NCTA Presses Congress on Repealing Integration Ban

NCTA released a blog post Thursday outlining why it thinks Congress must repeal the set-top box integration ban, a longtime lobbying priority the association has pursued throughout the last year. A provision repealing the ban is part of the Satellite Television Extensional and Localism Act reauthorization legislation the House approved in July as well as in the Senate Commerce Committee proposal -- “good news,” according to NCTA. The provision is the source of a fight between Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and the Commerce leaders who included it, with intense lobbyist speculation for how that battle may play out in the lame-duck session. STELA expires Dec. 31, and lawmakers hope to reauthorize the law before then. “While progress on this legislation is currently on hold because of the Congressional recess, we will continue to urge Congress to sunset this outdated FCC rule,” NCTA said. The group said it costs consumers more than $1 billion “in unnecessary costs” and wastes energy. NCTA would back “supporting CableCARDs to decrypt video signals in retail devices and in the 50 million leased devices already in service” if need be, it said. Cable operators have included more than 50 million CableCARDs as part of their set-top boxes since 2007, it said, giving rise to the blog post’s title -- “50 Million Reasons to End the Integration Ban.” NCTA said “this rule isn’t protecting third party device makers, it’s really just a burden on cable providers and customers.” TiVo has disputed NCTA's lobbying stance and argues there should be a successor standard in place before the repeal of the integration ban.