AllVid Backers Say New Cable Products Don’t Undercut Need for Rules
Forthcoming products don’t undercut the need for AllVid rules so that all subscription-video providers will use open standards to connect TV sets to consumer electronics, backers of such regulation said. The AllVid Tech Company Alliance, representing major device manufacturers and retailers, last week renewed its lobbying for the FCC to propose rules. The commission’s proceeding has been effectively paused. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake hope to see multichannel video programming providers and CE companies reach more deals for various devices to receive Internet and cable content without CableCARDs, such as those unveiled at the Cable Show earlier this month (WID June 23 p4).
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Technology demonstrated at the Chicago event isn’t meant to promote competition among video devices, as Section 629 of the Telecom Act mandates, the alliance reported late Thursday that CE executives told two commissioners. Such products “rely on a single MVPD and on devices specifically purchased to receive content from one MVPD to the exclusion of others,” the alliance said in a filing, at http://xrl.us/bkucb8. “There is no indication that the isolated and proprietary implementations of standard techniques, as recently demonstrated, can or will lead to a market for devices” getting content from multiple pay-TV providers, the alliance said: “Nor is it evident or foreseeable that the ability of devices to receive programming from non-MVPDs can or will lead to open market competition” in products getting MVPD services.
The “trend” toward products tied to specific pay-TV operators “can only dampen rather than enhance facilities-based competition,” the coalition said. “Unless the Commission proceeds with an AllVid rulemaking as intended in the National Broadband Plan, the markets for MVPD devices, and for MVPD programming and services, will remain essentially in the same condition they were in when the Congress enacted Section 629 in 1996.” It’s “anachronistic and unacceptable” that pay-TV companies moving toward distributing their programming by Internet Protocol are using the “'fallback’ solution” of HDMI technology meant to be for secure one-way communication, the alliance said. A spokesman for the NCTA, which sponsored the show, declined to comment.
The recent publication of Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standards for commercial video programming and progress on other standards makes it “possible” and “essential” for the FCC to implement the AllVid proposal in the broadband plan, the coalition said. The DLNA said last month that its new interoperability guidelines were developed with cable, satellite and telco-TV providers so content including IP programming can be seen on a wide array of CE devices. Officials at DLNA had no comment.
The FCC shouldn’t “settle for half measures that would balkanize rather than integrate and connect services and devices,” the alliance said. It asked the regulator to “take those steps now” needed to implement the AllVid proposal. It’s “a very simple solution for unlocking the market” for video devices, which is “in a decades-old time capsule,” CEA Vice President Julie Kearney told us. “We are merely asking for a chance to put pen to paper and help the commission achieve its long-awaited goals,” she said: “There is no harm in having the commission ask questions via” a rulemaking notice.
Last week’s AllVid FCC meeting was the first the alliance reported since April, two months after the coalition was formed with members including Intel, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics and TiVo. RadioShack is now a member of the group, last week’s ex parte filing said. Representatives of Best Buy, Google, Nagravision, Sony and others visited the FCC, where alliance members had meetings with Commissioners Michael Copps and Robert McDowell. Those companies had no comment beyond their filing. It also said the group met with Deputy Chief Michelle Carey and others in the front office of the bureau, which is in charge of the AllVid proceeding.