RCN Still Waiting on Set-Top Waiver
Cable Operator Filed Request in November
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 7/12/2007 9:06:00 AM
July 1 has come and gone, and the Federal Communications Commission has yet to rule on a waiver request from overbuilder RCN on the agency’s integrated set-top ban.
The FCC’s Media Bureau last month issued a flurry of decisions regarding the July 1 ban, ruling on petitions that affected more than 130 providers. Nine cable operators seeking waivers for low-end digital set-tops were turned down, while more than 120 video providers that operate all-digital video networks or promised to by February 2009 -- including Verizon Communications -- were given temporary waivers.
RCN, which filed a request for a limited waiver Nov. 17, 2006, still has not heard from the agency about its petition for a waiver. In an e-mail, company spokeswoman Lisa Barder said, “RCN remains hopeful that the commission will grant its waiver request.”
RCN is seeking a waiver to permit it to deploy Motorola’s DCT700 set-top box until February 2009. In its original filing, the company argued that being able to continue using the DCT700 would be necessary in moving “all of its subscribers, including those who do not want or need advanced features and functionality … to a fully digital platform as quickly as possible.”
A remaining question may be whether RCN can move to a 100% digital-video network by Feb. 17, 2009. The FCC’s June 29 decisions granted waivers to providers that either currently carry no analog channels or pledged to eliminate all analog broadcasts by then.
Lacking a decision from the FCC, RCN said, it ordered CableCARD-enabled set-tops from Motorola, but it won’t receive them until the end of August at the earliest. As such, the operator requested a deferral of enforcement on the ban until it receives those boxes.
“RCN believes it would have been financially imprudent to order such equipment prior to action by the commission or the passage of the July 1, 2007, deadline if the commission declines to act prior to that time,” the company said in a June 26 letter to the FCC.
The FCC has indicated that it would defer enforcement of the July 1 deadline for small cable operators that “can demonstrate that they have placed orders for set-top boxes that comply but that their orders will not be fulfilled in time for them to comply with the deadline.”
Meanwhile, at least one cable operator last month simply withdrew its petition from consideration by the FCC with the July 1 deadline looming.
Click Network, a provider run by the city of Tacoma, Wash., June 20 withdrew its petition for a waiver -- filed in March -- saying essentially that it had run out of time waiting for the FCC.
“Because the July 1, 2007, integration ban is less than two weeks away and the city’s set-top-box inventory is depleted, the city will now have to order CableCARD-compatible boxes if it is to continue deploying digital services to its subscribers,” the city said in a notice filed with the agency.
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