• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 3, 2016

The head of the Senate Commerce Committee is joining the roster of observers calling for the Federal Communications Commission to offer more information about its plan to let consumers replace set-top boxes with apps.

"Your new proposal is intended to benefit consumers, yet those same consumers are not currently able to read this ... new plan," Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) wrote to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler late last week.

Thune adds that the plan now under consideration "raises questions relating to customer privacy, marketplace innovation, copyright, legal authority, content security, and other topics."

The lawmaker is urging the FCC to start the rule-making process anew, by seeking comments on the complete text of the new proposal.

Thune's letter to Wheeler came one day after the FCC postponed a vote on rules that would have enabled cable subscribers to watch pay TV without renting expensive cable boxes. That proposal would have required cable and satellite providers to make television programs available to subscribers via apps.

Currently, most pay-TV subscribers rent set-top boxes from their providers, at an average cost of $231 a year. Many people who also watch video from Netflix or other Web services use streaming devices like Rokus or Amazon Fire TVs, while people who watch TV shows on tablets or smartphones often do so via apps.

Earlier this year, Wheeler came out with a more ambitious plan that would have required cable and satellite providers to make pay-TV programs available to outside companies that could manufacture their own navigation devices. Google and Amazon supported that plan, as did consumer advocates, the White House, and various lawmakers.

But the cable industry, along with organizations representing the entertainment and ad industries, mounted an intense lobbying campaign against the plan. In response to the vocal industry opposition, Wheeler scrapped the original proposal in favor of rules that would require cable providers to make programs available via apps.

That revised blueprint included controversial provisions for licensing. While the details were never fully disclosed to the public, the FCC said in a fact sheet that the rules will require "a standard license governing the process for placing an app on a device or platform."

Opponents of the plan -- including the Motion Picture Association of America, and cable providers -- focused on that language, arguing that any sort of mandatory license scheme would be illegal.

As of today, the FCC hasn't said when it will vote on Wheeler's revised plan.