Good. Received a letter from Time Warner yesterday that they are switching to an all digital channel lineup in a few months. Now all my tv's in the house will require an adapter which, of course, will be $3.25 a month fee.
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FCC Moves Ahead With Proposal Aiming to Make Subscription TV Available on Any Set-Top Box
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It's absolutely insane that they're even allowed to charge people for those…
That is part of their infrastructure and is required to use the service!
There should not be any extra fee.
I don't see why the providers would need control over the display. Of course, they should control the content, but part of the benefit of customers being able to choose any set-top box will be the user experience. The user experience will be where the set-top box app developers can make their service stand out among the rest.
If Comcast wants to offer a specific experience, then that should be part of their incentive to choose their set-top boxes over the others. If they are offering the best experience, customers will continue to get their equipment from them. Otherwise, it's Comcast's fault for not keeping up with the competition.
I really appreciate the channels that have already made specialized apps that can be activated through the provided and used on Apple TV. It allows me to already watch Live TV for channels to which I subscribe without having to pay for a digital box rental from Comcast.
Simple...
The Comcast's of the world have absolutely no interest in actually competing on features, quality, service, cost, experience, etc.
The actual ISP/CableCo business model is: "Create a monopoly and extract money from people with no options".
Purchasing politicians is part and parcel with maintenance of that technique, thus the revolving door between industry & FCC regulators.
That's the point. They want everyone to have their own box because they make tons of money off of it.
GA gas went up after deregulation - as much as 30% is duplicate fees that would not exist if the single provider model existed.
I believe that is in part because Georgia required a far different blend of gas from the surrounding states. A highly specialized blend that required a higher price from the refiners. I think deregulation led to 300 different blends, or some other ridiculous number like that. The major cost adds to gasoline at the pump are 1. taxes (mostly federal, which can in some case double the cost), 2. blend specifics.
I meant (natural) Gas, not gasoline. Deregulation just created a whole bunch of re-sellers, middle-men, who do establish a whole sub-economy of billing culture. Instead of providing gas at a steady price dictated by market conditions, they insist on 6-12 month terms to provide the "service", with huge penalties for leaving to lower costs or moving residence.
GA gasoline is among the cheapest in the nation, and as is with the rest of the nation, prices vary with crude prices without having to jump thru' hoops or calling and speaking with customer service. The only problem with gasoline is the addition of ethanol, destroying the ICE, especially smaller engines. Corn is not a native major crop in GA.
GA gasoline is among the cheapest in the nation, and as is with the rest of the nation, prices vary with crude prices without having to jump thru' hoops or calling and speaking with customer service. The only problem with gasoline is the addition of ethanol, destroying the ICE, especially smaller engines. Corn is not a native major crop in GA.
For those saying that streaming all of their TV watching would exceed data limits, I'm curious of tv viewing habits. We've been cable tv free since moving to San Diego over three years ago. We have an antenna, but stream most content we watch: Hulu+, Netflix, and Sling are the main apps used. I didn't know we even had data caps until a year-and-half into living here. When I checked our usage, we are only using about 150 gigs/month. That includes the fact that I work full-time from home and require quality Internet for the duration of my working hours. Cox states that the "limit" is 300. When I inquiried of the penalty for exceeding this, there wasn't currently one in place.
Lots of assumptions in these posts, and some pretty far fetched conclusions.
1) "Deregulating" this "like gas or electricity" is a very very poor analogy. Keep in mind that with electricity and natural gas, the only thing "deregulated" is the separation from marketing functions and transmission/distribution. More specifically, that for example, no matter who you choose as an electricity "generator" for your own account, the ACTUAL electricity that YOU RECEIVE is exactly the same, coming from the exact same generation, etc. The only thing really happening is trading on the back end. The actual product (natural gas and electricity) "flow" has not changed in the slightest. This is VERY different from TV content. It is NOT just "opening up the API" on a tech box, TV, etc. It is suggesting completely ripping apart every single contract between every single provider and every single content producer in the world. Many may like that. However, I can assure you that they will all get their pound of flesh - and that payment will come from the consumer.
2) "Cards" (meaning cablecards) will not "be gone in a couple years". With the passage or STELAR the future of cablecard is certainly dim and I would agree that it will eventually disappear. However, it won't happen overnight.
3) Everyone thought Cablecard would be the future when it came out. There were huge expectations about how consumers would support the elimination of cable boxes. Guess what happened? Nothing. Initially, CE manufacturers started implementing cablecard support into devices. I myself purchased a Toshiba DLP 10 years ago or so - maybe a little more than that - that had cablecard. Never used it. Neither did pretty much anyone other than Tivo users. So, manufacturers stopped building cablecard support. Now, the only place - and I mean ONLY place you see it is with Tivos. And of course, in the MSO provided hardware.
4) IPTV has grown substantially, and the advent of Roku, FireTV, AppleTV, Chromecast, etc - have all seriously ramped up cord cutting. That percentage of the market is still terribly small - a fraction of a niche. But it's growing faster.
So, for all of these reasons, anybody confused enough to celebrate the FCC ruling needs to remember their joy when content decreases and costs rise - all in the name of "choice". It's a non-event, providing zero consumer value and likely resulting in higher costs.
1) "Deregulating" this "like gas or electricity" is a very very poor analogy. Keep in mind that with electricity and natural gas, the only thing "deregulated" is the separation from marketing functions and transmission/distribution. More specifically, that for example, no matter who you choose as an electricity "generator" for your own account, the ACTUAL electricity that YOU RECEIVE is exactly the same, coming from the exact same generation, etc. The only thing really happening is trading on the back end. The actual product (natural gas and electricity) "flow" has not changed in the slightest. This is VERY different from TV content. It is NOT just "opening up the API" on a tech box, TV, etc. It is suggesting completely ripping apart every single contract between every single provider and every single content producer in the world. Many may like that. However, I can assure you that they will all get their pound of flesh - and that payment will come from the consumer.
2) "Cards" (meaning cablecards) will not "be gone in a couple years". With the passage or STELAR the future of cablecard is certainly dim and I would agree that it will eventually disappear. However, it won't happen overnight.
3) Everyone thought Cablecard would be the future when it came out. There were huge expectations about how consumers would support the elimination of cable boxes. Guess what happened? Nothing. Initially, CE manufacturers started implementing cablecard support into devices. I myself purchased a Toshiba DLP 10 years ago or so - maybe a little more than that - that had cablecard. Never used it. Neither did pretty much anyone other than Tivo users. So, manufacturers stopped building cablecard support. Now, the only place - and I mean ONLY place you see it is with Tivos. And of course, in the MSO provided hardware.
4) IPTV has grown substantially, and the advent of Roku, FireTV, AppleTV, Chromecast, etc - have all seriously ramped up cord cutting. That percentage of the market is still terribly small - a fraction of a niche. But it's growing faster.
So, for all of these reasons, anybody confused enough to celebrate the FCC ruling needs to remember their joy when content decreases and costs rise - all in the name of "choice". It's a non-event, providing zero consumer value and likely resulting in higher costs.
Sorry I thought you were discussion the de-regs back in the 70s in the petroleum industry.
I wasn't speaking from any special knowledge about Georgia, I assumed we were talking about gasoline so I was making a guess about why the prices might be higher. Good to know gas is cheaper there - if I need to relocate that will be some plus marks in the "maybe Georgia" column
