Cable giant Comcast said Wednesday it will allow some customers to watch cable TV without leasing a set-top box, responding to federal regulators' heightened efforts to open up the pay-TV set-top box market.
In a limited program that will be gradually expanded, customers with a Roku TV, a Roku streaming media player, or a 2016 Samsung Smart TV "later this year" will be able to watch Comcast's TV programming – including local broadcast, cable and DVR recordings stored in the cloud -- through the Xfinity TV Partner app embedded in the TV set or via the Roku devices.
To use the app, customers still have to subscribe to a cable TV package from Xfinity, which is Comcast's brand for its cable TV and Internet services. Comcast's new program plans to recruit more manufacturers to expand its device options.
Customers who subscribe to Comcast's TV service but buy Internet from another competitor will have to use a small device. Comcast doesn't plan to charge for the device.
"We remain committed to giving our customers more choice in how, when and where they access their subscription," said Mark Hess, a Comcast senior vice president, in a prepared statement.
"Since many Roku customers are also Xfinity subscribers we believe the new Xfinity channel will be very popular when it launches this fall," Steve Shannon, Roku's general manager of content, said in a statement.
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission began the process[1] of crafting rules that could give consumers new devices and apps to access pay-TV programming without renting to set-top boxes from their cable provider. Customers pay, on average, about $232 a year to rent set-top boxes, according to a survey of ten largest pay-TV providers last year by Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
The FCC's action follows Congress' 2014 instruction to increase set-top box competition and lower rental costs by allowing consumers to use other manufacturers' devices.
The pay-TV industry has opposed the FCC's efforts, citing concerns about consumer privacy and intellectual property protection. The industry's proponents also argue that opening the set-top box market may be a futile effort given the rapid pace of technological changes that may make current options obsolete in the near future.
"While we do not know all of the details of this announcement, it appears to offer only a proprietary, Comcast-controlled user interface and seems to allow only Comcast content on different devices, rather than allowing those devices to integrate or search across Comcast content as well as other content consumers subscribe to," the FCC said in a statement.
References
- ^ began the process (www.usatoday.com)
Source → Comcast to allow some TV customers to ditch set-top box
