FireWire: A $400 Million Black Hole
Last week, almost five years to the date of its installation, the Federal Communications Commission lifted the mandate for cable operators to deploy set-tops that include a “FireWire” connector, also known as “IEEE 1394.”
Cable operators didn’t exactly hear angels singing. Why: Because cable sank some $400 million into the effort, over the last half-decade.
Back-of-the-envelope math puts the connector cost at about $20 (including copy protection), times about 20 million boxes fielded with it since the July 1, 2005, mandate.
What’s worse: Nobody’s using it. Ask any cable engineer how many subscribers requested 1394, since the mandate. I did, back in March, of the CTO of a cable company with about 5 million subscribers. His answer? Five. (Five. Out of 5 million. In five years.)
Keeping a handful of FireWire boxes on hand wasn’t an option. The rule spanned all digital boxes.
Connector issues are tricky in a “one hand clapping” way. You need two. One on the set-top, in this case, and one on the HDTV. At the time, some HDTV makers wanted 1394. They also wanted assurances that cable operators would put a reciprocal 1394 connector on HD set-tops. So they pushed, and it became law.
This is a bit like being mandated to build a spur of a railroad line to a town with no people. Doesn’t matter that nobody lives in Nowhere. Someday, somebody might!
Let’s say you’ve plowed $400 million, so far, to build that spur. Then, five years in, you’re told you can stop building, because other people say it’s expensive (Intel, Motorola and TiVo, in this case). Also, because nobody is there, in Nowhere.
Um … thank you?
Here’s what happened, in a huge oversimplification: HDMI won as the predominant way to connect HDTV sets to set-tops and DVD players. FireWire was an early contender, and was indeed the fastest wire in town, at one point. But HDMI won.
That’s the short version of the $400 million cable operators won’t see again.
Bob Lee commented:
As an HDTV early adopter, I had a DVHS deck to record HD programming. My Motorola cable box had a 1394 port, but the cable operator ordered it never enabled. Thus, I could never get and record HD programming via cable. This kind of behavior is typical of any business operating without competition. So my monopoly cable company actually had the required 1394 connection on the box; it just didn't work.
apsarkis commented:
If cable companies really cared about the cost of cable boxes, they should have better supported CableCards, eliminating the need for them to provide any external box. Why are they even allowed to supply a box, when the phone companies were forced to separate providing a service and a line to my house, from providing the actual phone.
Marc Tayer commented:
True, then they pulled off another snow job on the CableCard. I wonder if anyone at FCC is thinking about the wise Chinese proverb: "fool me once, CEA, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." We'll see, depends on whether they push forward with micromanaging home gateway. 3 strikes and you're out?
Steve commented:
The FireWire in the Motorola cable TV box in my own home was never enabled, so of course I never used it. And even if it was enabled, the only devices on the market that would have talked to it would have been computer peripherals, not TV sets. The TV manufacturers (in other words the Consumer Electronics Association) pulled a snow job on the FCC and the American public by getting the ports required in set top boxes but not their own TVs.
Marc Tayer commented:
It's really good this waste of money was exposed (thanks Translation Please!). Important to focus on the big picture, that the FCC continues to intrude into the marketplace without really understanding the implications, and wasting too much money + time in the process. btw, I can't confirm the $20/box interface cost, but having been in STB business in big way in prior lives, don't underestimate the cost of these "little connectors." Even if it's "only" $10-15/box, what a waste. Then, they forced the whole CableCard thing, another huge waste. And now they're maneuvering into the home gateway thing. I'm actually pro-gov't, just very anti-waste (how's that for an oxymoron), and believe FCC should focus on big picture policy issues like spectrum and consumer protection, not technical details that the market should determine.
AMougis commented:
Given the money the cable companies are squeezing out of their subscribers, I am not crying over this overstated investment issue. If I thought any of this would have been deducted from my bill, the story would be a little different.
AMougis commented:
Given the money the cable companies are squeezing out of their subscribers, I am not crying over this overstated investment issue. If I thought any of this would have been deducted from my bill, the story would be a little different.
Jim Rice commented:
This is a good example of how innovation and the advancement of technology in the communications sector CANNOT AND MUST NOT be in the hands of government. The market sorts these things out much better and more efficiently. Legislating technology is about as effective as trap shooting blindfolded with cotton balls on a windy day. It just does not work.
Robert H. Heath commented:
I am highly skeptical of the numbers cited in this article.
Here is an article (from 2001!) that suggests that Firewire adds $5.00 to $10.00 per port. If "copy protection" adds more cost, then you should take that up with the constituency that demanded that, not with the CE industry or the FCC.
By the way, I had a Comcast technician out to look at my Motorola HD STB last week. I told him I would love to attach a disk drive to the Firewire, USB or Ethernet ports on this box. His answer: "Not enabled, not enabled, not enabled."
So, yes, it's a bit like building a railroad spur line when you have no intention of ever using it.
It's a little hard to shed a tear for the cable industry on this one.
Big_Lebowski commented:
$20/per? that would just about make it THE most expensive line item in the bill of materials? seriously? seems overstated to me.
BrianHunter commented:
Point is Shuttleman, the MSOs knew it was a piece of worthless legislation and an absolutely terrible idea before the John Kerry
Shuttleman commented:
OK, so they put in a connector for a technology that ultimately was superseded by something else. The cable operators have never spent money on a technology they abandoned and had tried to force on others (including consumers!)? Of course they have. It's the risk of technology.
Predicting technological direction is a guessing game and the cable industry and the FCC aren't any better at it than anyone else. I can tell you why only "5" people asked for it... 99% didn't know why they would need it yet and no one told them how to make effective use of it (either the FCC or the cable industry). Further, I'll bet my cable TV supplier really doesn't want me to connect to anything except the TV ("OTT" anyone?). My set top box has connectors for external devices that have never been activated so I can't use if I wanted to (e.g. external hard disk).
Instead, how about discussing what the consumer wants and the industry hasn't given them? A positive argument is likely to be more convincing as a reason why the FCC mandate proved a waste.