AllVid Pushes NPRM on IP-based Interface Between MVPD Services and CE Devices
The AllVid Tech Company Alliance urged the FCC to begin a rulemaking that would set up a nationally portable common IP-based interface between multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) services and consumer electronics devices. The alliance made the request following a back-and-forth in the basic tier encryption proceeding between large cable operators and Boxee over how to put in place interim and long-term solutions for getting CE devices direct access to the basic service tier should cable operators be allowed to encrypt it.
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"The attempts of the Commission, the NCTA and Boxee to work out a fair interim approach toward basic tier encryption illustrate the limitations of the existing regime for supporting the connection of competitive devices to cable and other MVPD systems,” the Alliance said in a letter to the commission (http://xrl.us/bnjxpx). “Based on progress in the standards community, a nationally standard interface, based on the output of private sector standards and organizations as required by Section 629 can now be readily defined, discussed on the record and implemented,” the letter said.
"The Alliance’s filing is not intended to take the basic tier discussion itself in a new direction or slow it down,” Robert Schwartz, a Constantine Cannon attorney and counsel to the Alliance, told us. “But rather, [the letter is meant] to call attention to the evident fact that only a nationally standard IP-based interface is going to be a real solution for competitive products,” he said. The alliance includes Best Buy, Google, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, SageTV, Sony Electronics and TiVo.
Without FCC action, “the days for any standard and direct connection to MVPD programming and services, encrypted or otherwise, are numbered,” the letter said. CableCARD provides for access only to one-way transmissions, is too expensive for many companies to license, is hurt by cable operator use of technology such as switched-digital video and is likely to be bypassed altogether as cable operators move to IP-based transmissions, the letter said. And the cable industry’s solutions for delivering encrypted basic-tier programming to devices that rely on Clear QAM are “uncertain at best and dubious at worst,” it said.
"The Commission should not stand by and watch the only remaining nationally standard interface for receiving MVPD content be bypassed by further and future MVPD ‘efficiency’ measures,” it said. “The time to provide for the next transition in digital program distribution is now.”