RadioShack and Circuit City Stores urged FCC to take several step...

parte filing, RadioShack and Circuit City called on Commission to move up deadline for cable operators to stop leasing and selling proprietary cable set-tops with integrated conditional access and other functions to Jan. 1, 2002, from current Jan. 1, 2005. Companies also proposed that agency make MSOs abide by same OpenCable technical specifications for digital cable boxes that competitors would use. Finally, 2 CE retailers suggested that FCC force MSOs to “extend the same level of subsidy, from pooling with analog converter costs,” to consumers getting competitive cable boxes. Consumer electronics executives charge that cable operators unfairly subsidize their own digital customers, keeping digital box prices low by raising prices on analog converters. “Each of these revisions would avoid intrusive, over-the-shoulder regulation by the Commission,” RadioShack and Circuit City argued. “By putting competitive consumers on equal footing with others, these provisions would do no more than was done in the deregulation of telephone CPE [customer-premises equipment]. These revisions would, finally, give a fair shake to consumers who want to own their own equipment rather than lease cable set-top boxes.”