back to article You, FCC. Do something about these overpriced cable boxes, yells Bernie Sanders and pals

Six US Senators are taking aim at the excessive fees cable and internet providers charge for modem and set-top hardware. In an open letter [PDF] to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Franken (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT and presidential hopeful), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Jeffrey …

  1. Stephen McLaughlin

    It's not like the FCC hasn't been trying to gain control over the internet..

    ... it's that they have tried and repeatedly failed, usually when these cases hit the courts. Mind you, the FCC efforts aren't a noble cause for consumers, it's that they want control over the internet like they have with television/radio.

    Remove the rules and regulations that allow the monopolies and this problem will resolve itself.

    1. Tom 35

      Re: It's not like the FCC hasn't been trying to gain control over the internet..

      "Remove the rules and regulations that allow the monopolies"

      They don't have rules that allow monopolies, they lack rules that prevent them.

      If there are no rules, you will have monopolies. Next you are going to say trickle down works?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not like the FCC hasn't been trying to gain control over the internet..

      Remove rules and regulations? The reason why the customers get screwed over is because there are no rules and regulations ...dummy.. And they are paying your politicians to keep it just the way they like it.

      Can't believe people still fall for this con..

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not like the FCC hasn't been trying to gain control over the internet..

      IIRC, there are some LOCAL communities that do have laws restricting who can provide service to the area. The problems would improve substantially in these places, as many of these communities would happily pay for municipal fiber-to-the-home.

      But that has nothing to do with the FCC.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    And the Bad Fairy brought His Evil Twin...

    Yes, Mr. Brian Roberts IS the Lord Owen of Comcast. And Comcast is the digital lye pit of America. Pity as Mr. Roberts seems like such a NICE fellow, otherwise. Look, the Customer Service at Comcast makes the Vogons look like paragons of efficiency and courtesy. There is not ONE aspect of your account you can call them on and they WON'T go out of their way to f*ck up it handsomely. Close your account? 25 call minimum, two hours per call with a hang-up every other one and they will cancel based on billing date and then re-open the account, charge you late fees, restart fees, double account fees, fees for your Grandmother's colostomy bag, fees for the addition of Lunar Solstice Tide Mitigation and fees for processing additional fees. Took me LITERALLY a month and a half to close a Comcast account that was paid in full and that was with ESCALATED EXECUTIVE Customer Service. God help those who get the outsourced garden variety CS (although, I suspect they are one and the same). Went nearly half a year without any sort of telly at all just to avoid having to restart with Comcast- NO OTHER option available in the area. The FCC taking over the Internet? GOOD! Some good old fashioned paper-shuffling, rubber-stamping, put-you-on-hold government Bureaucrat would be a Godsend compared to what Comcrapt has.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    cable card

    All Cable companies in the USA have to by law provide a cable card alternative to their set top box its just hardly anyone knows about them and obviously the companies dont promote them as they dont make the monthly rental from them,

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: cable card

      An amusing part of the CableCard / Tru2Way follies was when 'we' [a fairly large, non-comcast cable company] attempted to obtain a compatible Panasonic TV for testing, we could not - the distributor would not ship it because CableCard was not supported in our area.

    2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: cable card

      Cox cable charges me $3/month rent for each of my two cable cards. Granted that's much better for me and worse for them than $10-$20/month for their DVR box, but it's still revenue.

      I've owned Tivos for many years. Tivos are the gold standard of "bring your own" set top boxes. The interface and menu system are far superior to any other box I've personally seen. The drawback is the comparatively high up front cost ($400-$800, depending upon model and options), but you only pay that once. By my maths, at current Cox rental rates I "paid off" my Tivos about five years ago and just have the cable card rental fee.

      1. User McUser

        Re: cable card

        Cox cable charges me $3/month rent for each of my two cable cards.

        That's funny - Comcast pays *ME* $2.50/month for having a TiVo. It shows on my bill as a "customer owned equipment" credit.

  4. phil dude
    FAIL

    conflict of interest....

    It is so obvious selling data and services is a conflict of interest.

    How about fixing that, so some proper competition can arise?

    P.

  5. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    mixed bag

    The senators have got it both right and wrong.

    On the one hand, the "lock in" is a bit of a red herring. Alternatives exist and, for some like Roku or Chromecast, they aren't particularly expensive. I've already stated that Tivos have a significant up front cost and that is an obstacle to some folks - I get that. I also get that many consumers don't understand about non-traditional options like Roku/Chromecast/AppleTV/etc, but to say that you are "locked in" to only getting a rental box from the provider is disingenuous. Facts never got in the way of a blathering politician before, so nothing new I suppose.

    On the OTHER hand, going after the providers for shady or outright illegal billing practices (charging for equipment after its return or without having first DELIVERED it, etc) is definitely welcome news and I wish them much success with that.

  6. Johnr

    I have the Comcast/Xfinty X1 system and have to say for the most part I really like it. The modem part is easy ...Ebay for $20 or $30 bucks Problem solved . Prefer my own router too. . The boxes are another story... A few years back they went "digital " Translation : We scrambled the signal so you need one of our boxes and can't plug the cable directly to the TeeVee. The non hd box runs around $6 a month and the HD box that accesses the DVR $10 a pop. I need the connection for the broadband and they structure it so you can only get the highest speeds with the dreaded "Bundle "

    More competition definitely needed

    1. Blank Reg

      Competition is coming. Sony has their Playstation Vue service which is basically on OTT cable network. If they can get the channel lineup and pricing right then they are a viable alternative. And if they succeed then others will follow. Data caps are an issue in some areas, but that's slowly improving.

      1. fishman

        "Data caps are an issue in some areas, but that's slowly improving."

        No, Comcast has been rolling out data caps to more areas. It's getting worse.

  7. Dan Wilkie

    Party/Location

    Something that I've always found curious and I hope that someone can explain. Why whenever you're talking about American politicians do you put their Party and State after their names? It seems an odd curiousity.

    Nobody ever says Dineage (C-Portsmouth) for example...

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: Party/Location

      I imagine it's originally because we often have people with the same surname and at times the same full name in congress so it makes differentiating easier. Presently however it's likely more because it gives members of each team (red or blue) an opportunity to either determine what's being discussed is good or snort derisively and quip "oh how typical for a [insert team name here] and it's no surprise they're from la-la-land in [insert state here]."

      Yes, sadly there are lots of people who make value judgments based on that little D or R regardless of the actual merit of an idea.

      1. Johnr

        Re: Party/Location

        Yes, sadly there are lots of people who make value judgments based on that little D or R regardless of the actual merit of an idea.

        Haven't been watching the Republican debates have you? They don't have ideas

        1. Eddy Ito
          Thumb Up

          Re: Party/Location

          Thank you for proving my point there Johnr.

          Why would I waste my time watching Presidential "debates" for either party? Do you think I have nothing better to do with my time than watch mass media theater that presents a Q&A session with questions like "tell me, why do you think your opponents and their ideas are stupid?", "why is your experience better than your opponents and what makes them incapable from doing what you can do?" and the ever popular "your opponent said or did 'blah' twenty-seven years ago, in 30 seconds or less, why do you think that was a dumb thing to say or do?"

    2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: "Why... do you put their Party and State after their names?"

      because if you just say "Senator Dickhead," no one is quite certain WHICH Senator Dickhead you mean...

    3. Mark 85

      Re: Party/Location

      The others gave some good reasons but there's also the fact that an awful lot of voters don't have a clue who their CongresCritters actually are. Ok.. there is the brief and shining moment during the elections and actually voting but other than that... no they don't.

    4. Johnr

      Re: Party/Location

      Let Me explain: It's so we can spot the loony. The (R) indicates everything out of his or her mouth including "and" and "the" is a lie.

  8. Tom 35

    They will do anything to play their games

    In Canada they have to sell you a cable box if you want. But they don't have let you reactivate it on a second account. So if you buy a new 4K cable box, you can resell your old box to a friend, but they can't use it because the cable company ROGERS will not activate it on a different account.

  9. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    A few comments

    Three comments here --

    1st, props to Mediacom. Nobody ever gives props to a cable co and it feels odd to do so. But the likes of Comcast are now encrypting ALL their cable channels (INCLUDING local OTA (over the air) channels that FCC regulations REQUIRE them to carry in the clear... when the FCC brought enforcement action against Comcast, Comcast took them to court instead of following the rules.) So you need a cable box to get ANYTHING. In contrast, Mediacom not only has OTA channels unecrypted, but SD copies of ALL the channels (except pay ones like HBO) in the clear. I can plug my cable straight into the USB TV tuner and mythtv handles it fine.

    2nd -- honestly, I must agree 100% with what Sanders etc. say. It's predatory pricing to rent out these low-end set top boxes (that have about $5 worht of parts in them, so probably cost under $30 full retail) for $2-3 a month. The cable cos were SUPPOSED to be required by the FCC to support CableCard, so you'd stick that in your cable-ready TV and not need a box. But a) Some cable cos are straight-up violating the FCC rule by not having cable cards available or supported. b) The ones that "support" it, the customer tends to have to keep calling until they find someone who knows it even exits and knows how to set it up. c) Predatory pricing, some cable cos have it but charge more to rent the card than for a deluxe set top box. They can't comprehend that someone may want to use the controls on their own TV. d) I don't mention DVRs here, CableCard is useless for computers due to excessive rights restrictions requirements.

    3) "They don't have rules that allow monopolies, they lack rules that prevent them." False. In the US, most market have a cable *franchise*, potential competition is LOCKED OUT of the market. Artificial monopoly due to regulation. I'm not saying deregulating is necessarily the solution but your argument is not based on facts.

    4) Why party and state after names? US has 2 nearly-identical main political parties, (seriously, by UK standards one is nearly center center-right and the other nearly center center-left, to the point that they'd probably both be one centrist party there), but members of BOTH parties like to pretend *they* are totally different, and pretend whatever topic they are on that any problems are ALL the other parties fault. (For example, federal spending is greatly increased each and every year, but both parties claim they want to DECREASE spending -- pointing to programs they want to cut and ignoring the huge spending they want to spend on OTHER things -- and those deficits are ALL the other party's fault.) But since the parties are so similar, unless you recognize someone from an election you won't be able to tell which party they are a member of jut by hearing them talk, thus the little letter.

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