Pai Reinforces to Lawmakers FCC's Commitment to Collect More Set-Top Box Market Data

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai reinforced to the leaders of five congressional panels the agency's commitment to ask in future video competition reports for data and comments on whether there's a need for more set-top box regulation, in response to the GAO's September report on the commission's work on its 2016 draft set-top order. The GAO said any FCC rulemaking about the set-top market first needs more thorough study of the market and its dynamics than was done before the 2016 draft (see 1709290032). The FCC “will utilize the annual video competition report proceedings to gather data and solicit comment on issues relevant to whether there is a need for further regulations to ensure the commercial availability of devices to access MVPD programming,” Pai told the lawmakers in letters released Wednesday. “We will include an analysis of these data and comments in our future annual video competition reports.” The letters' recipients included Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D.; ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore.; and ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J.