As Comment Sought, MVPDs, Video Choice Group Face Off on What Happens to DSTAC Recommendations
The Media Bureau sought comment on proposals in the Downloadable Security Technological Advisory Committee final report (see 1508280035) even as stakeholders continued debating the merits of FCC action on what DSTAC proposed. The bureau, in a public notice Tuesday, asked “how it should inform the Commission’s obligations” to promote competitive availability for navigation devices. The Public Knowledge and TiVo-backed Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVC) and DSTAC member Hauppauge released statements Tuesday asking the FCC to implement recommendations from the report.
NCTA General Counsel Neal Goldberg said there is no collective recommendation in the report, so the FCC shouldn’t act. The report "underscores that there is no need for FCC technology mandates in a marketplace where consumers can access MVPD and OVD content on a wide and growing array of retail devices,” he said of multichannel video programming distributors and online video distributors. Comments are due Oct. 8, replies Nov. 9.
It “makes sense” for the FCC to seek comment on policy and tech issues in the DSTAC report, the CVCC said. Industry officials on the DSTAC and others following the issue told us that a comment period on the report isn't a signal the FCC plans to take further action on the DSTAC proposals. MVPD interests on the DSTAC and NCTA have said they don’t believe the agency should take any action. Unlike the formation of the DSTAC and the schedule of its meetings, the PN seeking comments on the report wasn’t announced on the front page of fcc.gov. “After accepting comment on the report, the FCC should move forward with a rulemaking process to implement the pro-consumer, competitive proposal that the CVCC supports," the coalition said.
The downloadable security proposal supported by CVCC, which combines a security system based on link protection with a competitive interface technology that has been compared to previous attempted solutions such as AllVid and CableCARD, is “thoroughly discredited in the DSTAC Report itself as technically and legally infeasible,” emailed NCTA's Goldberg. The coalition members, which also include Comptel and Google, are “seeking the FCC’s blessing to confiscate and repackage licensed content for free,” he said. Goldberg described the DSTAC’s other proposal, which was supported by its MVPD members, as “a detailed description of how cable operators and other video providers support today’s market demand for ‘apps-based’ viewing choices on popular customer-owned devices.”
Hauppauge's statement asked the FCC to use the DSTAC proposals to “encourage the development of cable TV receivers which are purchased, instead of rented.” Hauppauge manufactures a third-party cable receiver for Windows Media Center and can’t offer VOD and pay-per-view under current MVPD policies, it said. The CVCC-backed proposal would allow Hauppauge to offer those features and provide its own user interface to customers, while the MVPD-supported proposal “would block applications developed by third party manufacturers from running on a receiver plugged into their cable networks,” Hauppauge said. “This is certainly not consumer friendly and would tend to dampen innovation and competition.”
Coalition members told us they view the DSTAC process as productive even if the FCC takes no action because the committee’s deliberations eliminated some technical ideas about downloadable security that weren’t feasible. "The DSTAC process was productive, in that it showed that the disagreement between cable companies and others about the set-top box market is not about what technologies are possible, but what outcome the FCC should work for,” the CVCC said.