AT&T Falsely Blames The FCC For Company's Failure To Block Annoying Robocalls

from the nice-tap-dance dept

Last year, the FCC made it abundantly clear in an announcement (pdf) that it was giving the green light to carriers that wanted to offer consumers robocall blocking technologies. Numerous companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon quickly complied, integrating services like Nomorobo in order to help consumers block annoying telemarketers from disrupting dinner time. Independent California ISP Sonic even went so far as to praise the FCC in a blog post, welcoming the FCC's clarification that offering call blocking technology won't violate call-completion rules.

Then there's AT&T.

In an interesting back and forth with the Dallas Morning News, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson joins us plebeians in complaining about robocalls, the day after Consumer's Union delivered a petition to the CEO with more than 600,000 consumers urging AT&T action. But when asked why AT&T isn't following other companies in the industry and actually doing something about it, the CEO first tried to tap dance around the question, before ultimately trying to blame the FCC for the company's own inaction:

"But didn’t the FCC just give you that permission last year for phone companies to install stricter call-blocking services?

“There will be rules around this,” Stephenson said. “We don’t go in and just start discriminately blocking calls going to people without their permission, without the appropriate authority. I don’t want to be on the front page because we blocked somebody’s call, if it was a life-saving call of some kind, right?"

Right, except that's bullshit. Again, the FCC made it perfectly clear that offering call-blocking services is absolutely no problem. When pressed further by the Consumerist as to why AT&T isn't helping consumers out, a spokesman tries to claim that the technology just doesn't exist to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate calls:

"Last year, the FCC gave us authority to implement technology to allow consumer-initiated robocall blocking. However, there are no technologies currently available that can accurately distinguish illegal robocalls from legitimate calls, which could include emergency calls,” reads the statement.

“In fact, many robocallers even spoof legitimate phone numbers, making it even more challenging. As a matter of law, we don’t have permission to block legitimate calls – that is a violation of the Communications Act. We’re continuing our work to find a solution that can identify illegal robocalls 100% of the time. Until then, we cannot risk blocking legitimate calls from consumers. But in the interim, although not a perfect solution, consumers can use apps like Nomorobo to block these calls."

Again though: bullshit. One, this hasn't been a problem for any other large company; companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon that have offered such services face no such problems. AT&T also forgets to mention that it already offers a call-blocking service for landline customers (to the tune of an extra $8.50 per month) with apparently no such issues. And of course, given that AT&T was the one that effectively made mouseprint binding arbitration a permanent fixture in America, annoyed consumers wouldn't be able to sue AT&T anyway:

"Of course, even if AT&T screwed up and deployed a horrible call-blocker that caused you to miss only important calls, you couldn’t sue the company. The 2011 Supreme Court ruling in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion upheld the use of forced arbitration clauses and class-action bans in customer contracts. So not only can’t you take AT&T to court if it breaks the law, you can’t enter into a group arbitration with other AT&T customers."

Caring about the customer in this way just isn't in AT&T's corporate DNA. Remember, this is a company in the last few years that has been fined for ripping off programs for low-income families, settled a lawsuit for helping scammers rip off IP relay services for the hearing impaired, and paid an $18 million settlement to the government after it was found to be making bills intentionally harder to understand to help crammers. This isn't the kind of company to give a damn whether robocall blocking technology is blocking legitimate calls, unless there's some undisclosed financial and marketing/robocall relationships at play that benefit AT&T.

Filed Under: call completion, fcc, randall stephenson, robocalls
Companies: at&t

Factually Challenged Op-ed Insists Google Greed Is Behind FCC's Desire For More Set Top Box Competition

from the Google-ate-my-homework dept

We've noted how the FCC recently voted to bring some much-needed competition to the cable set top box market. Thanks to limited competition consumers still pay $231 annually for what's often garbage hardware -- hardware used to lock consumers inside the increasingly out-dated cable walled garden. As a fact sheet circulated by the agency (pdf) makes clear, the effort will simply involve cable companies delivering their content to third-party hardware using any generally accepted technology and the copy protection of their choice.

But we've also been noting how the cable industry is waging an all out public relations war against the idea. For the moment that war is being brought to bear most notably in the editorial sections of websites and newspapers all over the country, where a rotating crop of individuals -- most hiding their connection to cable industry cash -- have professed that the FCC's plan is everything from an attack on minorities to an invitation to piracy Armageddon. But the most common refrain continues to be that this is all just some kind of villainous plot by Google to freeload off the cable industry.

Why Google? Cable and phone company executives utterly loathe the search giant. Not only because of Google's history supporting net neutrality (though that's wavered in years since) and a general envy of the company's ad revenues (you ain't gonna ride my pipes for free!), but because Google Fiber is now disrupting the broadband space. As such, fighting a pro-consumer, pro-competitive initiative while somehow maligning Google is a perfect day over in cable land, even if the logic supporting these attacks makes absolutely no god-damned sense.

Take this new editorial over at the New York Times as just one such example. It breathlessly proclaims the FCC's plan will somehow "hand our TVs over to Google" and allow Google to "continue its questionable conduct" on other fronts in the TV sector:

"The F.C.C.’s proposal would give Google free access to the raw TV programming data it needs to power its search engine for TV. In effect, Google could use the data to become the modern version of the program guide, connecting users to the TV shows and movies that Google’s search algorithms determine are relevant.

It’s a simple concept: Turn on the TV, search for what you want to watch, scan the results, and then click on a link to start watching your favorite show or sporting event. But Google is missing a key ingredient for its search-centric TV. It lacks access to providers’ proprietary programming information — what shows are available when. Google cannot show a full list of TV programs in its search results without first entering into licensing agreements with cable companies to obtain that data."

That's nonsense. The goal of the FCC's plan is to open up the cable set top box for everybody -- not just Google. And does anybody seriously believe that the one key thing that has frustrated Google engineers is that it can't ascertain what time programs air? No, what frustrates Google -- and every other company with a foot in the streaming box ecosystem -- is the cable industry's vice-like stranglehold over pay TV hardware.

Again, it wouldn't just be Google that received programming data -- it would be every and any company that wants to jump into the suddenly competitive set top box space. And it's not like the cable industry still isn't going to be paid an arm and a leg by consumers to watch TV -- that programming is just going to be delivered by better, faster, cheaper hardware -- with DRM and most everything else still intact. Cable's opposition is, and always has been, about protecting the $21 billion in captive set top rental revenue the cable industry enjoys annually. All other justifications for the industry's opposition are entirely decorative.

And while the reform effort would help any company wanting to build a set top box, Google's missteps are specifically highlighted in painstaking detail over and over again by author Jonathan Kanter, who has spent a large portion of his career not-so-coincidentally helping Microsoft dodge antitrust inquiries at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, a law firm also frequently employed by the telecom sector. As such, some of Google's missteps appear to have been somewhat hallucinated by Kanter. Like this claim that Google's MO is to introduce a free product, then "close off competition" through discrimination and exclusion:

"Google is said to have followed the same playbook for years: introducing a free product into a competitive space, subsidizing that product with advertising revenue, and then closing off competition through discriminatory and exclusionary practices."

Uh, citation needed? When has Google ever actually done that last bit? If there's an industry that engages in "discriminatory and exclusionary practices" it's the cable industry the FCC's rules are targeting. You'll note though at no point does Kanter really explain why the FCC's taking action in the first place. Why did the chicken cross the road? Uh, Google! Kanter then trots out a number of just plain wrong history lessons to try and cement what was an already shaky point:

"In April 2015, for instance, the European Commission filed formal charges against Google, saying it rigged search results to favor its own content. Similarly, a Federal Trade Commission staff memo from 2012 revealed that Google regularly favors itself even over better alternatives.

Right, but Kanter ignores that the FTC also found that Google's experimentation was driven in large part to provide a better customer experience, not anti-competitive villainy. Other criticism of Google throughout the editorial is similarly incomplete or conflated:

"Google also seems to favor sites that rely on ads rather than subscription fees, a practice that has cut into news outlets’ profit margins. These kinds of practices starve content providers of revenue and chill investment in content creation.

Except that as a search engine Google can't magically see behind paywalls (and users often don't want to visit those sites anyway), so giving non-paywalled, ad-driven content a priority kind of makes sense. Again though, all of this finger pointing at Google is designed to shift the conversation away from the reason the FCC decided to take action in the first place: the cable industry and its own robust history of anti-competitive behavior, something Kanter just daintily floats over without mentioning it's the reason we're having this conversation in the first place.

No, Kanter's key refrain is that the FCC's plan is all about letting Google take the cable industry's hard-earned work and pass it off as its own. As such, he argues, Google should be heavily regulated before such villainous ambitions can take root:

"If the F.C.C. provides Google with the data it needs to build its search-based set-top, it should take significant steps to prevent Google from continuing its questionable conduct. At a minimum, the F.C.C. should require Google to commit to search neutrality, transparency, adherence to privacy standards and restrictions on anticompetitive bundling."

So wait, just so we're clear, your ingenious solution for the cable industry's aggressive walled garden anti-competitive stranglehold over set top box hardware is -- to regulate Google? And for years we've pointed out that the idea of "search neutrality" is bullshit. Throughout the net neutrality debate it was the cry of a telecom sector and its various policy tendrils, all pretending to be willfully oblivious to why physical, last mile services without competition (broadband) aren't regulated exactly the same as Internet services that users can choose not to use.

And buried under the Op-ed's conflations and bizarre omissions, that's just the thing the editorial intentionally misses -- quite painfully. Increasing set top box competition means that consumers would have a choice of set top boxes. As such, they could choose one that doesn't rely on Google technology if this is really such a concern for them. Of course it isn't -- the great Google set top antitrust albatross is a giant red herring being pushed by cable operators via an endless number of similar editorials. All of them carry the same message: don't open up the stagnant cable set top box market to competition or Google will run away with your daughter and pee on your azaleas.

Again it's a bunch of nonsense intended to misdirect the public from a central truth of the set top box debate: the cable industry is absolutely terrified of losing a central pillar in its quest to ensure cable remains a closed, walled garden ecosystem. Opening the set top box market to competition not only kills $21 billion in captive annual revenues, it suddenly opens the door to cheaper, better, more open hardware platforms -- built by companies with no qualms about pushing traditional cable customers toward alternative streaming options.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, fcc, innovation, jonathan kanter, oped, open, set top boxes
Companies: google

House Budget Bill Guts Net Neutrality, Kills FCC Authority -- All Because The FCC Dared To Stand Up To Comcast & AT&T

from the punished-for-doing-your-job dept

We've noted a few times now that ever since the FCC passed net neutrality rules, loyal ISP politicians in the House and Senate have been engaged in a full-court press to punish the agency for daring to stand up to big broadband ISPs. That has involved an endless parade of taxpayer-funded hearings pretending to be about agency transparency and accountability -- but are really just about publicly shaming the agency. It has also involved a laundry list of bills that attempt to thoroughly gut FCC funding and authority under the pretense of saving the country from a power-mad FCC.

This not-so-subtle ballet continued this week, when the House passed a new budget bill that would gut the FCC's 2017 budget by $69 million, stall the FCC's attempt to bring competition to the cable box, and prevent the FCC from enforcing net neutrality violations until the industry's lawsuit is settled. In fact, like previous bills, this new budget bill uses an absurdly broad definition of "rate regulation" to effectively prevent the FCC from doing anything:

"The GOP proposals define rate regulation so broadly that Wheeler says they would prevent the FCC from enforcing key net neutrality provisions and disrupt its process for reviewing mergers. The budget bill again uses a definition of rate regulation that goes far beyond the utility rate-setting traditionally imposed on landline phone providers. The proposal would prevent the FCC from using its net neutrality rules to act against discriminatory data cap policies, among other things."

Note that this latest push comes -- not coincidentally -- as ISPs like AT&T and Comcast have started pushing usage caps harder, and the FCC has started dropping hints that it might just do something about it.

All the while, the pretense continues that this is all just the House's quest to ensure government is fiscally responsible, transparent, and accountable before the "American people." From an announcement by House Appropriations Committee Chair Hal Rogers:

"The job of this bill is two-fold: to make wise investments with taxpayer dollars in the programs and agencies that we need to grow our economy and enforce our laws, and to tightly hold the reins on the over-spending and overreach within federal bureaucracies. This bill makes great strides on all accounts – carefully investing taxpayer dollars in programs that promote opportunity, while keeping these agencies accountable to the American people."

You are, of course, supposed to ignore that Rogers received $25,000 in campaign contributions during the current election cycle from the telecom industry, and that this is all just a giant stage play designed to punish the telecom regulator for actually doing its fucking job.

Filed Under: appropriations, broadband, competition, congress, fcc, funding, net neutrality, set top boxes
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

Hollywood Writers & Copyright Scholars Point Out That Piracy Fears Over Open Set Top Boxes Are Complete FUD

from the you-tell-'em dept

We've been covering for a while the ridiculous ongoing fight about the FCC's plan to open up the set top box market to actual competition. Historically, we've always seen that when closed technologies are opened up, it generally leads to much more innovation that benefits everyone. But the big cable companies are freaking out, because locked set top boxes are a huge moneymaker for them: they get customers to "rent" those cable boxes for an average of $230 per year. The industry, as a whole, takes in approximately $20 billion from set top box rentals alone. And they can only do that because the market is locked down. And the cable companies don't want to give that up.

They've been trying various strategies to kill off the FCC's plans, including the ridiculous, but frequently used, argument that opening up set top boxes will harm diversity (the opposite is actually true, but... details). But a key vector of attack on this plan has been to convince their buddies at the MPAA that open set top boxes are just another name for piracy. They've convinced some truly confused Hollywood types to freak out about more innovation in set top boxes meaning more piracy, leading to a series of similar op-ed pieces showing up basically everywhere. And those op-eds have influenced some of our clueless lawmakers too, who are now asking if open set top boxes will lead to a Popcorn Time revolution.

As we've explained over and over and over again, these concerns are complete bunk. The proposal has always made clear that cable providers will still be able to "determine the content protection systems it deems sufficient to prevent theft and misuse, and will not impede the introduction of new content protection systems." In other words, these other boxes will still be encumbered with DRM (as bad an idea as that is...).

Thankfully, now a new flurry of "response" comments have come in and people are pointing out just how wrong the "OMG piracy!" comments are concerning set top boxes. First up, some actual copyright law professors -- including Pam Samuelson, Peter Jaszi, Annemarie Bridy, Betsy Rosenblatt and Rebecca Tushnet, along with Mitch Stoltz from EFF -- have filed a response pointing out that the concerns about piracy from open set top boxes is not particularly accurate. First, they point out that it's not the FCC's job to protect a particular business model of legacy industries, and that the intent of copyright law is, once again, to benefit the public. And it seems like an odd way to do that by locking up set top boxes. They also take issue with the idea that because someone might potentially view infringing works via a set top box, it makes that an issue that (1) the FCC should even care about or (2) that is really about set top boxes at all:

Copyright does not confer a general right of commercial exploitation or “use” of a work. Thus, products and services that touch copyrighted works do not infringe copyright, and do not require a license, except to the extent that they implicate one or more of the exclusive rights. A television set is worthless without video programming to view, and a home audio system has little purpose without music. One could argue that the commercial value of these devices derives from the copyrighted works they touch. Following that reasoning, the sale of TVs and home audio equipment could be deemed a commercial exploitation of copyrighted works. But because these devices don’t ordinarily reproduce, distribute, or publicly perform works (let alone meet the rigorous standards for establishing secondary liability under copyright law), the law does not give copyright holders any right to prohibit their use and sale, dictate their design, or demand royalties.

They further point out that the set top boxes themselves are clearly not infringing anyone's copyright, no matter how much the MPAA and its friends have been repeating this myth. In some sense, the comment suggests that the MPAA is trying to roll back the famed Betamax decision that legalized the VCR (and, I should add, provided a massive new revenue stream for Hollywood).

Commenters in this rulemaking have characterized the proposed use of third-party devices or services to access pay-TV programming with terms such as “exploit[ing],”7 “repackag[ing],” “convey[ing]” copyrighted works to a third party, and creating “new uses on new platforms.” They imply that these activities constitute copyright infringement, or that the Commission should prevent these things regardless of whether they constitute infringement. These terms confuse rather than clarify the issue, because most of the activities they describe are not copyright infringement.

For example, a set-top box or other consumer device that receives TV programming in the home and displays it to the user does not inherently perform or display that programming publicly, nor does it distribute copies of the programming. While such a device is likely to make transitory, internal reproductions of programming in the process of displaying it to the user, such reproductions are not copies for purposes of the Copyright Act.

A set-top box or service might also make long-term personal copies of programming for the customer to watch later, much as a videocassette recorder does. This is firmly established as a fair use, including in systems where the recording is stored at a central facility.

They also use the infamous lawsuits against the Dish Hopper system to remind the FCC that the MPAA and its friends have, shall we say, a rather long and sad history of exaggerating claims to say that basically any new consumer friendly innovation is automatically copyright infringement if it happens to impede their chosen business model:

Such devices and service arise with some regularity, and their status is resolved either through litigation or licensing. For example, several programming providers sued Dish Networks, accusing its Hopper DVR and PrimeTime Anytime service, which skipped commercials upon playback, of causing infringement. After a court ruling that the core features of the device and service did not infringe, Dish reached settlements with most of the rightsholders in which the company agreed to limit the functionality of the service.

Meanwhile, in what might seem like a surprising source, another group calling bullshit on the MPAA is the local Hollywood writer's guild, the Writers Guild of America, West. Their full filing is totally worth reading. They basically make the exact point we've made for years: every time the MPAA fears some new innovation, it's not just wrong, but it often misses how that new innovation actually helps Hollywood in addition to the public:

It is often the case that when new technology emerges incumbent providers make alarmist predictions about guaranteed harms resulting from these innovations. While some concerns may be reasonable, the overwhelming majority of outlined harms are never realized. As CBS Chairman and CEO Les Moonves said in 2015, “All these technology initiatives that supposedly were going to hurt us have actually helped us. SVOD has helped us. DVR has helped us. The ability to go online with our own content, CBS.com, and the trailing episodes – all have helped us.” With the entertainment industry currently dominated by a handful of companies that have never been more profitable, it is clear that new technology and forms of content distribution have helped, not hurt the industry.

While new technology can create some business uncertainty, there is strong evidence that pro-consumer developments that make legal content more accessible to viewers benefits both consumers and content creators.

And then they point out that open set top boxes, combined with an open internet, are almost certainly a good thing:

Like all other entertainment industry participants, WGAW has strong incentives to protect the health of the business. WGAW members are the creators of intellectual property and their livelihoods depend on the ability of studios to license programming for initial exhibition and generate revenue in secondary markets. As such, WGAW and its members do not take concerns regarding piracy lightly. WGAW has consistently advocated for reasoned measures to protect copyright and address infringement. But WGAW members are also strong proponents of market competition, because it leads to more and better choices for consumers and more and better opportunities for writers. WGAW’s position seeks to strike a balance between these objectives, and led to our support for strong Net Neutrality rules and, ultimately, the need to reclassify broadband Internet access services under Title II of the Communications Act. In our advocacy, we were clear that Net Neutrality rules could protect Internet openness without jeopardizing content, as the rules applied only to lawful content, and outlined ways to address piracy that would not harm a free and open Internet. We believe the developments resulting from the open Internet, primarily the growth of a robust online video market, demonstrate the success of a balanced approach. The online video market generates significant revenues for media companies and residuals for writers through the licensing of television series and feature films and is projected to see upwards of 100 professional scripted series released for initial distribution on subscription online video distribution (“OVD”) services in 2016. We believe a similar balance can be achieved in the Commission’s proposed rules. Reasonable concerns can be addressed. Content can be protected while competition is promoted.

They also point out that they're totally against piracy -- in fact, they argue that limiting piracy is important to their careers -- but they don't see how these open set top boxes will actually increase piracy, especially when it will likely create tons of other benefits.

WGAW strongly agrees with the need to protect content and to limit piracy. No less than our members’ livelihoods depend on it. However, WGAW believes that a competitive navigation device market can and will protect content and, consistent with our position in Net Neutrality, we approach the proposed rules by assessing the likely benefits of competition and the risk of piracy. We find that the risks of this proposal are no greater than those presented by an open Internet, where there is strong evidence of a flourishing legal market that is very attractive to consumers.

There's a lot more good stuff in the full filing. Once again, the Writers Guild of America is one of the few voices that rises out of the Hollywood ecosystem that actually looks at the larger picture and how an open internet benefits everyone. In the past, the same organization came out against SOPA, in favor of better copyright law (as opposed to increased enforcement) and (as mentioned in the quoted portions above) in favor of net neutrality (while much of Hollywood opposed it). Kudos to the folks at the Writers Guild for taking a more accurate and holistic view of these issues, as compared to so many others.

Filed Under: competition, copyright, fcc, innovation, piracy, set top boxes
Companies: mpaa, writers guild of america west

Despite New FCC Rules, Linksys, Asus Say They'll Still Support Third Party Router Firmware

from the apocalypse-averted dept

The apocalypse for those who like to tinker with their router firmware may be postponed.

Last year we noted how the FCC updated router and RF device rules for safety reasons, stating that some illegally modified router radios operating in the unlicensed bands were interfering with terminal doppler weather radar (TDWR) at airports. The rule changes prohibited tinkering with the just the RF capabilities of devices. But some sloppy FCC language worried tinker advocates and custom-firmware developers, who feared that because many routers have systems-on-a-chip (SOC) where the radio isn't fully distinguishable from other hardware -- vendors would take the lazy route and block third-party firmware entirely.

And, at least with some companies, that's exactly what happened. TP-Link for example stated that it would be preventing custom router firmware installations with gear built after June 2016, blaming the FCC for the decision while giving a half-assed statement about respecting the hobbyist community's "creativity." Again: the rules don't mandate anything of the kind; TP-Link just decided to take the laziest, most economical route.

Fortunately, not all hardware vendors are following TP-Link's lead. Linksys has announced that while it will lock down modifications on some router models, the company will continue to let enthusiasts tinker with its WRT lineup of hardware, which has been a hobbyist favorite for years. From its comments the company is well aware that while custom firmware flashers may comprise a minority of overall customers, they're a vocal minority that companies really don't want to piss off. As such, a company spokesman was quick to breathlessly praise third party custom firmware options:

"The real benefit of open source is not breaking the rules and doing something with malicious intent, the value of open source is being able to customize your router, to be able to do privacy browsing through Tor, being able to build an OpenVPN client, being able to strip down the firmware to do super lean, low-latency gaming,” La Duca said. “It's not about ‘I'm going to go get OpenWrt to go and piss off the FCC.' It's about what you can do in expanding the capabilities of what we ship with."

While it would be nice to see more models supported, it's certainly a step in the right direction. It should be noted that (now Belkin-owned) Linksys said it wasn't a very big deal to lock down the radio specifically, contrary to what some vendors have claimed:

"The hardware design of the WRT platform allows us to isolate the RF parameter data and secure it outside of the host firmware separately," Linksys said in a written statement given to Ars. La Duca declined to get more specific about Linksys's exact method. Even though this is about enabling open source, Linksys’s method is proprietary and provides a competitive advantage over other router makers that aren’t supporting open source, La Duca said."

So while one vendor used the FCC rule change as an opportunity to be lazy and cheap, others are using the news as an opportunity to embrace an important part of their community. And from the looks of thinks Linksys won't be alone in the effort; representatives from Asus have been telling some hardware enthusiasts that they plan to continue supporting third-party open source firmware as a point of pride as well:

"As you may know, FCC requires all manufactures to prevent users from changing RF parameters. Not only manufactures' firmware but 3rd party firmware need to follow this instruction. Some manufactures' strategy is blocking all 3rd party firmware, and ASUS's idea is still following GNU, opening the source code, and welcome 3rd party firmware. ASUS are co-working with developers such as Merlin and DDWRT to make sure 3rd party firmware's power are the same as ASUS firmware and obey the regulations."

None of this is to say these companies can't go back on their word down the line (concerned users should keep the pressure up), but it's refreshing to see at least a few vendors actually standing behind their communities' right to tinker.

Filed Under: fcc, firmware, open source, routers
Companies: asus, linksys, tp-link

Comcast Now Trying To Claim That Delivering Just TV To Third-Party Set Top Boxes 'Not Feasible'

from the nobody-really-believes-you dept

We've talked a lot about how the FCC is trying to open up the set top box market to additional competition, breaking open cable's monopoly control of the hardware, while driving down set top prices and improving gear quality. Given this would kill $21 billion in annual set top rental fee revenue and expose customers to more streaming options than ever before, the cable industry has been engaged in raging histrionics to try and shut down the effort and protect the status quo.

So far, this plan has involved whining, urging lawmakers (most of them about as well-liked as the cable industry) to also whine, while pushing an endless ocean of incredibly misleading editorials in news outlets nationwide claiming the FCC's plan is going to hurt puppies and rip gigantic holes in the space-time continuum.

But in an added wrinkle, Comcast is now trying to tell the FCC that offering just the company's programming to third-party set tops isn't just a horrible, vicious, no-good idea -- it's also technically impossible. Under the details of the FCC's plan revealed so far (pdf), cable providers will be required to pass on just the programming -- using any consensus standard or copy protection it sees fit -- to third-party set tops for integration in those devices' GUIs. But according to an FCC filing detailing Comcast's recent meetings with the agency, Comcast is now claiming that doing this is "not feasible":

"We discussed that Comcast’s set-top boxes and Xfinity TV apps (like other MVPD apps) include software code that manages requests for programing and communications between the box/app and where the programming is cached on the network to ensure the programming is delivered, and done so efficiently. In addition, this network code minimizes the risks of degradation to the service due to bandwidth shortages and congestion, and also enables Comcast to support rapidly evolving entertainment technologies, such as accessibility features and advanced video technologies.

...In response to questions from Commission staff, we explained that running our network code directly on third-party devices without our application was not feasible for a variety of reasons, including, among other things, that MVPDs deploy very different network infrastructures so that the code that one MVPD develops for interacting with its network differs from the code that other MVPDs would develop; MVPD network code is regularly updated to accommodate network and service changes, and corresponding changes would be required in the third-party device (or app); and that programmers and content owners require a trusted execution environment as a key element of a strong content security and content presentation regimen."

In layman's terms, that's Comcast using convoluted technical jargon to argue that its code, ad tracking systems, and apps are so damned important, things will fall apart if they're not included alongside Comcast content on third-party boxes. The problem with that narrative is that the FCC has been eyeing set top box reform for the better part of a decade, and countless cable companies -- as well as companies that build set top boxes (ranging from TiVo to telecom-industry nemesis Google) -- have informed the agency that it's perfectly plausible to have cable companies deliver just the programming.

Comcast just doesn't want to, because the shift the FCC is proposing would demolish a cornerstone of the cable industry's walled garden and accelerate the inevitable shift away from legacy cable systems.

The cable giant recently unveiled a new proposal that would deliver Comcast's cable content to third-party set top and smart TV vendors in the form of apps, a project Comcast argues makes the FCC's plan unnecessary:

"In light of the success of the apps-based model in the marketplace, the far-reaching government technical mandate being currently proposed by the FCC is unnecessary. The FCC’s proposed set-top box mandate threatens to undermine this highly-dynamic marketplace, create substantial costs and consumer harms, and will take years to develop -- only to be likely outdated by the time it reaches the marketplace – all in an effort to achieve what apps are already delivering for consumers."

But the FCC doesn't envision a future where third-party set tops are delivered to streaming devices, because that future's already here and has done nothing to loosen cable's monopoly over the traditional set top itself. What the FCC envisions are set top boxes that cleanly integrate cable industry programming directly, uniformly managed by the set top box's software, not the cable industry or their apps. In response, FCC boss Tom Wheeler stated that Comcast's effort simply "proves our point that you can take a third-party device, put set-top box functionality into it, and protect copyright and the economic ecosystem."

In other words, the FCC knows what it's proposing is technically possible. It also knows that nervous Comcast executives are just trying to retain something vaguely resembling control as the specter of real TV (and now set top box) competition finally looms just over the horizon.

Filed Under: competition, fcc, set top boxes
Companies: comcast

Congress Scolds The FCC For Making The Cable Set Top Box Market More Competitive

from the pretending-to-care dept

Congress is simply fed up with the FCC's pesky new habit of standing up to giant cable and broadband companies. Congress was outraged when the FCC announced it wanted to stop states from letting large ISPs write horrible, protectionist state laws. Congress was outraged when the FCC announced it wanted to pass actual, functioning net neutrality rules. Congress was even outraged when the FCC decided to raise the standard definition of broadband to 25 Mbps, since it only served to highlight a lack of competition for next-generation broadband service.

Now, not too surprisingly, Congress is just pissed that the FCC wants to try and bring some competition to the cable set top box space.

The FCC recently announced that it plans to craft rules requiring that cable operators deliver their existing content (at the same price and with the same copy protection) to third-party hardware without the need for a clunky CableCARD. The cable industry has been having an incredible, epic hissy fit over the announcement, not only because it would endanger $21 billion in captive annual revenue from set top box rental fees, but it would drive consumers to hardware delivering a wider variety of legacy TV alternatives than ever before.

Part of the cable industry's ingenious plan to stop the FCC has involved funding an ocean of misleading editorials that try to claim the FCC's plan will somehow boost piracy, hurt privacy, "steal the future," and even harm ethnic diversity. Spend a few minutes perusing the news wires and you'll find hundreds of such editorials, all penned by a wide variety of cable industry-tied consultants, think tankers, and others, suddenly pretending to be objective analysts just really worried about the welfare of consumers. It is too much, as usual, for news outlets to bother highlighting any financial conflicts of interest these authors might have.

In addition to pummeling the press with a parade of misleading editorials, the other wing of the cable industry's brilliant strategy to stop the FCC involves convincing loyal Congressional allies -- whose approval ratings are about on part with the cable industry -- to whine like petulant children.

A new letter from sixty Congressmen and women (pdf) reads as if it was written by a cable industry lobbyist (because it probably was), deriding the FCC for daring to interrupt the cable industry's glorious history of innovation with a pesky quest for better, cheaper, consumer-facing hardware:

"The Federal Communications Commission's recently proposed rules on the Competitive Availability of Navigation Devices, if adopted, will jeopardize the incredible evolution of video distribution services enabled by generally reasonable regulation. Imposing new, onerous regulations on pay-TV providers would produce very few benefits for consumers, while potentially harming the viability of these providers. The particular obligations being considered by the FCC are all the more troubling because they would mandate compliance with technical standards that do not yet exist, injecting even greater uncertainty into the marketplace.

How horrible! Except it's not true. The FCC's proposal as it currently stands (pdf) says that cable providers can use any technology they see fit, and any copy protection they'd like, to ensure their content can be delivered to third-party hardware under the FCC's rules. In fact, Comcast recently demonstrated how non-onerous it was by offering its content via apps on Samsung and Roku devices. Again, the FCC's proposal isn't difficult or onerous, but it does put a giant crack in the side of the cable industry's walled garden, of which clunky, outdated, closed cable boxes are a cornerstone.

Knowing how hated cable providers generally are, the Senators (including traditional telecom allies like Marsha Blackburn and Bob Latta) try to insist they're solely worried about the impact the FCC's plan will have on small cable providers. But not before penning some additional, gushing adoration of the incredible quality the cable industry provides:

"Consumers today enjoy unprecedented access to some of the highest-quality television programming ever produced, which they can watch anytime, anywhere, on a wide variety of devices. Given this proliferation of consumer choice, it is concerning the Commission continues to consider a proposal that will place significant technical and competitive burdens on pay-TV providers operating in an increasingly competitive environment, particularly small providers who serve as the communications backbone of their communities.

That's very sweet, but many of those smaller cable operators are getting out of the cable industry anyway. Many have noted that as smaller companies, they lack the scale and by proxy leverage to negotiate deals that could make offering TV sustainable in the face of unrelenting broadcaster price hikes. As such, many say they're planning to exit the TV business anyway and focus on broadband and other services. The CEO of one such smaller cable company, Cable ONE, this week wrote a missive calling the pay TV Industry a tragedy of the commons, one that ends horribly in the face of real disruption.

I personally still think it makes more sense for the FCC to focus its regulatory calories on broadband competition, net neutrality and zero rating -- and let the old cable box die organically in the face of streaming alternatives. But given the relatively glacial pace of cord cutting and continued, entrenched power of companies like Comcast, I can also understand the FCC's logic in wanting to accelerate that process so it doesn't take the lion's share of the next decade.

That said, while it's nice that Latta, Blackburn and friends are just so damn worried about consumers and small cable companies, there's simply no debating the fact that the cable industry's opposition to the FCC's plan is rooted in just one thing: fear. Fear of losing control of monopoly power. Fear of losing $21 billion in annual captive revenue. Fear of third-party set tops that present consumers with actual choice instead of the expensive illusion of choice. And while it's sweet to yell "how high" when the cable industry demands they jump, it's not clear who Congress and the cable industry actually think they're fooling when they pretend -- after thirty years of abysmal service -- to actually give a flying damn about consumer welfare.

Filed Under: competition, congress, fcc, set top box