing more draconian policies from the cable companies. Can't entice people to your service? Lock'em in to contracts and/or nickel/dime the ones that don't switch!
 
nilepez said:
Maybe, but as I recall, they were supposed to give cable cards away for free. That should be the law of the land. Cable and content providers want to have DRM, fine. You have to provide me with a way to decrypt it free of charge. That can be your box or a cable card.
Click to expand...

Nope. $2/month for a cable card.
 
I haven't had cable in years, but just reading the thread made me wonder if I could 'add tv' and get a discounted price on it and my internet vs just the internet I have now.

Well, I tried to look at the package offers, but it wants me to turn off the pop-up blocker. OK, no problem. Turn that off and tried again. NOOOOPE - now it wants me to turn off my ad blocker. WTF. I don't want to know that bad.
 
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