TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Not so Fast, was Re: Sunday Begins New Era For Cable Subscribers

Not so Fast, was Re: Sunday Begins New Era For Cable Subscribers

Danny Burstein (dannyb@panix.com)
Sat, 30 Jun 2007 06:58:58 +0000 (UTC)

In <telecom26.185.3@telecom-digest.org> Monty Solomon
<monty@roscom.com> writes:

> A Federal Communications Commission order taking effect on Sunday
> requires all major cable operators to give up the conventional cable
> boxes they so profitably lease to subscribers. These proprietary boxes
> contain technology for functions such as video-on-demand and perhaps a
> digital video recorder -- and also house the operator's decoder that
> unscrambles digital, premium and HDTV channels.

A hefty number of the cable companies convinced the FCC that it would
cost them (the companies) too much money to comply by 01-Jul-2007, so
they've been given extensions.

(In the interests of keeping this polite I'll refrain from making any
editorial comments ...)

I can't find the FCC dockets right now, but here's a typical story:

" In response to a new Federal Communications Commission rule designed
to allow consumers to use set-top boxes not owned by the cable
companies, those companies now employ CableCARDs. Those are cards
consumers can insert into set-top boxes or TVs to decrypt programming
they subscribe to.

" Consumers can continue to rent the boxes from the cable companies or
they can go out and buy their own box.

" But on [the NYC suburb of] Long island, local cable providers,
including Cablevision and Verizon, have sought waivers from the rules,
and Cablevision already has been granted a temporary one."

rest:
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzbox295273144jun29,0,3251341.story?coll=ny-business-print
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Sam Spade: "Re: Is the iPhone an AT&T Time Bomb Against Cell Users?"
Go to Previous message: Steven Lichter: "Re: Early iPhone Buyers Trying to Sell Them OnLine at Big Markup"
May be in reply to: Monty Solomon: "Sunday Begins New Era For Cable Subscribers"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page