‘Automatic Update’ Mandates for DTV Sets a Bad Idea, CEA Says

Consumers “are at risk because the manufacturers are knowingly selling products that are likely to become obsolete long before they should,” the letter said. “If the manufacturers would include an inexpensive automatic software upgrade capability, new DTVs and converter boxes will be more durable and useful for consumers than is the case without that capability,” said the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the New America Foundation, the Telecom Research and Action Center and the World Institute on Disability.

Martin should launch an immediate inquiry “to shed light on these issues and see “if the industry will behave responsibly or if some stronger action is required to protect consumers,” they said. As yet they aren’t proposing rules like mandatory automatic update capability as part of product certification or “clear labeling” that tells consumers if gear has that capability, they said. House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., put the issue “on the table” in November 2006 when they urged NTIA to require automatic update capability in coupon-eligible converter boxes, the letter said.

But NTIA decided to make it a permitted rather than required CECB feature in its March 2007 final rules. Automatic software upgrades “could benefit both manufacturers in updating software and the users in upgrading a CECB’s authorized features,” the agency said then. “It is NTIA’s understanding that this automatic software update feature was only recently field-tested and is not currently commercially available, even in expensive television receivers,” NTIA said. “NTIA is reluctant to require that manufacturers include in a CECB this new technology which is just emerging from field tests.” In their letter to Martin, the six groups said NTIA “would have been wise to listen to the Congressmen,” given recent Microtune claims that tuner chips in most certified CECBs don’t meet ATSC A/74 performance standards.

CEA has many concerns “about this effort to impose technology mandates on this robustly competitive marketplace,” a spokesman said. “These proposals come a year after the government gave all parties a full and fair opportunity to participate in the formation of the DTV coupon program,” the spokesman said. Imposing them would “undermine” program implementation and imperil the DTV transition, he said. The program, which Congress designed for NTIA implementation, seeks to provide “simple, easily affordable products for consumers” who want to keep their old analog TVs, he said. “Indeed, the converter box coupon program specifically requires manufacturers to limit the functionality of these boxes,” he said. Adding features “could perversely remove from eligibility the more than 80 boxes already certified by the NTIA,” he said.

As for the “robustly competitive DTV marketplace,” shoppers can choose from among products offered by “dozens of manufacturers,” he said. If buyers want automatic update systems, set makers will put them in their products, he said. If not, consumers “shouldn’t be required by the government to pay for it,” he said. Should the groups persuade the FCC to require an automatic update feature, “the courts have held on several occasions, most recently in the broadcast flag case, that the FCC does not have the jurisdiction to impose these requirements on a DTV receiver,” he said. “We would urge the commission to instead continue to devote its resources to measures that would promote broadband and the transition to DTV and other digital technologies."