OTI Applauds FCC Action on Set Top Boxes

WASHINGTON D.C.— Today, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a proposal to bring choice and innovation to the market for set-top boxes. Ninety-nine percent of pay-TV subscribers rent a set-top box from their cable provider for lack of any meaningful alternative, costing consumers an average of $231 per year and generating an estimated $20 billion in annual revenue for the cable industry. The FCC plans to vote on the proposal on February 18.

The following quote can be attributed to Joshua Stager, policy counsel for New America’s Open Technology Institute:

We applaud the chairman’s efforts to bring technological innovation and consumer choice to a market that has seen neither in decades. For far too long, consumers have been locked into renting set top devices that are expensive, energy-inefficient, antiquated, and anticompetitive. These devices have gone from being a modest line-item on your monthly bill to a $20 billion-per-year cash cow for the cable industry. It is time to bring this market into the 21st century.