Cable subscribers fork over $19 billion a year on something they don't need: cable box rentals. But the industry has done its damnedest to make sure cable subscribers don't go out and buy their own by making it a logistical nightmare. As Bouree Lam at The Atlantic points out, though, that could maybe change, taking a cue from the phone industry.
In the early days of landlines, subscribers rented their phones from Ma Bell. But as third party vendors cropped up, the FCC had to make a decision: did consumers have a right to own their telephones? New regulations after 1968 permitted third party phone vendors, and opened up the doors to new kinds of home phones and home phone services. A new FCC report outlines the possibility of doing much the same with cable boxes: consumers would buy their own at a store, just like any electronic, and that box would receive service from the cable provider, no monthly fee or card.
It's unlikely to be popular with the cable industry, which means that it would ultimately come down to that dreaded word: FCC regulations. But the end of it could be $300 less consumers have to pay to Comcast to get called Asshole Brown.
Source: The Atlantic
