Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), House co-author of the 1996 Telecommunications Act has continued to call call on the FCC to open up set-top boxes to competition. In 2015, Senators Markey and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) released findings from their investigation of the pay set-top box market, revealing that the average household spends more than $231 annually on video box rental fees. The investigation also found that approximately 99 percent of customers rent their set-top box directly from their pay-TV provider and the set-top box rental market may be worth more than $19.5 billion per year.