Google vs. the cable guys: the big fight over the little set-top box in your home

On a Friday morning in January, an audience of congressional staffers and federal regulators were invited to Google's spacious DC office, conveniently located just a few blocks from Capitol Hill. The reason: to see Google and other companies demo a "prototype" for a new open interface on set-top boxes. The gathering took place two days after the Federal Communications Commission unveiled a proposal that could change how the majority of US households watch TV. Consumers would no longer be forced to rent clunky boxes from cable companies -- sometimes at a cost of more than $200 a year. Instead, the proposed rules would finally give households the option to access cable and satellite TV, as well as online streaming services like Netflix, through a single, cheaper device, potentially made by third parties like Apple, Amazon, and Google. The FCC proposal was guaranteed to enrage cable companies, long protective of their control over lucrative cable boxes. Yet, it was news of the conveniently timed product demo that made the battle lines clear to many inside the industry: Big Cable vs. Big Google.