FCC Fines Cox, Time Warner For CableCARD Screw UpsAggressive switched digital upgrades prevented CableCARDs from working... 07:56AM Friday Oct 17 2008 by Karl Bodetags: fcc · business · cable · RoadRunner Cable · Cox HSIA growing number of cable operators are deploying switched digital video (SDV) technology, which frees up bandwidth on cable systems by delivering fewer channels to the cable-box, keeping the rest waiting at the edge router. In current cable systems, all channels are consistently made available to the set-top box, using up valuable bandwidth even if your TV is off. In early trials, Time Warner Cable announced the bandwidth savings "exceeded 50%," so they've been aggressively deploying the technology. Perhaps a little too aggressively. In Kansas City, the company began upgrading to SDV before the two-way technology was modified to work properly with one-way CableCARDs, so users of third party set-tops (like TiVo) were forced to downgrade to Time Warner Cable boxes. The FCC had previously fined Time Warner Cable's Hawaii division a not-so-whopping $7,500 for failing to properly inform the Local Franchising Authority in Hawaii about the upgrade. Yesterday, both Time Warner Cable and Cox had their wrists slapped for knocking CableCARD customers offline with their SDV upgrades (see pdf FCC documents 1, 2, 3). FCC documents show Time Warner and Cox face multiple $20,000 fines and customer refunds: We conclude, pursuant to Section 503(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (“Act”), 3that TWC is apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000). We also require TWC to make appropriate refund offees charged to customers affected by TWC’s movement of linear channels to the SDV platform on November 6, 2007. While this may have happened in additional markets, Time Warner Cable was fined $20,000 for screwups in both their Oahu and Kauai systems, while Cox was also fined $20,000 for knocking CableCARD users offline in Fairfax County, Virginia. Both cable operators apparently spent yesterday disputing the fines in closed door sessions at the FCC.
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bufbandit
join:2002-03-25
Buffalo, NY
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Idiots... Lets see here, lets say the government decided to pass a law that Mcdonalds is required to put 50 sesame seeds on their buns for the 5 percent of the customers that wants them. Thats just fine and dandy. But then Mcdonalds decides to increase the size of the bun but keep the same 50 seeds on it. The 5 percent of the customers will complain about it. Is it the fault of McDees to try to offer a better product to try to grab more customers? The government is hurting business that want to offer bigger and better products with these nonsense laws. The only people that hurt are the %95 percent of the customers that want better products. | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Idiots... Wrong. This is McDonald's changing the buns so that only McDonald's sesame seeds stick. If people want to put their own sesame seeds on they're screwed. | |
| | | | | battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000 | Re: Idiots... If they don't like it they can always go across the street to Burger King. (DirectTv/DishNetwork) | |
| | | | | | kontos
xyzzy
join:2001-10-04
West Henrietta, NY
| Re: Idiots... said by battleop  :If they don't like it they can always go across the street to Burger King. (DirectTv/DishNetwork) Except that the sesame seeds don't stick to the Satellite buns, either.  | |
| | | | | | | battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000 | Re: Idiots... It sucks but you can't have everything. | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | That isn't the issue here. The FCC says you have to make buns so that competitors seeds stick. | |
| | | | | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Idiots... I could care less about Tivo users.. I'm tired of a few people holding up progress for the majority. That's the end of my discussion on that.
However, YOU of all people Ske, should have picked up on the fact that the FCC fined the cable company for not "properly informing the franchise of the change"..
Why in the hell should the FCC collect money because they failed to do something with the franchise? Why didn't the franchise fine TWC? And, who got the money? The FCC! Why didn't the FCC give that money to the F/A after fining?
There's a lot to go around here for finger pointing (which is the spirit of BBR these days).. but the bottom line is that eve on the basis on the actions of the FCC, your own water won't stay in the bucket on this one. The fine was for not "properly informing the franchise of the change"... not that they did it and it wasn't allowed.
And, to your post.. the FCC doesn't say you have to make buns so the competitors seeds stick, necessarily, it says you have to be truthful in how you are modifying the bun. In your logic, the FCC is saying that once a device is supported, it's always supported which has NEVER been the case anywhere. TWC is certainly allowed to flick off the Tivo users from the bun, so long as they make sure they know in advance. | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Idiots... What else would you expect from the resident cable industry spokeshole? | |
| | | | | | | | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Idiots... said by Dogfather :What else would you expect from the resident cable industry spokeshole? Watch your mouth.
Maybe I should, for fun, launch a law suit against BBR for them allowing you to personally insult and attack me all while they don't enforce their own TOS rules property, yet selectively when it makes their position better.
But anyway, coming back to reality even thought you're not there.. I'm not going to speak to a child who is always here on a rant throwing a temper tantrum.
Did someone take away your tinker toys & stomp them into little pieces today Mr. Communist? | |
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DataRiker
Premium
join:2002-05-19
Metairie, LA
clubs:
edit:
October 17th, @11:11PM
| Re: Idiots... said by fiberguy :said by Dogfather :What else would you expect from the resident cable industry spokeshole? Watch your mouth. Maybe I should, for fun, launch a law suit against BBR for them allowing you to personally insult and attack me all while they don't enforce their own TOS rules property, yet selectively when it makes their position better. But anyway, coming back to reality even thought you're not there.. I'm not going to speak to a child who is always here on a rant throwing a temper tantrum. Did someone take away your tinker toys & stomp them into little pieces today Mr. Communist? This is the 3rd time I have seen you crying about BBR's TOS. Instead of launching a lawsuit against BBR, which is not funny at all, why don't you move to another site?
Oh, and for the love of god are all your paragraphs one sentence? | |
| | | | | | | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Wow.. so I disagree I am invested in the company or industry.. real good come back.. is that all you have?
Now, before you come here, wierdo, and tell me I know nothing of what I speak of.. the last time I checked, and it was posted here, SDV side cars, dongles, adapters, etc. are in the works of being developed and being brought to market FOR Tivo users so they can continue using their boxes with SDV.
Anything else I can correct you on today? | |
| | | | | | | | | | jmr50
join:2000-05-14
Chantilly, VA
| Re: Idiots... What about my TV? I paid for it, and it has big digital cable ready sticker on it, and now it can't receive a third of the HD channels. Consumers have paid thousands of dollars for equipment which now can't be used as advertised (i.e., without a set-top box). The law which required separable security which didn't require it for just a few channels, it required it for all linear channels. I'm not sure why the law requires it for HDNet but doesn't require it for SciFiHD... and I don't care what they do to make TiVo users happy, it still does nothing for the millions of CableCard-enabled TVs out there. | |
| | | | | | | | | | wierdo
join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK
 ·Future Nine Corpor..
·Teliax VOIP
·Cox HSI
| Re: Idiots... said by jmr50 :it still does nothing for the millions of CableCard-enabled TVs out there. There actually are very few cablecard enabled TVs being used with cards, sadly. The vast majority of them that aren't in MSO owned boxes are in TiVos, by something like a 10 to 1 margin.
That doesn't mean I disagree with your point or think that the tuning resolver is a real solution.
And as a side note, a large part of the reason for that low penetration is the cable companies themselves, leaving out SDV entirely. They misinform customers, many require a truck roll to have them installed, and they have such poor training on them that even when they send out an employee to do the install, it still often either doesn't work or takes hours for them to make it work.
It's really quite ridiculous.
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It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word.  | |
| | | | | | | | | | rv65
Premium
join:2008-08-02 | Most CableCard TV's don't have a USB port so they can't use the tuning resolver. Plus the TV manufacturer would have to make a firmware update. The tuning resolver is free and is much smaller than a cable box. | |
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Exactly
@cox.net
| We in our early geek stages should have been more aggressive, and now we should be too.
It's ridiculous how much power is given to the phone company and cable networks, not to mention money.
Whats the real difference from hiring a host to having Cox communications or anyone else host your account?
They have access to all of your scripts, people that work for them can plug in a flash drive and steal all of your programming, and there doesn't seem to be an end to all of this.
A beginning would be to script programs that only upload the visual contents and leave the controls on the person's PC.
Another good idea would be to create a program that checks out scripting to insure it doesn't round robin or steal from the person using the script. | |
| | | | Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Pittsburgh, PA
| said by bufbandit :Is it the fault of McDees to try to offer a better product to try to grab more customers? The government is hurting business that want to offer bigger and better products with these nonsense laws. McDonald's doesn't rely on laws and government regulations to bundle together items customers don't want to purchase with items they do want to purchase just to raise everyone's total bill. Yes Mickey Dees does offer some bundles with discounts but customers actually have a choice of bundles or al a carte. | |
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mmainprize
join:2001-12-06
Houghton Lake, MI
| Re: Idiots... Ypu are correct and to add to that statement, The reason they have 50% bandwidth savings is because of those not need channels that we are forced to buy that no one watches. We have 50% to many channels that are junk being forced on us and we can't seem to do anything about it. | |
| | | | | | magnushsi
join:2002-11-06
Cedar Springs, MI
| Re: Idiots... I agree that customers are forced to pay for crap they don't watch, but remember, it's not the cable companys that force that. It's the content providers. They are the ones who sell the content to the MSO in bundles. The MSO can definitely eliminate the garbage channels, but they had to pay for them and thus you will as well, so you might as well have them in the lineup. You can pay $10 for 10 channels (8 garbage) or $10 for 2 channels. | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Idiots... Then what these cable dumbasses to is put those two good channels on two different tiers so if you want them you have to pay $20 instead of $10. | |
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Zen6
@rr.com | Are we talking big mac or the ig and nasty? | |
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COXNVA customer
@cox.net
| so what you are saying is that me the consumer who called my cable company to ask if they supported tivo hd, they responded yes so spent $300 on a new tivo, as it conforms with fcc regs that allow me to remove my programs from the dvr, something that most cable company owned boxes make increasingly difficult to do. so when the company knowingly lies to me the consumer they need to be reprimanded, especially when asked specific questions, such as what channels are SDV? Is USAHD SDV? and the answers are either a resounding yes, which is a lie, or I don't know anything about SDV.. So as far a hurting business the company is doing that itself by alienating a percent of their population.
So the consumer isn't the idiot the company is... | |
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swintec
Premium
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME | Re: Idiots... In our market, TWs SDV channels are all listed as so on the channel line ups, quite clearly, on there website.
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Usenet Accounts | |
| | | dentman42
join:2001-10-02
Columbus, OH
 ·AT&T Midwest
| said by Dogfather :Hardly...more like accelerated anti-competitive behavior to force people to rent their overpriced crap hardware. They're in the video business; not the rip you off for shitty DVR business. If they don't like the rules, they're free to sell their franchises. However they're not allowed to abuse their market position to put customers over a barrel. Meanwhile they see a bandwidth savings of 50% but don't give any of that to additional HSI channels. Instead, they move to implement caps. F TWC. To make it fair, they should not be able to encrypt anything except for the premium services (Showtime, HBO, etc.). They should have to keep the digital equivalent of "basic" or as Insight calls it "classic" service (their "basic" is more like lifeline) in the clear. Otherwise, by switching to digital, even if you have a QAM tuner, you're still forced to rent a cable box or cable card (the cable co still owns the cable cards and they still charge a monthly fee for them) to get what they could get without a box on a cable ready TV with an NTSC tuner. | |
| | | cableguy619
join:2003-06-24
Chula Vista, CA
| My thing is Telo Tv should comply, btu they cant because of withced digital which they do. Kinda sucks when the government runs your technology....
But heck they will give 700 Billion out to the Insurance and Mortgage companies...errrr
Gov has to much sway in our technology..
Of course we can go the Chinese model all about business 1st.. | |
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NetAdmin
join:2008-05-22
| Right, let's make it so that companies can ACTIVELY impede their competition. For someone who sounds like a free market cheerleader, you seem awfully quick to side on those would do things that are anti-competitive.
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Drilling for more oil is akin to giving a methhead the keys to the meth lab. | |
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| percosan
join:2002-03-13
San Francisco, CA
| I agree with you 100% ... no impact (in any form) on any "public asset" ... purely a private network that is utilized to deliver a non-critical (entertainment) product.
Seems that some of our government has we too much time on their hands!
-p | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA
edit:
October 17th, @11:04AM
| Re: Idiots... Most businesses have 100% private assets, but all are subject to regulation. TWC knew what the rules were in advance and chose to ignore them. | |
| | | | percosan
join:2002-03-13
San Francisco, CA
| Re: Idiots... I agree that "rules are rules", however, it is odd that the Federal Communications Commission is involved. If regulation is required, which I believe the original theme of the post was that this is ridiculous given it is the boob tube, it seems that this is an issue that would be best regulated by the FTC as it has absolutely nothing to do with technology and everything to do with fulfilling their commitment to their customers.
or not.
-p | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: Idiots... The FCC is mandated with regulating cable video operations. | |
| | | | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| Re: Idiots... said by Dogfather :The FCC is mandated with regulating cable video operations. ... to a point. | |
| k1ll3rdr4g0n
join:2005-03-19
Homer Glen, IL
·AT&T DSL Service
| Three strikes? Whatever happened to three strikes and your out rule?
I think stupidity like this needs to be punished by the government via them holding Cox and Time Warner's hands for awhile (not just the whole cable industry)....
Or go in with electroshock and shock all the CEO's until they are competent enough to run a company.
I don't know about you guys, but if I was running a muilt-billion (or million, who knows) I would do everything in my power to make sure we were playing nice with uncle sam and not try to piss him off....and make the customers happy, but that is an issue that seems to exist in every company. | |
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See 18 replies to this post | |
nightdesigns
Gone missing, back soon
Premium
join:2002-05-31
AZ
·Cox HSI
| I was affected I was one of the cox customers who was knocked off-air during the upgrades in the Phoenix Market. They basically nuked the signal to my Tivo. Called cox and was basically told I was full of it and it was my hardware problem. By visiting the tivo-community forums, it was packed with people in the same area with the same issues. We all called cox and they denied any doing. I even had the cox techs on BBR helping to make noise. It was 2 weeks of truck rolls with no improvement before they started admitting a screw up. It still took work to get a refund.
They have since rolled back the switch to SDV, fixed the errors and then rolled it out again. No issues this time, but there's still a lack of a "Tuning Resolver" so I am missing some channels.
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This Space for Rent... | |
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pcken98
@cox.net
| Re: I was affected I too was affected, but with Cox Las Vegas - not in the market for the fines - but my Tivo and Cable cards worked only 25% of the time - often recording blank (e.g. no recording) shows. So, they're lucky they didn't have to pay a fine for las vegas too - I too got rid of my tivo (thankfully got it at Costco, because tivo says NO refunds) --- anyway, and had to switch to cox dvrs at $19 a month EACH (from a $3.00 a month cable card). | |
| | | magnushsi
join:2002-11-06
Cedar Springs, MI
| Re: I was affected Your issues had nothing to do with SDV deployments (Cox LV does not have SDV). Your issues were related to Tivo's interpretaion of the cablecard spec. Tivo does things slightly different than every other CE manufacturer using a cablecard. Both Moto and Cisco are constantly working cablecard "work arounds" to make the MSO's happy with dealing with Tivo using customers, even though the majority of the issues are in fact Tivo specific issues. | |
| | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20 | So, you dropped (returned) one (1) tivo box and took it back to Costco and "had" to switch to a $19 DVR per month? So, when you reach your retail cost of the TIVO plus monthly subscription costs, let us know would ya? | |
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nightdesigns
Gone missing, back soon
Premium
join:2002-05-31
AZ
·Cox HSI
| Re: I was affected If cox is $19/mo not including bogus fees/taxes, then It'd take me 16 months to pay off my box. Considering my first tivo is over 5 years old and going strong, it has paid for itself time and time again. My 2nd Tivo, which is the HD model, is nearly paid off as well.
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This Space for Rent... | |
| | | | iSEPIC
join:2001-04-17
San Jose, CA
| Considering Cox in LV charges an install fee for the Cable Cards, I'd say in about 18 months.
$19x12=228, plus $29.99 install fee = $257.99 for the first year of Cox cable dvr. (with his price quoted above of 19 a month)
129.99 (1 year svc), $149 for the tivo, $1.99 cc fee to cox = $302.87
Net difference after the first year is: 44.88
After the first year, Cox is still $19/month, and Tivo would be $12.82 ((129.99/12)+1.99 cc fee). So Each month of using Tivo instead of Cox DVR would be a net profit of $6.18, which would take about 7 months to pay off the 1st year difference of $44.88 stated above.
So after that 18th month (ROI if you will), he'd be saving money.
Summary:
Year 1
257.99 Cox (including install fee)
302.87 Tivo (including hardware purchase price)
Year 2 (actually starting on the 18th month after purchase)
228.00 Cox (no install fee)
153.87 Tivo (no hardware purchase cost)
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74.13 Savings per year after the first 18 months. | |
| b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA | Should be $20,000 per customer per day! That would get them off their a$$ and get things working properly. | |
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DustySilicon
join:2002-10-06
Oak Grove, MO
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Should be $20,000 per customer per day! said by b10010011 :That would get them off their a$$ and get things working properly. $20,000 dollar fine? That is ridicules! I'm sure this tactic made them a lot more money than that, so I'm sure they still came out far ahead of the fine. Easier to just do it and pay the piddly ass fine afterwords, and pocket the $$$$. Sheez.............. | |
| | | wierdo
join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK
·Future Nine Corpor..
·Teliax VOIP
·Cox HSI
| Re: Should be $20,000 per customer per day! said by DustySilicon :said by b10010011 :That would get them off their a$$ and get things working properly. $20,000 dollar fine? That is ridicules! I'm sure this tactic made them a lot more money than that, so I'm sure they still came out far ahead of the fine. Easier to just do it and pay the piddly ass fine afterwords, and pocket the $$$$. Sheez.............. They also have to provide refunds to CC users whose fees increased because they took the company's box, those who kept the CC and lost channels, and ongoing service discounts for the missing channels.
I think a more punitive fine would have been appropriate, too, since they just unilaterally decided to ignore both the laws they operate under and FCC regulations, making it that much harder for competitive hardware to be sold. SDV has certainly had an impact on TiVo's sales.
If they really wanted to do SDV, they could have asked for a waiver from the Commission. It probably would have been granted, given the impending availability of the tuning resolver.
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It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word. | |
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anvotum76
@solidspace.com
 from:
voipguy
| I'm all for interoperability but come on. I'm going to take a rare stance for myself.
I think the cable companies should be able to deploy SDV at will.
The cable companies product is the service, not the dvr's you rent, all evidence points to the fact that it takes years to recoup the cost of a cable dvr box. they aren't making a huge profit on them.
The reason for SDV is for them to be able to continue to be competative with FIOS and Satelite TV. They need to add as many HD channels as they can, plus VOD and faster internet speeds. To force them to insure that their service continues to work with 3rd party hardware that came out prior puts an unfair burden on them and slows down the deployment of the new services HD, faster internet, VOD that we all want at the same time we are complaining about SDV.
It's a simple Either/Or equation you can't have both.
Most third party products for a service are known to have the limitation that they might become obsolete, it's the chance you take when buying third party hardware for a service, the service might likely change.
Examples
Does motorola or any other cable modem company complain about docsis 3.0 coming out? no they build a 3.0 modem
Lots of people buy their cable modems and are forced to upgrade in order to get the complete new service.
Do PC component manufacturers complain when the industry adds a new bus type, ie pci-express? nope again.
The only reason we have this complaint is because of dedicated Tivo fans who paid alot of money for a third party product, well maybe they should push tivo to make their units upgradable, and tivo should try to keep up with the technology. as that is the job of a third party product supplier. and cablecards comeon those things were obsolete before they came out, they can't even do VOD. One way cable cards where always a losing bet. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
LeeWL
join:2002-11-10
Morrisville, NC
| Nearly all cable systems are franchises with local gvt Since the Local authorities sign agreements with cable companies saying that they are the sole provider in their area, the whole rules of capitalism and competition are thrown out the window.
It is not like McD's and Burger King, since no one says that only McD is allowed in the city limits. | |
| mapper
join:2008-04-07
Fairfax, VA
·Cox HSI
 ·Verizon FIOS
| SDV is fine... It would be fine if cable companies rolled out SDV to their customers, but then reduced the fees for CableCARD customers, as they now receive less channels. Crazy as it sounds, it would be little compensation for whatever channels the user doesn't receive. My 2 cents. | |
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Idiots...
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