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Friday, February 19, 2016

Unlocking Set Top Box Won't Come Quickly

So the FCC agrees that it is time to let consumers choose which box they want to use to access their cable TV programming.  Good news for TiVo, bad news for cable operators making tons of dollars by "renting" their cable boxes to subscribers.  But don't expect that the FCC vote means anything changes anytime soon.  According to Multichannel, an addition vote won't come til Spring at the earliest.  And then it will take time to implement.

As Multichannel tells us, that could take another 3 years if not longer.  Of course cable operators may simply take the fight to the courts, delaying the start for more years.  Till then, some cable operators have already enabled TiVo as an alternative cable box, others have not.  Some allow a CableCard to unscramble signals but limit the boxes ability to use all the features, notably on demand.  The bottom line, the unlocking of the cable box is many, many years away.