Cable industry offers set-top box compromise to avoid stricter regulation

Cable companies still oppose the Federal Communications Commission's attempt to open up the set-top box market but seem to have resigned themselves to accepting some form of regulation. Industry representatives met with FCC commissioners and staff to say they are willing to comply with a requirement to deploy applications for third-party set-top boxes using open standards. The apps would have to include all linear and on-demand TV content, but apparently they would not have to allow recording. This isn't quite what the FCC says it wants. The commission proposed rules that would force pay-TV providers to make video programming—and the right to record video—available to the makers of third-party devices and software.

Under the FCC's model, makers of third-party software and equipment could create their own user interfaces through which cable TV subscribers could access their programming. The solution would be similar to CableCard, but it wouldn't require a physical card. Throughout the debate, cable companies have favored an "apps" model in which pay-TV operators could choose whether to build applications that bring their programming to third-party devices. Cable companies still aren't giving up on the apps approach, but now they say they would agree to rules that make it mandatory for large operators to build apps providing access to all the video customers subscribe to on a wide range of devices.