FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 
WASHINGTON 
OFF ICE OF 
THE CHAIRMAN 
The Honorable Joe Manchin 
United States Senate 
306 Hart Senate Office Building 
Washington, D.C. 20510 
Dear Senator Manchin: 
Julyll , 2016 
Thank you very much for your letter sharing your views about how the Commission' s 
proceeding for better fostering competition in the set-top box and navigation app marketplace 
might impact the privacy protections afforded to pay-TV consumers and the customer service 
experience received by pay-TV subscribers. I take your input on these issues seriously and 
assure you that it will receive careful consideration. 
Section 629 of the Communications Act, adopted by Congress in 1996, requires the 
Commission to promote competition in the market for devices that consumers use to access their 
pay-television content. Yet, unfortunately, the statutory mandate in section 629 is not yet 
fulfilled. The lack of competition in this market has meant few choices and high prices for 
consumers. In a recent Rasmussen Report Study, 84 percent of consumers felt their cable bill 
was too high. One of the main contributing factors to these high prices is the no-option, add-on 
fee for set-top box rental that is included on every bill, forcing consumers to spend, on average, 
$231 in rental fees annually. Even worse, a recent congressional investigation found that the 
price of most equipment fees is determined by what the market will bear, and not the actual cost 
of the equipment. 1 With the lack of competition in this market, it should come as little surprise 
that fees for set-top boxes continue to rise.2 Clearly, consumers deserve better. 
This February the Commission put out for public comment a proposal that would fulfill 
the statutory requirement of competitive choice for consumers. This action opened a fact-finding 
dialog to build a record upon which to base any final decisions . Our record already contains 
more than 280,000 filings, the overwhelming majority of which come from individual 
consumers. FCC staff is actively engaged in constructive conversations with all stakeholders­
content creators, minority and independent programmers, public interest and consumer groups, 
device manufacturers and app developers, software security developers, and pay-TV providers of 
all sizes-on how to ensure that consumers have the competition and choice they deserve. I am 
hopeful that these discussions will yield straight-forward, feasible and effective rules for all. 
1 U .S. SENATE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND 
GOVERNMENT A FFAIRS COMMITTEE, M INORITY STAFF REPORT, INS IDE THE BOX: CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BILLING 
PRACTICES IN THE CABLE AND SATELLITE INDUSTRY, 17 (Jun . 23, 20 16). 
2 One recent analys is found that the cost of cable set-top boxes has ri sen 185 percent since 1994 while the cost of 
computers, televi sion and mobile phones has dropped by 90 percent during that same time peri od. 
• 
Page 2-The Honorable Joe Manchin 
You shared your views about how this proceeding might affect the privacy protections 
afforded to pay-TV consumers. I share your goal of ensuring that the privacy protections that 
exist today will also apply to alternative navigation devices and applications. Pay-TV providers 
abide by privacy obligations under Sections 631 and 338 ofthe Communications Act. These 
privacy obligations, among other things, prohibit pay-TV providers from disclosing personally 
identifiable information concerning any subscriber, including data about a subscriber's viewing 
habits, without the subscriber's prior consent. 
I strongly believe that third-party app developers and device manufacturers must afford 
consumers the same level of protection as afforded by pay-TV providers. While the Notice of 
Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) proposes that competitive devices and apps certify compliance 
with the privacy protections in the Act, we also invited parties to provide alternative proposals 
that would ensure the preservation of these important privacy protections. 
We will continue to engage with stakeholders on this important issue. Notably, our 
record includes filings on this issue from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of 
state attorneys general (state AGs)-representing the states of California, Illinois, New York, 
Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, 
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. In their comments, the FTC and 
the state AGs explain that-if we require competitive devices and apps to publicly commit to 
providing the same privacy protections required of pay-TV providers under the Communications 
Act-the FTC and the state AGs would be willing and able to enforce the privacy commitments 
made by third party app and device manufacturers just as they currently enforce other privacy 
commitments made by apps and devices. I am confident that by working with stakeholders and 
our federal and state partners, we will identify clear rules of the road that will afford consumers 
with strong privacy protections and the enforcement mechanisms necessary to ensure compliance 
by third parties. 
I share your interest in ensuring that our proceeding preserve the customer service rights 
of consumers. Last month, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released a bipartisan staff report critical of the 
billing and customer service practices of certain cable providers. Notably, the report found that 
certain cable companies were routinely overcharging consumers for leased equipment, including 
set-top boxes. Bringing competition to this market will drive cable companies to improve upon 
these customer service and billing practices and provide consumers with alternatives if 
consumers are dissatisfied with the equipment policies of their pay-TV company. Moreover, just 
as competition in the landline and mobile phone equipment industries did not diminish the ability 
of consumers to operate and maintain their telephone devices, I am confident that competition in 
this market will not inhibit the ability of consumers across the nation from accessing the 
technical assistance they need to operate and maintain their access to pay-TV content. 
The record we are developing will help us preserve strong privacy protections and 
improve the customer service experience of pay-TV subscribers while delivering American 
Page 3-The Honorable Joe Manchin 
consumers meaningful choice. Thank you for your engagement in this proceeding, and I look 
forward to continuing to work with you on this important consumer issue. 
Tom Wheeler