Because many small cable operators plan to go all-digital in...
Because many small cable operators plan to go all-digital in coming years, the American Cable Association asked the FCC to let such companies use refurbished set-top boxes without separate security and navigation features. Adams Cable Equipment has sought a waiver…
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of CableCARD rules to sell integrated boxes with advanced services, something TiVo has opposed. ACA said members “would be disproportionately affected by the conditions compared to larger operators” under the agency’s proposal for ways cable operators can make customers whole when the companies encrypt programming in all-digital systems. Of 107 ACA companies that responded to a December survey by the group, 50 percent plan to either “operate a QAM-based all digital system, or will be upgrading to all-digital within three years,” the association said in a filing. Makers of consumer electronics that use unencrypted clear QAM signals to get shows on the basic cable tier have asked the agency not to allow encrypting. The Media Bureau is working on an order that would make scrambling OK for operators that provide free set-tops, CableCARDs or other CE gear to some customers (CD Feb 28 p18). ACA wants the FCC to let operators with fewer than 400,001 subscribers deploy “the most inexpensive” set-tops “available on the market,” lessening the commission’s proposed encryption rules “consumer protection measures” that small operators would otherwise face, Monday’s filing said. “The Commission can provide smaller and larger providers with an equal incentive to take advantage of the benefits of basic tier encryption if, after taking these factors into account, it adopts an alternative set of conditions for smaller operators that will reduce the costs of moving to basic tier encryption,” the filing in docket 11-169 said (http://xrl.us/bmwcr6) about ACA’s meeting with Chief Bill Lake and others in the bureau’s front office. “The impact of [ACA’s] proposal on the development of a marketplace for retail set-top boxes would be de minimis, particularly if the Commission permits the deployment of refurbished integrated set-top boxes solely for the purpose of satisfying the conditions contained in the proposed basic tier encryption waiver."