For weeks, cable providers such as Comcast have been resisting a federal proposal that would force them to make their channels available to anybody who wanted to design new user interfaces for them. Instead of browsing the channel lineup through cable-provided menus and devices, consumers should have access to a greater variety of choices, argue the regulators who proposed the move.
Now the industry has come out with a counterproposal that it hopes will keep away the toughest of the regulations proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. In meetings with top agency officials last week, representatives from Comcast, AT&T and a slew of industry organizations offered a compromise. The deal would allow consumers to get rid of their set-top boxes altogether, saving the roughly $230 a year on average that households pay for the box.
Through an app designed by your cable company, you would be able to search and view all kinds of content not limited to your regular cable lineup; instead, you would also be able to access Netflix-style streaming video content right from the same app. Consumer advocates say this form of integrated search that unifies cable and streaming programming benefits consumers.
The app would be designed using open HTML5 standards, meaning that startups and businesses that sell smart TVs or other hardware could begin supporting the app without having to jump through hoops trying to meld with proprietary cable technology. But the user interface would have the same look and feel of the cable providers’ own channel lineups and menus.