Will the FCC change the rules to force cable companies to provide free HDTV signals? Will HDTV ever be free?

Here is another question I posed: (response provided by Doug Finck from WPXT and WPME)

Here’s the part I am having trouble with, as time goes by, at some point, most channels will be in HD all of the time. So does that mean that the home user will continually have to “subscribe” to HD separately as the years go on? That sounds sort of ridiculous and just another way for cable companies to squeeze more money out of the consumer. I keep hearing advertisements for both cable, satellite, and now phone companies (like Verizon) saying they have or will have anywhere from 70 to 100 HD channels by years end or shortly there after. I just don’t see that. There aren’t 100 common nationwide cable channels broadcasting in HD. The ones I know about are the Food Channel, A&E, TBS, The History Channel, I think CNN and some others, but there are not anywhere near 100 of them. And if you use TBS as an example they are running re-runs of Seinfeld and Home Improvement that were never recorded in HD to begin with so there is so much false advertising going on. Is there any indication that the FCC may change the “rules” that would force cable or satellite companies to provide the HD signal just as they would the regular digital signal without HD?

Here is the response:

Don’t hold out a lot of hope for government intervention for the simple fact that cable doesn’t use any public resources. Cable sends their signals via wires/fibers that are hung on utility poles for which cable pays rent. Broadcasters use the airwaves which have been defined as belonging to the public. So cable can do, for the most part, whatever they want and if that includes charging extra to deliver an HD signal, then consumers have to decide; do they want to pay for the HD signal from their cable company or will they put up an antenna and watch the broadcast HD signals over the air. And if the answer is that cable has channels you like which are not available any other way, the government’s answer is “then pay the cable operator for what you want if it’s that important to you!” As far as the 70-100 channels, you are correct that some, like TBS, are running “faux” HD and pawning it off as the real thing. I suspect that there are probably 100 channels that offer some HD programming (including about 10 channels from The Discovery Networks, PBS, etc.). Some of the channels will probably be new, HD-only channels that are not currently offered anywhere, so in some ways, they may introduce channels you’ve never heard of. Finally, the cable companies will never send the HD signal they receive to the home user, simply because of the bandwidth requirements that would eat up cable’s ability to send lots of channels and services.