FCC chairman Tom Wheeler hasn’t given up on his goal to open up the TV set-top box market, thus breaking the cable industry’s dominance in this arena. Sources say he is preparing a “compromise version” of his proposal by which cable companies would be required to make their feeds available, via apps, to competitive device manufacturers. In today’s market, the set-top box, which once simply translated cable signals for TV sets, can now be used to offer access to cable TV and video-streaming services such as Hulu or Netflix.

The Wall Street Journal lists the reasons that regulators would like to break cable’s monopoly on set-top boxes: lower prices due to competition and “a major boost to Internet-based media.” Consumer advocates believe that “customers overall pay $6 billion to $14 billion more for the boxes than they would if there were greater competition.”

Public Knowledge senior staff attorney John Bergamayer calls Wheeler’s proposal “a major victory for consumers.”

The compromise proposal harkens back to one making the round in June from “a coalition of mostly cable and satellite-TV companies,” that would keep programming under the companies’ control at the same time it would allow set-top-box manufacturers to integrate cable apps. The cable industry is still worried, however, that devices could enable pirated Internet versions to play “side by side with the licensed cable versions.” Data sharing and program-recording rights are other outstanding issues.

But what really has the cable/pay-TV industry up in arms is what the National Association of Broadcasters describes as the possibility of a “governmental or other third-party intervention in the programming rights, obligations and restrictions negotiated by program suppliers, broadcasters and [cable firms].”

Wheeler must now convince three of the five FCC members to vote for the plan. Fellow Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, who faces a Senate confirmation battle, “has expressed some reservations” about the proposal, says WSJ. Meanwhile, cable and pay-TV companies, which reap $21 billion/year business in rental fees, plan to “file detailed comments” with the FCC.