FCC Set To Vote Thursday On Set-Top Box Rules

The Federal Communications Commission's proposed rules to let pay-TV subscribers free themselves from set-top boxes may be in jeopardy, according to USAToday.

Commissioners are expected to vote Thursday at the agency's monthly meeting on the measure, which would require pay-TV providers make free apps available to let subscribers watch programming on other devices without the need of a set-top box.

Tom Wheeler

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made the proposal in January and the commission set it in motion a month later by a 3-2 vote. Wheeler reworked the proposed rules after initial concerns from pay-TV providers and programmers about copyright protections and consumer privacy.

However, content companies such as Disney and Time Warner remain concerned about the FCC's involvement in licensing third-party companies, while pay-TV providers and others say that the proposal goes beyond the agency's purview.

Urging the agency to approve the measure Tuesday were two Democratic senators, Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. The FCC and Wheeler have listened to the stakeholders and addressed the issues, says Markey. "I think the approach that the FCC is taking deals with the issues that have been raised," he said.

Consumers pay, on average, $231 annually to rent set-top boxes, according to a report Markey and Blumenthal released in 2015, and the pay-TV industry takes in about $20 billion each year on rentals of the devices.

The agency is following instructions from Congress, which in 2014 asked the FCC to increase set-top box competition.