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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.