FCC unties cable boxes from cable companies

[Joe Foe]

http://tinyurl.com/yezc7x

http://tinyurl.com/yfkhkb

Not sure if this is the proper place to post this so please feel free to move it to the proper place.

 

[Audioholics]

Very interesting. Not sure what to make of this since it could simply result in additional costs being passed on to consumers (i.e. they have their cake and eat it too). Best case scenario is that we end up with cable boxes from third parties that actually do a decent job of scaling and deinterlacing.

 

[stratman]

I would imagine the FCC wants to divorce providers from equipment accross the board, they did it with ma bell, cells, cell numbers, sat tv, now cable. In their view it might be a measure to stir competition. I think that if a second party can provide better equipment, why not? Will it cost the consumer more? I'd rather pay a little more, get a better box and have great connectivity and PQ. Now, what is a little more????

 

[f0am]

You have always been able to buy your own cable modem from Mediacom (my service provider). Back in my IT days I was looking into buying a Cisco cable modem but then I thought more about it and realized, I am paying 6 bucks a month extra to rent a modem that would cost me 100-200 dollars on Ebay. I used to burn threw modems like crazy just never made sense. Renting sometimes works in our favor too.
My cable box sits on top of my stack of equipment, its the heat absorber = ).

 

[Audioholics]

politics + private industry = trouble (typically)

No one ever thinks about the law of unintended consequences. Likely, things will simply cost us more. You can buy a cable modem for use with Time Warner but who does? Especially since theirs is "free" lol. Costs will just get gradually rolled in and no one may actually benefit.