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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders And Elizabeth Warren May Have Just Saved Consumers $14 Billion
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Cable customers who are tired of paying through the nose to rent set-top boxes are about to see some serious savings, thanks to a new proposal from the Federal Communications Commission.
The new regulation would open up the set-top box market to consumer choice so that customers could rent or buy devices from providers other than their cable companies. About 99 percent of cable customers currently rent set-top boxes from their cable company. According to a survey commissioned by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), cable customers pay an average of $232 a year for those rentals -- a $20 billion market annually, just for set-top box rentals.
Set-top box fees have soared, even as prices for newer technology have plummeted. Consumer payments for set-top boxes are up 185 percent over the past two decades, according to FCC estimates, even as prices for laptops and cell phones have fallen.
Up to $14 billion of the total market is economically pointless profit for cable companies, according to an analysis by the Consumer Federation of America and Public Knowledge, a nonprofit Internet freedom group. Big cable companies including Comcast and Verizon have leveraged their market power to charge prices far higher than what would be permitted in a competitive industry.
Cable companies and their lobbyists are furious about the plan, which the commission is set to vote on Feb. 18. But the proposal didn't emerge from a vacuum. Liberal senators have been pressuring the FCC to act on cable "monopolies" for months. In July, current Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) organized a letter calling on the agency to collect a host of consumer pricing information from cable companies -- a move designed to show that in many regions of the country, households pay arbitrarily high prices due to a lack of other cable options. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Markey and Blumenthal all signed on to the letter.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/bernie-sanders-and-elizabeth-warren-may-have-just-saved-consumers-14-billion
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Bernie Sanders And Elizabeth Warren May Have Just Saved Consumers $14 Billion (Original Post)
Uncle Joe
Jan 2016
OP
Here's a nice little John Oliver program regarding the greed and monopoly mentality of the telecoms
Uncle Joe
Jan 2016
#2
Probably because herpes has a higher approval rating with the American People. n/t
Uncle Joe
Jan 2016
#4
Faux pas
(14,643 posts)1. K N R
Uncle Joe
(58,272 posts)2. Here's a nice little John Oliver program regarding the greed and monopoly mentality of the telecoms
although it's about Net Neutrality.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)3. Why do Bernie and Elizabeth hate cable company employees?
Uncle Joe
(58,272 posts)4. Probably because herpes has a higher approval rating with the American People. n/t