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Monday, April 12, 2010

Are You Tired of Your Cable Box?

Have you ever thought about the differences between accessing content on your TV verse accessing from the web? Do you find yourself making excuses? It's always been this way, no keyboard, it's good enough. Well it isn't. Unfortunately with the control in the hands of cable companies, there is little reason to change. And so if you can't go through the mountain, go around them.

"Most TV sets for sale by 2013 will be able to connect to the Internet right out of the box, setting the stage for companies such as Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Intel Corp., to make televisions a lot more like computers and smartphones." As content companies find revenue models that work without the cable company, they will provide channels through IP technology. Notice that TV manufacturers have stopped trying to work with cable companies. These TV sets don't have Tru2way or CableCard technology to easily connect to programming; no, they are all connecting via the internet. And as more compelling content gets presented through the internet, cable subscription will drop.

Cable companies will complain that there are too many legacy set top boxes out in the market and too expensive to change. But they won't even allow a third party manufacturer to sell a box directly to the consumer. Wouldn't you love to see a Tivo box that can actually access on demand. How about an authorized Apple set top box with internet and cable access. It is time for cable companies to see the future and change else they will become like AOL. Once the top ISP and now simply a footnote.