Comcast says it’s “not feasible” to comply with FCC cable box rules
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Comcast uses Lawyers; it's partially effective.
If the FCC had more pull they would ask an industry consortium together with Public Knowledge and EFF to design an API, and then mandate the use of that API on all video systems.
That would then collapse as the cable companies desperately want to avoid competing with each other.
I am not sure that the FCC has the authority to mandate the creation of an API. Putting that aside, how exactly would you force agreement on an open API? What do you do if parties disagree? You can't always split the difference, and you may end up with a very limited API which could even be unworkable. This could end up like the cable card, which was eventually recognized as a failure and discontinued.
You are also skipping over some of the more problematic issues with the FCC proposal, such as how the cable companies must certify that 3rd party boxes maintain user privacy. I am not sure how the cable companies are supposed to do this, and it seems like the FCC is just using that requirement as a way to blame the cable companies when the 3rd parties inevitable do violate expectations of privacy. The FCC is doing this because the FCC has no authority to regulate the 3rd parties.
How do you force compliance? There are always ways. Remember the digital transition? There were carrots and sticks for broadcasters, TV manufacturers...
Why do you think the FCC won't have authority to regulate the third parties? The FCC has jurisdiction over interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. I don't see why that would end at the demarcation between a TV service and a set-top box, app, recorder or TV, and history says it does not end there.
The FCC can force the cable companies to comply with almost any regulation, but the issue is how you create the API. Do you vote on contentious issues? Do you have an FCC arbitrator/mediator? What happens when there is a conflict, or the API needs to be changed? What can the FCC do when an (unregulated) 3rd party messes with the API?
The FCC doesn't think it has the authority to regulate third parties, which is exactly why its proposals require cable companies to certify that the third parties will follow FCC regulations. If the FCC had any authority to regulate third parties, they would; the FCC is not exactly restrained in its regulations. This is not conjecture, I heard an FCC commissioner explain that this was the reasoning.
Originally broadcasters were allocated spectrum and in exchange were expected to fulfill some some basic responsibilities for the public good such as being required to show a certain amount of news content every day. This seems to have been forgotten but these crooked monopolists. They coax and fiber plant also uses public right aways in order to connect to households this is also a public asset.
Their business model is predicated on having access to these public assets(right aways and spectrum.) and yet at every turn they financially gouge customers, provide a substandard experience and prevent citizen from having any choice.
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!"
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.
That being said it is absolutely not in Comcast's financial interests to adhere to the FCC regs on this and I also suspect that Comcast isn't fully lying when it says the FCC regs are hard to comply with.
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.
Its hard to read a comment like this and find it any way credible:
"Comcast argued that "running our network code directly on third-party devices without our application [is] not feasible."
Running our "network code"? What? What does even mean? Thats like saying the "system is down." It's the kind of crap that customer service reps say to people when they have no clue why something isn't functioning.
The cable companies have zero credibility at this point. This is about continuing to gouge people that it that have no other choice in getting bits delivered into their home in 2016.
The old QAM systems broadcast metadata (i.e. channel info) on one channel -- if you wanted an update just have your hardware keep watching until it passes by. Comcast's network is, I believe, an IPv6 system with a bunch of terminals and a set of servers at the core like some big enterprise network.
None of which justifies their refusal, which is well above layer 7
If my cable tech was correct, the cable box is such a thin client that every button press on the remote is processed remotely rather than on the cable box.
Considering a packet can circumnavigate the planet faster than their goddamn cableboxes will register a button press, I tend to believe it.
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). I think it's also a reasonable assumption that Comcast's video distribution network (and related systems, like billing) are also built with the assumption that the endpoints will have Comcast's code running on them. It could well be that the set-top boxes for their new system are naive MPEG decoders running completely stock OEM firmware, but until presented with evidence of such, I think the former is more likely.
In other words a web app? Why does that require dedicated and proprietary hardware? What am I missing?
In other words, they're going to be tightly coupled. Sufficiently so that decoupling them enough to provide an API compliant with the FCC's proposed ruling is going to be an expensive engineering task that Comcast would rather not have to spend money on.
Certainly, their comment makes it seem like they assume their own client code is needed and they don't want to provide and document a stable API for third parties.
This a million times. Its scary how people applaud draconian or at least, short sighted, legislation and regulations as long as those those policies are used against the "bad guys." They don't realize how much power this gives government and how easily government can victimize business, kill jobs, and hurt the economy over the whims of a couple regulators.
I'm no Comcast fan, in fact I'm sure I hate them, but expecting them to just be able to magically implement this stuff overnight is a little much. Have you seen tech surveys or interviews with congressmen, fcc types, and bureaucrats? They seem to have a CSI view of technology which is scary to me. I don't think they truly understand what they're asking for in some/many cases. They just follow the political winds and know what to say and do to advance their careers in the government.
Let's remember the failure of the cablecard. This was a big FCC decree. No one uses it. There's just so much choice between providers, satellite, streaming, etc that these things just never caught on. All these card readers and the back-end implementation were done for what exactly?
That said, when regulations are absolutely need they should be done. Are these needed? Lets assume so. How much is the government paying for all the extra cost these regulations will give to Comcast? Nothing? I can't imagine the government coming into my place of business and tossing out a decree like this. It would surely bankrupt us. Comcast will just pass the cost increase to the consumer just like it did with the cable card. Maybe we shouldn't be applauding all regulations without question anymore, even when they're used against our "enemies."
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.
Then again, even the most expensive cable package runs about 35 EUR/mo. There is no HBO, though.
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
Comcast's revenue stream generates about $9 million dollars per HOUR[1]. So yes, every day they delay nets them more money than most people can comprehend. That's not to say that all of their revenue is directly tied to their set top boxes, although a huge portion of it certainly is. It nicely illustrates their monstrous incentive for preserving the status quo every minute (worth $143,000) they can.
Ironically Nielsen selected my home as a place to track my "tv" viewing but when I told them we don't watch cable or broadcast they weren't interested. Every three months I have that conversation over again. What's funny is they just announced they had "found a way to track Netflix viewing" -- yet they could have been tracking it the same way they track other TV viewing: by asking people. But they don't. Hmm.
BTW odious as Comcast is (and boy do they plumb the depths) I have to praise them for providing full routable IPv6 to every house. I know in Europe and SE Asia that's old hat, but for the US it's exotic.
You guys seem to have a pretty heavy dislike to your cable providers, which is OK, but I wonder how you would react to similar requests towards tech companies.
Cable video isn't anymore. There is typically one hardware cable company, two national satellite companies, two online streaming cable provides (SlingTv and PS-Vue), and many times a IPTV providers using telecom lines (Verizon or AT&T).
I have a hell of a lot more choice in video tv than I do for say web search engines. Should google and bing be forced to provide searches over an API?
Imo, Microsoft's antitrust is not something that would happen again, because politicians now care about international power rather than domestic balance, aswell as the fact tech companies now invest significantly in lobbying.
As a consumer, that would be a win.
As a developer, it would create a vibrant marketplace for media applications that simply can't exist today.
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
"Our system is old and we would keep up with the new but we don't really want to lose money because of your so called laws and we have zero care about being consumer friendly."