CEA: Cable Should Rely On Common Downloadable-Security Scheme
Trade Group Reiterates Opposition to FCC Order Approving Cablevision Downloadable-Security Plan
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/17/2009 2:50:50 PM
The Consumer Electronics Association reiterated in a filing Monday that it believes the Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau erred in approving Cablevision Systems' plan to deploy a downloadable-security system for digital set-tops, arguing that all U.S. cable operators should be required to use the same interoperable security scheme.
In January, the commission's Media Bureau granted Cablevision's request for an extension to its previous waiver that allows the MSO to continue using smart-cards in its own set-tops rather than boxes with CableCards, as long as it adheres to a schedule phasing in an "open" downloadable-security technology developed with NDS.
The CEA asked the FCC to reverse the order, alleging it implemented a substantive rule change without "articulating a reasoned basis for its decision" and that the NDS downloadable-security scheme was not nationally portable. Cablevision responded that the CEA was attempting to impose its own wishes for a national downloadable-security scheme for cable TV.
In its filing Monday, CEA said it agreed with Cablevision that the FCC's consideration of national standards for downloadable security would be a "broad new policy initiative" for which Cablevision's waiver request "is not a vehicle."
However, the trade group said, the Media Bureau "inappropriately made this waiver application precisely such a vehicle" by adopting "a new regulation without making any attempt to reconcile its action either with existing regulations or with commission precedent."
"By ordering Cablevision to implement its proposed system, the Bureau has invited Cablevision and other operators to implement multiple, incompatible conditional access systems in reliance on the order," the CEA said.
The CEA said the FCC's rules on conditional access for cable set-tops from 2005 "contemplated a nationally available, commonly agreed-upon technology which would allow consumers to use purchased navigation devices anywhere in the country."
The agency's so-called "integrated set-top ban," which went into effect for most cable operators July 1, 2007, is intended to improve the way CableCards function in cable-ready consumer electronics sold at retail, by forcing MSOs to use the same technology in their own set-tops.
The CEA also reiterated its position that the order granting Cablevision the waiver extension was "procedurally invalid," arguing that "the order to implement a particular downloadable security system is not a logical outgrowth of the waiver process and could not have been anticipated."
CEA's filing is available on the FCC Web site here.
Nagravision USA, a subsidiary of Kudelski Group that competes with NDS in the conditional-access market, earlier this month filed comments supporting CEA's opposition to the Cablevision waiver extension.
"Nagravision agrees with CEA that the approval of a downloadable security system developed by one security vendor in connection [with] one cable operator is far from an ideal way to achieve a system that can be deployed across many cable systems and integrated into devices to be sold at retail," Nagravision said.
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