Pay-TV, CEA Differ on Digital Terminal Adapter Use

The CEA differed with some consumer electronics makers and cable operators on whether the FCC should exempt more subscription-video providers from CableCARD rules so they can use cheap HD set-top boxes that combine navigation and security features. Filings Monday on fixes to CableCARDs before the commission moves to a gateway device standard showed NCTA and members including Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable support use of digital terminal adapters (DTA), as the regulator proposed in a rulemaking (CED April 22 p3). The CEA and Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) said DTAs undermine CableCARDs.

Some CE companies backed DTAs. They include Cisco, EchoStar, Motorola, Nagravision and Panasonic, filings in docket 97-80 showed. Use of such devices will help cable operators move to all-digital networks, by providing subscribers with inexpensive HD-only devices not capable of two-way transmissions and lacking DVRs, some of those companies’ filings said. That will lead to faster broadband, more HD programming and other services, Cisco said. “Without DTAs, cable operators would have to supply all subscribers in all-digital systems with expensive, sophisticated CableCARD set-top boxes that provide services some subscribers may not wish to pay for or access. The blanket DTA waiver should include HD DTAs, now that HD is commonplace and can no longer be considered an `advanced’ service for the purposes of the Commission’s set-top box waiver policies."

Panasonic likewise supports the FCC’s proposal to allow use of such devices, that company said. The agency should require cable operators continue to offer CableCARDs to any customer who requests one and to use the cards in DVRs and two-way devices they sell or lease to subscribers, as the commission proposed, it continued. “The Commission should require cable operators to adopt a standardized DTA functionality that is also licensed for use in retail devices nationwide, with common reliance in all leased HD-DTAs, by July 1, 2011.” Motorola said DTAs likely would be “a particularly attractive option for secondary HDTVs in the home” and use of the devices wouldn’t hurt the retail market for video navigation devices.

DTAs can support more advanced services than the Media Bureau intended in issuing waivers in 2009, the CEA and CERC said jointly. That includes offering VOD through an Internet connection to the operator, “a service currently denied to competitive devices -- in an apparent attempt to extend the `DTA’ waiver to interactive devices,” the two groups said. “Whatever the effect of these waivers on incentives for a digital transition, they have contributed to operators’ continued poor support for CableCARD-reliant devices. … On systems where many subscribers receive DTAs, the training, inventories, processes, and logistics for installing and servicing CableCARD-reliant products continue to be neglected without FCC sanction."

NCTA said the FCC correctly concluded DTAs benefit subscribers by promoting cable’s digital transition, which “frees up bandwidth for delivering broadband with greater throughput and capability.” Cable operators’ ability “to recover and repurpose spectrum has been the foundation for these services, and is a prerequisite to delivering on the National Broadband Plan’s goal of 100 Mbps broadband service,” the group said. Letting all subscription-video providers use devices such as DTAs would “enormously” benefit consumers, it said. “These waivers have facilitated the widespread deployment of DTAs and greater digital capacity."

Exempting DTAs from the ban on integrated security would aid in switching cable systems from analog to digital and free up significant amounts of spectrum, EchoStar Technologies said. Reducing the cost would spur operators to make the transition and allow them to offer added HD content and broadband service, regardless of size, the company said. DTAs would benefit all cable operators and preventing the increase in digital service would undermine the FCC’s broadband goals “by dramatically increasing the cost for cable operators to liberate capacity for broadband Internet access,” it said.

The agency should avoid the failures of CableCARDs by encouraging market-based solutions rather than regulatory mandate, Verizon said. The industry is making significant progress in the “convergence and the migration to Internet Protocol as a de facto standard for the transmission between devices” without a government mandate, the telco said. Applying failed standards like CableCARD to new services would lead to “needless expense and regulatory uncertainty,” it said.

The MPAA supported making only minor tweaks to CableCARD rules, saying the technology has “proven highly effective in performing security and conditional access functions that help guard against content theft and unlawful distribution of intellectual property.” While the FCC is right in saying a flourishing set-top box market hasn’t emerged because of CableCARDs, “the creative industries have benefited from existing hardware-based security, and in turn have provided consumers with increased options,” the association said. Although CableCARD has limited retail availability, the security involved has been very effective in protecting unwanted access and distribution, it said.