Trying to relate this to the UK
There has traditionally been only one country wide supplier of paid TV, which is Sky. However this has been via satellite. Sky has been kept mostly honest by Virgin Media which offers cable to about 50% of the country. BT has now entered the market place but this is too recent to skew traditional marketing.
We don't seem to have the extreme customer abuse reported from the USA but the services are tied to the suppliers' hardware using smart cards to authenticate. Charging is high, but most kit seems to be modern and well featured. As far as I know I can't buy a 3rd party Sky or Virgin box.
Is the USA market held back by the lack of alternatives?
In the UK we have a reasonable service from free to air terrestrial and satellite providers so nobody really needs a cable box unless they want the extra channels. I assume that there is no nationwide satellite broadcast service in the USA? If so I do wonder why because Europe as a whole is covered by satellite broadcasters.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
