HTML5 Backers Lay Out FCC Questions, Their Answers

welfare" than the NPRM before the agency, NCTA said in a blog post Friday. The apps proposal will obviate the need for set-tops, but "what it will not and should not do is to permit third parties to ignore copyright law and the decision of content creators as to how their content is packaged and presented to consumers," NCTA said. It also lashed out at unnamed critics as taking an "extreme position ... that the FCC must go further to 'unbundle the app.'" The HTML5 explainer -- posted Friday in docket 16-42 -- says what HTML5 is: the latest version of World Wide Web Consortium standards. Along with the 33-page primer, NCTA/AT&T provided an index of questions the FCC asked about the plan (see 1607110042 and 1607210044) and referred to various sections in the document that address them. For example, on the question of whether such HTML5 apps would be free and usable without additional multichannel video programming distributor-provided equipment, the index pointed to page 24 of the filing, where NCTA/AT&T said MVPDs "would license the HTML5 apps without charge to manufacturers of third-party navigation devices for their app stores, provided that the device manufactures and stores do not impose any fee or surcharge on MVPDs or consumers for providing or using the app or for transactions enabled through the MVPD service." On page 13, it said consumers would download the app from an app store associated with whatever device they're using and not require any new cable gateway device. Other questions in the index include whether the functions of an MVPD set-top and of the described app be identical and whether license terms will let a device's universal search include third-party apps on an equal and non-discriminatory basis alongside MVPDs' apps. The filing directly answers some questions, but other answers were left vague, such as whether all the content available via a set-top will be equally available to consumers in an app regime, Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer told us. The HTML5 approach still raises some concerns such as that such universal apps often are "lowest common denominator" and don't take advantage of the full functionality of devices, Bergmayer said. Meanwhile, pay-TV programmers continue to push back against the FCC's original set-top proposal. The plan "concerns programmers because of the lack of sufficient mechanisms to respect and enforce the myriad provisions of the contractual agreements between programmers and MVPDs," said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 16-42 on a meeting between programmers and FCC staff. Because of that contractual provision concern, the programmers said they "would continue to have concerns with any proposal (app-based or otherwise) that would not honor this threshold element." Meeting were Viacom Senior Vice President-Government Relations and Regulatory Counsel Keith Murphy, 21st Century Fox Senior Vice President Jared Sher, Time Warner Vice President-Public Policy Kyle Dixon, Disney Vice President-Government Relations Susan Fox, Scripps Networks Vice President-Legal and Government Affairs Kimberly Hulsey, CBS Senior Vice President-Regulatory Policy Anne Lucey and FCC staffers including Gigi Sohn, Louisa Terrell and Jessica Almond from Chairman Tom Wheeler's office.