AT&T and FCC Chairman Square Off in Set-top Box Fight

The Federal Communications Commission chairman dismissed concerns from AT&T and other pay-TV providers about new set-top box rules, saying that the companies shouldn't fear a little competition.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal would force pay-TV providers to make video programming available to the makers of third-party devices and software, saying he wants customers to have more alternatives to set-top boxes rented from cable companies. A vote is scheduled for next week, and TV providers are furious.

Wheeler doesn't mind, though. “The big kick I get is that AT&T and the cable companies have been putting out statements say, ‘This is going to thwart innovation,'” Wheeler said in an interview with Variety. “And I scratch my head and say, ‘My goodness, let’s see. When was the last time that competition thwarted innovation rather than spurring innovation?’ And you are telling me that a locked-down, closed system will have more impetus to be innovative than a competitive, open system? I think that history shows that it is exactly the opposite of what happens in reality.”

AT&T last week wrote a blog post criticizing Wheeler's plan, arguing that customers already "have more choices than ever to watch what they want, when they want it and on the device of their choosing anywhere they happen to be."

Noting that pay-TV providers already make apps for third-party devices, AT&T wrote, "The video 'app' model has enabled consumer choice without any need for government or regulatory mandates."

AT&T also argued that the FCC's plan would let Google and other companies "take our competitive service and repackage it as their own, without ever having to negotiate with us or with the content owners with whom we had to negotiate to create our service offering. It’s akin to the FCC mandating that we get access to Google’s home page (and all of the contract rights and algorithms that go with it) so that we can redesign and rebrand it as our own."

AT&T became the largest pay-TV provider in the nation when it bought DirecTV last year.

The existing CableCard system already lets providers like TiVo sell set-top boxes that let consumers watch all their channels. But Wheeler's plan would make this happen without requiring a CableCard.

“All we are saying is, ‘Cable operators, you can go ahead and control your product. But have an open platform so that anyone can build a device, and then let’s compete on who can offer the better device,'" Wheeler said. "Let’s have the cable company say, ‘You want to pay me for my interface, because it does all these things nobody else does,’ rather than, ‘You must pay me.’ We are just trying to get to that basic American concept of competition.”

Leave a message 

Message List