Your Web News in One Place

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

Sign up for GreenGeeks web hosting
September 15, 2016 10:00 pm

Why The FCC Chair Says Set-Top Box Reform Proposal Could Change

An anonymous reader writes: Hardware costs are down yet fees still seem to climb. The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said he might change his proposal to allow tens of millions of U.S. pay TV subscribers to ditch costly set-top boxes and access video programming online. At a Senate hearing on Thursday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler defended his revised proposal, which is scheduled for a final vote on Sept. 29. The plan, announced last week, lacks some of the most controversial aspects of the original proposal unveiled in January but includes a new licensing body to ensure that pay-TV companies do not enter into anti-competitive agreements. The plan is aimed at ending the cable industry's long domination of the $20-billion-a-year set-top box market and lowering prices for consumers. Nearly all pay-TV subscribers lease the boxes from their cable, satellite, or telecommunications providers at an average annual cost of $231. Those fees have jumped 185% since 1994, while the cost of televisions, computers, and mobile phones has dropped 90%, the FCC has estimated.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.


Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/MCYJSsEcsDw/why-the-fcc-chair-says-set-top-box-reform-proposal-could-change

Share this article:    Share on Facebook
View Full Article

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot