Comments on Notice 27 Offer Some Support for MVPD Gateway
Creating a universal gateway device for pay-TV networks could create a boom in the number of video navigation devices available but could also risk dismantling complex systems behind those networks, NCTA said in response to the FCC public notice on how video devices could affect broadband deployment.
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The universal-gateway approach is favored by the CE industry and was requested in a petition for rulemaking by a handful of public interest groups last week (CED Dec 21 p4). “But a ‘gateway’ should not mean loss of the rich diversity and variation” in multichannel video programming distributors’ (MVPD) offerings, NCTA said. “A carefully crafted gateway would not require … the homogenization of networks or the dismantling of services into pieceparts.”
Requiring pay-TV providers to offer a home gateway server is the most likely way to “assure a competitive market for devices operating on MVPD networks,” CEA said. Meanwhile, set-top boxes leased by operators should also support home-networking standards and operators should continue to support CableCARD, CEA said. And the FCC should proceed to a rulemaking to accomplish those goals, the association said. But NCTA said a broader inquiry would be a better next step.
Giving retail video devices more access to pay-TV networks would mean a “quantum leap” in broadband availability and device competition, the CE Retailers Coalition said. “As consumers become aware that broadband connectivity is an avenue to receiving entertainment content that can be displayed in their living rooms, they will seek to be connected,” the group said.
But the current system of marketing retail video devices to cable subscribers is expensive and difficult, leading to little device competition, TiVo said. And new license agreements for tru2way limit the features that device makers can include in their two-way products that connect to cable systems, it said. “Tru2way prevents a device maker from offering a consumer the full range of options that his or her product is capable of providing in a single integrated user interface,” it said.
MVPDs aren’t held back technically from allowing more innovation in navigation devices, TiVo said. Much of the technology needed to allow for new video devices is already built into cable modems, which a wide array of CE devices can attach to, it said. Allowing video programming to be output from set-top boxes through an Ethernet port, rather than HDMI, would help the situation. HDMI is too restrictive an interface for home networking and is meant only for displaying video, TiVo said. “Where the subject is the implementation of Section 629 and reform of the Commission’s regulation, HDMI is part of the problem -- not a solution.” - - Josh Wein
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Requiring the development of a portable video device that works across delivery platforms nationally wouldn’t serve the public interest, Dish Network and EchoStar said in comments at the FCC. They said direct broadcast satellite service remains limited by one-way spectrum, while cable, telco TV and IPTV have two-way operating network architecture. Combining the technologies in a box would make it “overly complex and prohibitively expensive for consumers,” the companies said. The security requirements for satellite-TV’s over-the-air “broadcast nature” don’t apply to closed, two-way cable systems, they said. Features and services expected to emerge the next few years could become a competitive battleground between TV providers and would only worsen the problems of a box for all the technologies, they said.