
Comcast says it’s “not feasible” to comply with FCC cable box rules - sciurus
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/07/why-comcast-claims-the-fccs-set-top-box-plan-is-a-technical-nightmare/
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dsr_
Comcast is being willfully uncomprehending. The FCC is telling them to provide
means to programmatically identify a subscriber, authorize the subscriber's
device or program, get an available content list, and then receive a media
stream. IP, QAM, fuzzy pen-and-ink sketches on vellum, whatever, as long as
they document it well enough for anybody else to write to the spec.

Comcast uses Lawyers; it's partially effective.

If the FCC had more pull they would ask an industry consortium together with
Public Knowledge and EFF to design an API, and then mandate the use of that
API on all video systems.

That would then collapse as the cable companies desperately want to avoid
competing with each other.

~~~
nickff
Most of the objections from the cable companies seem to be about DRM concerns,
licensing (from studios), and ad-stripping. If 3rd parties are allowed to
remove or replace ads, it will dramatically change cable television, and mean
that consumers will have to pay for all the costs of television program
production themselves, without the subsidy of advertisers. I am not sure
whether that would be better or worse than the current model, but it is not
obviously better.

I am not sure that the FCC has the authority to mandate the creation of an
API. Putting that aside, how exactly would you force agreement on an open API?
What do you do if parties disagree? You can't always split the difference, and
you may end up with a very limited API which could even be unworkable. This
could end up like the cable card, which was eventually recognized as a failure
and discontinued.

You are also skipping over some of the more problematic issues with the FCC
proposal, such as how the cable companies must certify that 3rd party boxes
maintain user privacy. I am not sure how the cable companies are supposed to
do this, and it seems like the FCC is just using that requirement as a way to
blame the cable companies when the 3rd parties inevitable do violate
expectations of privacy. The FCC is doing this because the FCC has no
authority to regulate the 3rd parties.

~~~
dsr_
The FCC had authority to mandate CableCard; that's an API with an embedded
hardware implementation.

How do you force compliance? There are always ways. Remember the digital
transition? There were carrots and sticks for broadcasters, TV
manufacturers...

Why do you think the FCC won't have authority to regulate the third parties?
The FCC has jurisdiction over interstate and international communications by
radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. I don't see why that would end
at the demarcation between a TV service and a set-top box, app, recorder or
TV, and history says it does not end there.

~~~
nickff
The digital transition wasn't an issue of carrots and sticks, it was an issue
of 'we're taking the spectrum back, so deal with it'. The FCC owns the
spectrum, so it had broad authority to do almost whatever it wanted, whenever
it wanted to do it.

The FCC can force the cable companies to comply with almost any regulation,
but the issue is how you create the API. Do you vote on contentious issues? Do
you have an FCC arbitrator/mediator? What happens when there is a conflict, or
the API needs to be changed? What can the FCC do when an (unregulated) 3rd
party messes with the API?

The FCC doesn't think it has the authority to regulate third parties, which is
exactly why its proposals require cable companies to certify that the third
parties will follow FCC regulations. If the FCC had any authority to regulate
third parties, they would; the FCC is not exactly restrained in its
regulations. This is not conjecture, I heard an FCC commissioner explain that
this was the reasoning.

~~~
bogomipz
The FCC doesn't own the spectrum. The spectrum is public a asset. The FCC is
the administrator of that asset. I am not trying to nitpick but this is an
important distinction.

Originally broadcasters were allocated spectrum and in exchange were expected
to fulfill some some basic responsibilities for the public good such as being
required to show a certain amount of news content every day. This seems to
have been forgotten but these crooked monopolists. They coax and fiber plant
also uses public right aways in order to connect to households this is also a
public asset.

Their business model is predicated on having access to these public
assets(right aways and spectrum.) and yet at every turn they financially gouge
customers, provide a substandard experience and prevent citizen from having
any choice.

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galdosdi
Actually, I'm willing to believe that a large cable monopoly's IT department
is so incompetent and poorly run, that implementing this successfully is not
likely for them.

That's not a valid excuse though. A landlord ordered legally to fix a broken
heater cannot avoid their duty by complaining "But I'm so BAD at working with
heaters! They're confusing!"

~~~
grecy
I worked in IT at a telco, and you are spot on.

The IT department was incompetent and poorly run, and they couldn't implement
anything new for less than 400% of budget (time and money) and it usually
didn't work very well.

Although, that's not the reason to not do something like this. The reason not
to do something like this is because the bottom line is more important, and
impacting that is not good.

~~~
devonkim
Bad IT is standard and expected for enterprise, period. I've spent years going
around to different companies that fail to do some of the most basic best
practices from 1995. Retention of decent engineers is impossible.

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korethr
I can understand Comcast's point. They're moving away from their QAM-based
system, to an IP-based one, and one of the inherent assumptions of the design
of the latter is that they own and control the network end-points that provide
the video to the display device. Building a nation-wide multi-channel video
distribution network is no small feat, and takes some non-trivial engineering
work.

Then along comes the FCC, and says they don't get to own and control the
network end-points anymore, thereby throwing a massive wrench into the works,
and messing up the assumptions upon which their network is architected. Large
complex systems don't just magically change overnight because of a
governmental decree, despite how much legislators and administrators might
seem to wish so. It would take a great many man-hours to rebuild their current
system to comply with the update.

How many? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? More? I have no idea, but
I do know it ain't gonna be a small number, never mind the monetary costs. And
that's just the capital investment to get compliant. Ongoing support is also
going to costly. And you can be confident that Comcast would then pass those
costs on to their customers in the form of higher subscription fees, and high
bring-your-own-device fees (or a corresponding use-our-device discount if the
FCC prohibits the former).

~~~
bogomipz
I'm not understanding your comment. A QAM tuner provides the
modulating/decoding of the RF signal over coax. If they are moving away from
this then fine but why does that design have "inherent assumptions" that "they
own and control the network end-points that provide the video to the display
device."? So they can continue to charge people $10 a month in perpetuity?
That's about the only reason for that assumption. I certainly can't think of a
technical one.

Its hard to read a comment like this and find it any way credible:

"Comcast argued that "running our network code directly on third-party devices
without our application [is] not feasible."

Running our "network code"? What? What does even mean? Thats like saying the
"system is down." It's the kind of crap that customer service reps say to
people when they have no clue why something isn't functioning.

The cable companies have zero credibility at this point. This is about
continuing to gouge people that it that have no other choice in getting bits
delivered into their home in 2016.

~~~
korethr
That there are assumptions that they own and control the network end points is
betrayed by the comment that you don't find credible. I agree that the comment
is poorly worded, but to me, it indicates that the set-top boxes they're
renting out are more complex than just than something that naively decodes
whatever video codec stream(s) is/are thrown at it.

I think it's a reasonable assumption that the set-top boxes that Comcast
provides are loaded with at least some proprietary Comcast code that takes
care of the various functions the TV box provides (scheduling/channel guide,
on-demand, authorization, DRM-handling etc). I think it's also a reasonable
assumption that Comcast's video distribution network (and related systems,
like billing) are also built with the assumption that the endpoints will have
Comcast's code running on them. It could well be that the set-top boxes for
their new system are naive MPEG decoders running completely stock OEM
firmware, but until presented with evidence of such, I think the former is
more likely.

~~~
bogomipz
"I think it's a reasonable assumption that the set-top boxes that Comcast
provides are loaded with at least some proprietary Comcast code that takes
care of the various functions the TV box provides (scheduling/channel guide,
on-demand, authorization, DRM-handling etc)"

In other words a web app? Why does that require dedicated and proprietary
hardware? What am I missing?

~~~
korethr
Maybe a web app, maybe not a web app. Whether the code running on the Comcast
set-top boxes is a web app or not doesn't matter. What does matter is that is
is that the code running on the Comcast set-top boxes is likely built with the
assumption that it would only ever talk to Comcast's back-end, and Comcast's
back-end is likely built with the assumption that it will only ever talk to
Comcast's set-top box code.

In other words, they're going to be tightly coupled. Sufficiently so that
decoupling them enough to provide an API compliant with the FCC's proposed
ruling is going to be an expensive engineering task that Comcast would rather
not have to spend money on.

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MandieD
Guessing that Comcast is willfully ignoring how cable TV works in Germany and
presumably much of the rest of Europe. We have smartcard readers (and cards)
that we slide into the appropriate slot on our TVs that do the decoding. I
paid 4 EUR/mo. for mine because I knew I was moving, but could have bought it
outright for less than 80 EUR. The optional external receiver instead of the
smartcard reader was 100 EUR.

Then again, even the most expensive cable package runs about 35 EUR/mo. There
is no HBO, though.

~~~
rhino369
Comcast already supports cablecard. They have to by law. The FCC proposed
regulations go further than cable card.

~~~
nickff
Cablecard has been eliminated as a requirement by "Satellite Television
Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization" (STELAR). It was eliminated
because it had failed to increase competition in the set top box market, while
increasing cost and energy consumption.

~~~
rhino369
Ah makes sense. I know Verizon still supported it last year. Do you know if
cable companies are ending their support?

~~~
nickff
I think they are going to wait to see how this rule pans out before deploying
their next generation of set-top boxes, which are unlikely to contain cable
cards.

------
jwatte
Comcast to world: "We can't be bothered to implement an API to comply with
regulations, so we well fight the regulation. Meanwhile, we will fight tooth
and nail against anyone else getting access to public rights of way in our
service area!"

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Aelinsaar
From the monopolists' perspective, I guess every day you delay can be measured
in vast sums of money. Moreover, if they're aware of the reality that the "Set
top box" has a very limited lifespan in the future, they may just be milking
the market while they have it, and to hell with anything else.

~~~
gumby
The economics of this business is just weird. Last year comcast gave me a
deal: TV + Internet for much less than the price of internet service alone. A
"special deal" for one year. I took it. The year was almost up so I called
yesterday to cancel. Turns out I can renew this "special" deal, and it's still
cheaper than IP service alone. And the agent said to just call again next year
and they'll give it to me again. The TV boxes are in the closet -- the agent
said if I returned them they would cancel the deal and I'd pay the list price
for IP service.

Ironically Nielsen selected my home as a place to track my "tv" viewing but
when I told them we don't watch cable or broadcast they weren't interested.
Every three months I have that conversation over again. What's funny is they
just announced they had "found a way to track Netflix viewing" \-- yet they
could have been tracking it the same way they track other TV viewing: by
asking people. But they don't. Hmm.

BTW odious as Comcast is (and boy do they plumb the depths) I have to praise
them for providing full routable IPv6 to every house. I know in Europe and SE
Asia that's old hat, but for the US it's exotic.

~~~
starnixgod
Dump the boxes and pick up a cable card. Comcast rebates you $2.50 for having
a cable card on your account[0].

[0]:
[https://www.xfinity.com/equipmentpolicy](https://www.xfinity.com/equipmentpolicy)

~~~
gumby
That's hilarious. The hack value makes it worth the hassle for the $2.50. Plus
it will take up less room in my closet!

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pyrale
I wonder what the tech crowd would say if government was to order Apple to
release windows- and android-compatible OSes, or if it was to rewrite Google's
Youtube API terms of use at its convenience.

You guys seem to have a pretty heavy dislike to your cable providers, which is
OK, but I wonder how you would react to similar requests towards tech
companies.

~~~
eridius
Cable providers are monopolies. In most markets, customers have literally zero
choice as to what provider to use. This means that they need to accept a fair
amount of government regulation, because there are no market pressures to act
as corrective forces without government regulation. Meanwhile, the tech
companies you listed are not monopolies (and when Microsoft did engage in
monopolistic behavior, they were found to be violating antitrust and were
subject to some regulation, e.g. no more bundling IE with Windows and making
it difficult to get other browsers, etc).

~~~
pyrale
Let's not lie to ourselves. Google has as close as it gets to having a
monopoly. Monopolies are everywhere in our industry. For the last 5 years, the
key questions to get funding were policed versions of: "can you build a
monopoly" and "if we give you money, what will be your dumping strategy". And
that behaviour is exemplified by e.g. the transportation market conquest by
Uber.

Imo, Microsoft's antitrust is not something that would happen again, because
politicians now care about international power rather than domestic balance,
aswell as the fact tech companies now invest significantly in lobbying.

~~~
wnevets
65% of market share is a monopoly?

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phkahler
Before I dropped cable TV, I refused to subscribe anything that required a set
top box. My house still has an antenna in the attic with a cable running down
to the basement where an A/B switch will flip the whole house from cable to
antenna. No extra boxes on any of my TVs. Granted, I never wanted pay per view
anyway. WoW can still be used like that by just plugging the cable into the
TV, but oddly you need a box to get "digital" channels outside the normal
local ones. Of course that's another fucking scam because there haven't
actually been analog broadcasts for 7 years in the US, yet the cable companies
down-convert everything and then charge more to get it unaltered.

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mankash666
Other things Comcast & the cable industry deem infeasible:

1> Operating in an open market - they've lobbied against 2 cable providers in
a zip code. 2> Providing reliable, high-speed service and realistic prices -
US internet prices are among the highest in the developed world, while being
woefully slow in comparison. 3> Moving with the times - heard of the 300 GB
monthly cap? 4> Not subverting the competition - Cable companies have been
known to throttle speeds to competing services like Netflix. 5> Protecting
your privacy - Selling your data and usage patterns to 3rd parties

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saquibhafiz
comcast response tl;dr:

"Our system is old and we would keep up with the new but we don't really want
to lose money because of your so called laws and we have zero care about being
consumer friendly."

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givinguflac
"It's not possible to document the information flows. Here, let me tell you
how the information flows work so you'll get why I can't explain it."

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technofiend
Did they also stomp their feet and say "But I don't wannaaaaaaaa"? Just
curious.

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dsfyu404ed
Come on. This is the FCC not the ATF or EPA. The FCC has historically been
very good about reasonable, understandable (even to the layman) requirements.
Comcast really doesn't have much of an argument here IMO

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AdmiralAsshat
s/feasible/profitable

