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

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

#41

Post by wnevets »

pyrale wrote: post #35
eridius wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cable providers are monopolies. In most markets, customers have literally zero choice as to what provider to use. This means that they need to accept a fair amount of government regulation, because there are no market pressures to act as corrective forces without government regulation. Meanwhile, the tech companies you listed are not monopolies (and when Microsoft did engage in monopolistic behavior, they were found…

Let's not lie to ourselves. Google has as close as it gets to having a monopoly. Monopolies are everywhere in our industry. For the last 5 years, the key questions to get funding were policed versions of: "can you build a monopoly" and "if we give you money, what will be your dumping strategy". And that behaviour is exemplified by e.g. the transportation market conquest by Uber. Imo, Microsoft's antitrust is not some…

65% of market share is a monopoly?

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

#42

Post by narrowrail »

iaw wrote: post #37
galdosdi wrote: post #17

Actually, I'm willing to believe that a large cable monopoly's IT department is so incompetent and poorly run, that implementing this successfully is not likely for them. 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!"

I know someone who worked on the team to develop one of the 'next-gen' Comcast DVR units. The company is exactly what you'd expect but they apparently did have quite the competent engineering team. Not talking about IT here but the people that actually build the hardware and firmware for their proprietary boxes. That being said it is absolutely not in Comcast's financial interests to adhere to the FCC regs on this an…

I thought the Arris Group supplied the hardware? I haven't had Comcast in a while, but when I did, Scientific Atlanta was the manufacturer. Has Comcast switched to internal HW development?

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

#43

Post by mankash666 »

Other things Comcast & the cable industry deem infeasible:

1> Operating in an open market - they've lobbied against 2 cable providers in a zip code. 2> Providing reliable, high-speed service and realistic prices - US internet prices are among the highest in the developed world, while being woefully slow in comparison. 3> Moving with the times - heard of the 300 GB monthly cap? 4> Not subverting the competition - Cable companies have been known to throttle speeds to competing services like Netflix. 5> Protecting your privacy - Selling your data and usage patterns to 3rd parties

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

#44

Post by phkahler »

Before I dropped cable TV, I refused to subscribe anything that required a set top box. My house still has an antenna in the attic with a cable running down to the basement where an A/B switch will flip the whole house from cable to antenna. No extra boxes on any of my TVs. Granted, I never wanted pay per view anyway. WoW can still be used like that by just plugging the cable into the TV, but oddly you need a box to get "digital" channels outside the normal local ones. Of course that's another fucking scam because there haven't actually been analog broadcasts for 7 years in the US, yet the cable companies down-convert everything and then charge more to get it unaltered.

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

#45

Post by devonkim »

grecy wrote: post #21
galdosdi wrote: post #17

Actually, I'm willing to believe that a large cable monopoly's IT department is so incompetent and poorly run, that implementing this successfully is not likely for them. 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!"

I worked in IT at a telco, and you are spot on. The IT department was incompetent and poorly run, and they couldn't implement anything new for less than 400% of budget (time and money) and it usually didn't work very well. Although, that's not the reason to not do something like this. The reason not to do something like this is because the bottom line is more important, and impacting that is not good.

Bad IT is standard and expected for enterprise, period. I've spent years going around to different companies that fail to do some of the most basic best practices from 1995. Retention of decent engineers is impossible.

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

#46

Post by phkahler »

korethr wrote: post #11

I can understand Comcast's point. They're moving away from their QAM-based system, to an IP-based one, and one of the inherent assumptions of the design of the latter is that they own and control the network end-points that provide the video to the display device. Building a nation-wide multi-channel video distribution network is no small feat, and takes some non-trivial engineering work. Then along comes the FCC, an…

>> 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.

Let us recall what cable television was - a way to expand the reach of broadcast television. They've deviated quite a bit from that initial assumption to the point that their network is not compatible with your TV without having their equipment in your home.

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

#47

Post by starnixgod »

gumby wrote: post #30
Aelinsaar wrote: post #4

From the monopolists' perspective, I guess every day you delay can be measured in vast sums of money. Moreover, if they're aware of the reality that the "Set top box" has a very limited lifespan in the future, they may just be milking the market while they have it, and to hell with anything else.

The economics of this business is just weird. Last year comcast gave me a deal: TV + Internet for much less than the price of internet service alone. A "special deal" for one year. I took it. The year was almost up so I called yesterday to cancel. Turns out I can renew this "special" deal, and it's still cheaper than IP service alone. And the agent said to just call again next year and they'll give it to me again. Th…

Dump the boxes and pick up a cable card. Comcast rebates you $2.50 for having a cable card on your account[0].

[0]: https://www.xfinity.com/equipmentpolicy

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

#48

Post by bogomipz »

korethr wrote: post #36
bogomipz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not understanding your comment. A QAM tuner provides the modulating/decoding of the RF signal over coax. If they are moving away from this then fine but why does that design have "inherent assumptions" that "they own and control the network end-points that provide the video to the display device."? So they can continue to charge people $10 a month in perpetuity? That's about the only reason for that assumption. I…

That there are assumptions that they own and control the network end points is betrayed by the comment that you don't find credible. I agree that the comment is poorly worded, but to me, it indicates that the set-top boxes they're renting out are more complex than just than something that naively decodes whatever video codec stream(s) is/are thrown at it. I think it's a reasonable assumption that the set-top boxes th…

"I think it's a reasonable assumption that the set-top boxes that Comcast provides are loaded with at least some proprietary Comcast code that takes care of the various functions the TV box provides (scheduling/channel guide, on-demand, authorization, DRM-handling etc)"

In other words a web app? Why does that require dedicated and proprietary hardware? What am I missing?

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

#49

Post by CaptSpify »

galdosdi wrote: post #17

Actually, I'm willing to believe that a large cable monopoly's IT department is so incompetent and poorly run, that implementing this successfully is not likely for them. 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!"

I'd actually argue that's why this is so important. Companies like this get so slow/incompetent that we need outsiders to come along and say "Hey, this isn't that hard. Here's how ya do it" to keep tech industries innovative.

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

#50

Post by gumby »

starnixgod wrote: post #47
gumby wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of this business is just weird. Last year comcast gave me a deal: TV + Internet for much less than the price of internet service alone. A "special deal" for one year. I took it. The year was almost up so I called yesterday to cancel. Turns out I can renew this "special" deal, and it's still cheaper than IP service alone. And the agent said to just call again next year and they'll give it to me again. Th…

Dump the boxes and pick up a cable card. Comcast rebates you $2.50 for having a cable card on your account[0]. [0]: https://www.xfinity.com/equipmentpolicy

That's hilarious. The hack value makes it worth the hassle for the $2.50. Plus it will take up less room in my closet!
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