CEA Wants FCC to End 'Stalemate’
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 11/12/2006 7:00:00 PM
The Consumer Electronics Association has turned to the government for help in getting two-way cable products to market — hoping to end what it called a “stalemate” in negotiations with the cable industry over licensing the technology.
The CEA, which represents 2,100 consumer-technology companies, filed a proposal last week with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to let consumer-electronics makers build products compatible with basic interactive cable services.
In a letter addressed to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, the CEA said its members want the ability to deliver products equivalent to cable providers’ “so-called 'low-cost, low-capability’ boxes.” The trade group also said it was seeking “a way forward toward licensing and assuring support for competitive devices that are fully interactive with all cable-operator services.”
The CEA specifically requested that device makers not be required to support the OpenCable Application Platform, a specification for interactive-TV applications developed by CableLabs.
“Rather than absorbing all the cost and uncertainty associated with OCAP, competitive manufacturers would be permitted to offer functionally equivalent bidirectional products that build on existing digital cable compatibility technologies,” the CEA said in the letter, signed by executives from Sony, Hitachi, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and other association members.
CE makers want to be able to support “basic” interactive services, including switched digital video, electronic program guides, on-demand and pay-per-view — but wish to make OCAP support optional. “To date, it appears that cable providers do not intend to use” OCAP in their low-end set-tops, the CEA’s letter said.
In response, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association general counsel Neal Goldberg said the CEA’s new proposal “should be discussed at the continuing interindustry discussions that have been underway since 2003.”
“The cable industry has encouraged CE companies to manufacture digital TVs and other devices so that consumers can access cable’s advanced services without a set-top box,” he said in the statement. “The more cable-ready products available to consumers, the more consumers will choose cable over our video competitors.”
The NCTA asserted that CableLabs’ OpenCable specifications already let consumer-electronics manufacturers develop two-way digital-cable-ready TV sets and set-top boxes. Further, the association noted that several manufacturers — including Motorola, Scientific Atlanta and Samsung Electronics — have signed licensing agreements with CableLabs to deliver two-way OCAP-compatible devices.
“Cable will continue to support a minimal regulatory approach that leverages existing marketplace solutions rather than looking to the government to micromanage and potentially harm the evolution of a thriving retail environment,” Goldberg’s statement said.
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