With all the Internet sturm und drang and colorful Twitter battles whirling around the FCC’s so-called #UnlockTheBox vote last week, you’d almost think yet another Kanye West and Taylor Swift spat was somehow involved.
But no, it was a divided party-line vote that seemingly had anyone who’s ever even used a set-top box tapping away at the keyboard or tweeting. The Pandora’s box metaphor is hard to resist when reading some commentators’ reaction to the Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), even if they thought an NPRM somehow involved public radio or something like that.
People in the know have referenced the fact that there’s still a few miles to go before sleep on this whole thing, and even then, the FCC’s record isn’t 100 percent when a rulemaking does officially go down.
It wasn’t a surprise to see Comcast Senior Executive VP David Cohen’s immediate remarks referencing CableCARD. “The playing field of the FCC in imposing technological mandates is littered with failure,” Cohen says. “The FCC imposed a CableCARD technology mandate on cable operators years ago purportedly to drive greater retail availability of set-top boxes, but after more than $1 billion of costs to consumers, that approach has proven to be ineffective.”
“We look forward to providing constructive input in this proceeding, and we hope the FCC will ultimately decide against this major step backwards for consumers and the video marketplace,” he concludes.
Trying to let the set-top haters better understand the process was the likes of Public Knowledge’s Kate Forscey, who posted a blog yesterday, “FCC’s Video Device Rulemaking Is Excellent News for Consumers But We’re Not Home Just Yet” in which she pointed out that some headlines were seemingly declaring that the FCC had just voted a “rule” to unlock the box, once and for all. Referencing the comment period she says, “There is quite a fight still before us to get the right policies for consumers and innovators over the finish line” and then calls on people to sign an online petition against “Big Cable.”
On the other side of this battle royale are groups like The Future of TV. (You can see a list of member companies here.)
In a press release, the coalition states: “We welcome a thorough vetting of the FCC’s flawed AllVid proposal through the agency process. The massive outpouring of opposition to this costly and destructive rule from members of Congress, the creative community, TV distributors and public advocates reflects a basic truth: the rules under consideration will drive up consumer costs, hurt programmers (and most especially small and diversity programming), and blow a gaping hole in Congressional protections for our TV privacy – all for an unnecessary government giveaway to Big Tech.”
The coalition wraps up by saying, “We believe that once the Commissioners review a full record reflecting these harms, they will determine that this kind of technology mandate is both destructive and wholly unnecessary.”
Now if we can only get Kanye to weigh in, that would be fun.
Filed Under: Industry regulations