Comcast says it’s “not feasible” to comply with FCC cable box rules

Then along comes the FCC, and says they don't get to own and control the network end-points anymore, thereby throwing a massive wrench into the works, and messing up the assumptions upon which their network is architected. Large complex systems don't just magically change overnight because of a governmental decree, despite how much legislators and administrators might seem to wish so. It would take a great many man-hours to rebuild their current system to comply with the update.

How many? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? More? I have no idea, but I do know it ain't gonna be a small number, never mind the monetary costs. And that's just the capital investment to get compliant. Ongoing support is also going to costly. And you can be confident that Comcast would then pass those costs on to their customers in the form of higher subscription fees, and high bring-your-own-device fees (or a corresponding use-our-device discount if the FCC prohibits the former).

Somehow it seems like this is a problem of "will" rather than "way", don't you think?

Comcast wants to own and control the interface with the customer. It makes them the powerful gatekeepers so they can extract as much rent as possible. It's like cell phone carriers before the iPhone. You had to go "kiss the ring" and beg for a chance to release a crappy Java applet. The carrier set the price ($15) and took most of the money. They also gave you non-optional feedback on all aspects of your app.

None of the cable/satellite providers are innovating. There is far more money in charging $$ for a set-top box and choice is so limited there is no pressure to improve. Again, it's like ATT and the phone network. You could rent one kind of phone and you'll like it. Breaking their stranglehold on the phone network (another government mandate, despite the billions ATT spent building their network) enabled an explosion in choice and enabled regular people to get on the internet with modems. We literally wouldn't be posting on HN right now without the government forcing ATT to open their network.

The FCC is trying to create a free market where none exists. The cable companies have been fighting against CableCard and these digital standards for over a decade, and very successfully too.

Edit: You can down vote if you want, I used to work at a CLEC and the ILEC's IT department purposefully made things obtuse and pretended to be incompetent so they could throw up their hands and say "It's impossible!". As soon as we signed a separate commercial agreement (so SBC/ATT could claim the market was open and no regulation was necessary) suddenly their IT people were able to get projects done and roadblocks magically disappeared. Funny how that works.

That's not a valid excuse though. A landlord ordered legally to fix a broken heater cannot avoid their duty by complaining "But I'm so BAD at working with heaters! They're confusing!"

So other than the On-demand stuff it's all doable with today's technology. They just don't want to make changes to their billing system to track it. Which is pretty surprising since they have a really nice service architecture bus in production that makes it easy to make these kinds of changes