<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nSoon, Subscribers Will Have
Option to Buy Set-Top Boxes;
Pros and Cons of Cablecards
By COREY BOLES<\/p>\n
A generation ago, federal regulators opened the way for consumers to buy telephones rather than rent them from the phone company. Now, the government has its sights on the television set-top boxes that consumers rent from cable or satellite companies.<\/p>\n
Beginning July 1, the Federal Communications Commission has ordered cable companies to supply only set-top boxes that can accept a so-called cablecard that slides into the set-top box and determines a customer’s level of access to cable service. The change is meant to give consumers nationwide the option of buying their own set-top boxes — or TVs that can use the cablecard — rather than renting one.<\/p>\n
That new freedom may soon trigger an old question: Is it better to own or rent? On average, cable companies charge $5 a month for a regular set-top box and $7 for one with a built-in digital video recorder, or DVR. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association estimates those costs will increase to $8 and $10, respectively, for a set-top box with a slot for a cablecard.<\/p>\n
A standard box with no recording capability, meanwhile, would likely retail for around $130 — the cost of renting for a little more than a year, according to Ian Olgeirson, a Denver-based cable analyst with SNL Kagan, a market-research company. The price of a DVR that can use a cablecard is expected to be much higher. TiVo Inc. sells a version for $700 but plans a less-expensive model.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a major profit center, and one of the reasons that I’m still doing analogue basic cable. Rent or Own? The New Cable-TV Dilemma – WSJ.com Soon, Subscribers Will HaveOption to Buy Set-Top Boxes;Pros and Cons of CablecardsBy COREY BOLES A generation ago, federal regulators opened the way for consumers to buy telephones rather …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1144,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-electronics","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}