NCTA, CE Maker Disagree on Environmental Benefits of Cable Encryption

Hauppauge’s concerns over efficiency are belied by the fact that “transitional equipment that cable operators typically provide” customers, so they can continue getting programming after system encryption, use “very little power,” NCTA said in a footnote: “The cable industry has also embarked on a wide-ranging energy efficiency initiative” (CD Nov 21 p6). Carbon dioxide will be created when quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) users drive to cable offices to pick up set-top boxes so they can watch encrypted programming, and to run the boxes, Hauppauge said. “The environmental benefits of replacing clear QAM TV service with a cable TV box is not correct, and in fact there will be more power used should these rules be put into effect,” the CE company said: “We are simply replacing” with “consumer vehicles” the “CO2 emissions and gasoline usage of a cable TV owned vehicle” that’s dispatched to subscribers’ homes to turn on and off video service without encryption.

Hauppauge asked cable operators to “quantify” how many subscribers using clear QAM would be affected by scrambling of all channels on the basic-programming tier. “We believe that the number of clear QAM users is underestimated,” the company said. “A cable TV box consumes more power than no box at all,” CEO Ken Plotkin wrote. Consumers won’t have a hard time with cable’s digital transition, NCTA said. “Those who rely on CableCARD-enabled devices, such as the ones Hauppauge supplies, will also be unaffected.” The “few” cable subscribers using clear QAM TVs for basic-only video service can use similar devices with the cards, or the “transitional equipment which will be provided without charge by cable operators,” the association said. It cited digital tuning adapters.

Most of NCTA’s letter to the FCC was devoted to responding to lobbying by Boxee against encryption (CD Dec 23 p10). It’s “doubtful” that the commission’s proposal to allow scrambling of broadcast-TV and cable programming on the basic tier will “significantly affect the market” for Boxee’s Live TV product, the association said. It said that’s because the company markets the product as working with terrestrial antennas, and it includes an adapter for that functionality. “In fact, Boxee is marketing Boxee Live TV as a cord-cutting product,” said the letter signed by NCTA General Counsel Neal Goldberg. “Boxee clearly contemplates that most of its customers will be accessing broadcast channels via an over-the-air antenna and without a cable subscription, which of course means that encryption of the cable basic tier will have no impact on those customers."

Incompatibility of the product with encrypted programming is Boxee’s fault, not the cable industry’s, the NCTA said. “Boxee elected not to support CableCARD in the device, regardless of cable industry support for CableCARD self-installation” and so the product can’t “access any encrypted cable services,” the group said. “Notwithstanding this self-imposed design limitation, Boxee now seeks a Commission ‘guarantee’ of ‘free access to a device that will decrypt basic tier cable and provide a QAM output.'” Cable boxes don’t output video in QAM, “any more than DTV television broadcast stations, satellite, or telco TV delivers signals in clear QAM, and Boxee declined to include an RF or other standard input on its product that will work with cable set-top boxes,” the NCTA said. “Compelling cable operators to develop a special solution for Boxee would be unreasonable in light of Boxee’s own product design decisions and unnecessary in light of the fact that its add-on adapter can access over-the-air broadcast signals.”