In the United States, 53 million people pay for cable, 2.7 million jobs (direct and indirect) are a result of the cable industry, and the average American adult watches approximately 32 hours of TV a week. Watching TV is an American pastime, but it comes with a cost. 99 percent of pay-TV subscribers rent their set-top box from their cable provider. This results in an annual cost of $231 per household. These rental fees result in a $20 billion yearly revenue for cable companies. The FCC has taken notice and decided that it would like to open the cable set-top box industry to third parties. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules in late January that would reduce the barriers for other options to compete with the must lease option on the set-top cable boxes currently used by cable providers. The proposal will go before the full FCC on February 18. Any changes that the FCC makes will hope to be more successful than earlier attempts at opening the market. The 1996…
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