Customers want better cable boxes, choice: Your Say

A recent editorial urged the FCC to help open the way for third parties to build better set-top boxes, which the cable industry says is too onerous ("End the cable box rip-off: Our view"). Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar: 

The Federal Communications Commission should make it possible to access all stations via any type of device. I shouldn’t need a cable box on every TV in my house.

We now have one TV that works in the house. Who needs to pay more than $200 a year for a device to watch garbage?

— Leo LaBaron

I appreciate the push to make it possible for consumers to buy their cable boxes instead of rent them. But if everyone buys their boxes, and a cable company such as Comcast loses money each month because customers no longer rent boxes, it will just raise the cost of other services to make up for it.

I am in an apartment that only has Comcast for cable and Internet, and the only reason I don’t cancel cable is that my Internet will cost double when it is not bundled with the other service. I love the amount of shows I can watch on Netflix for $8 a month but need the Internet to watch it. The cable company has me trapped.

— Chris Brandstaetter

I have tried repeatedly to buy my cable boxes to forgo the monthly charge. The answer has always been no. My cable bill, with no premium movie or sports channels, exceeds my power bill every month.

— Scott M. Doyle

You can pick up an antenna for a one-time cost of about $35 and get all the digital signals within range for free. Combine that with Internet-only cable service, and Netflix and Hulu subscriptions, and you get plenty of options for much less than a cable TV package.

— William Travis