Cable Set-Top Interoperability Requirement Delayed to June 2014
FCC staff delayed by a year and a half the date when cable operators must begin including Internet Protocol outputs on interactive HD set-top boxes they deploy. A Media Bureau order Wednesday partly granted TiVo’s waiver request, as expected (CD Nov 16 p4). The order came three days before an interoperability deadline that makers of consumer electronics, cable operators large and small and Verizon backed extending. The new deadline is June 2, 2014, for all but small operators, which get an additional three months. That was half the extra time the American Cable Association sought, though the ACA said it was happy to get the accommodation.
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The bureau declined to set a national standard for IP-based connections, as sought by CEA and a group of high-technology companies that has included Best Buy and Google and calls itself the AllVid Tech Company Alliance. Instead, the order said a coming standard from the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) meets the criteria approved by the commission in an order two years ago that set the Dec. 1 deadline that’s now been extended. DLNA’s coming standard would meet output requirements as long as “it supports the required features of recordable high-definition video, closed captioning data, service discovery, video transport, and remote control command pass-through,” the order said (http://xrl.us/bn3w74). “Other standards may also meet these elements.”
Office of Management and Budget Circular A-119 will guide the FCC’s interpretation of other standards, the bureau said. Its elements are openness, balance of interest, due process, an appeals process and consensus. DLNA’s process meets those criteria because membership is open and participants try to reach consensus, the order said. It denied TiVo’s request that the bureau explain what exactly an open industry standard is. The CE maker won’t get a compliance delay until a year after cable operators deploy 100,000 set-top boxes with IP outputs made by each Cisco and Google’s Motorola Mobility. The bureau agreed with NCTA, and said operators can use any interface standard that’s based on an open one.
"The Commission did not intend to mandate a single standard that all cable set-top boxes must use,” the order said. The 2010 full-commission order “intended to give each cable operator the flexibility to choose an interface standard rather than lock a specific standard in place, while ensuring that cable operators do not rely on proprietary specifications that reject input from interested industries,” the new decision said. DLNA, NCTA and TiVo had no comment. CEA is reviewing the order, Vice President Julie Kearney said.
An earlier prediction that standards would be ready now “has not materialized,” with DLNA participants saying they expect work to be “settled early next year,” the bureau said. “TiVo is not alone” in lacking specifications to build a compliant video device, the order said. “Despite their efforts, cable operators need more time to develop and introduce new technology.” That’s “particularly” so given this clarification, the order said.
The extra three months operators with fewer than 400,000 subscribers get, until Sept. 2, 2014, “will alleviate any potential impact” of delays in getting compliant set-tops until after bigger cable companies receive them, the order said. It’s good the commission recognized smaller operators “have historically had difficulty complying with equipment mandates when the deadline for compliance is the same as for larger operators,” ACA Vice President Ross Lieberman said. “Rather than requiring these operators to file costly waivers as a result of equipment shortages, the right thing to do is simply to set these operator’s compliance deadline a few months later.”