Verizon Gave FCC Last-Minute Digital-Video Pledge
Telco Committed to All-Digital on the Day the Agency Granted It a Waiver
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 7/5/2007 1:44:00 PM
Verizon Communications June 29 informed the Federal Communications Commission that it would eventually move to all-digital video distribution, hours before the agency issued an order exempting the phone company from the integrated set-top ban based on that commitment.
Late last Friday, the FCC’s Media Bureau granted waivers of the July 1 ban to Verizon and about 120 other video providers that currently have all-digital networks or that promised to convert to all-digital transmission by Feb. 17, 2009. Meanwhile, the agency denied requests by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and 10 cable operators.
The FCC said all-digital-video providers will support the agency’s mandate requiring TV broadcasters to provide digital-only transmission by February 2009. All-digital cable and telco TV networks also will “enable expanded service offerings, promote efficient use of the spectrum, deliver broadband services, spur competitive entry and expand universal service,” the commission added.
In a June 29 letter to the FCC, Verizon documented a conversation Friday between the telco’s regulatory-affairs personnel and FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s legal advisor, Michelle Carey. Verizon vice president of federal regulatory affairs Dee May wrote that Carey was informed that “if [the telco] is granted a waiver of the integration ban for all of its set-top boxes, Verizon will commit to transitioning to a strictly digital network and video service by Feb. 17, 2009.” The FCC cited the letter in its order granting Verizon a waiver.
Verizon said its FiOS TV service currently provides a “small subset of channels” in analog format, intended as a “convenience” to customers who want to watch programming on second or third TV sets without needing an extra set-top.
In a July 3 letter to the FCC, Jonathan Friedman, an attorney representing Comcast, said the agency’s treatment of the Verizon waiver request “raises serious questions about the integrity of the waiver process.” He noted that Verizon, in its original petition or filings prior to last week, had not committed to go all-digital by Feb. 17, 2009. “Curiously, Verizon finally made that commitment in an ex parte filed with the commission on June 29, 2007 -- the very same day it received its waiver request,” Friedman wrote.
In response, Verizon director of external communications Brian Blevins said the company has had an “ongoing dialog” with the agency since early May about moving FiOS TV service to all-digital transmission. “The FCC’s interest in granting waivers based on commitments to going all-digital has been obvious since the first such waiver was granted Jan. 10,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the FCC’s Media Bureau similarly said the commission had “emphasized the importance of going all-digital going back to January” for operators seeking waivers.
The FCC had previously granted waivers to three small cable operators -- Oregon’s BendBroadband in January and Alaska’s GCI and Texas’ OneSource Communications in May -- that committed to eliminating analog-video transmission by the beginning of 2009. However, it wasn’t until June 29 that the agency explicitly granted exemptions to all multichannel-video-programming distributors that offered the same guarantee.
Verizon would have been unable to meet the July 1 ban using its existing hybrid set-top boxes from Motorola, which use traditional coaxial cable for linear video channels and Internet protocol for interactive services.
Friedman called Verizon’s claim that it could not technically comply with the separable-security mandate “preposterous.”
“Verizon is an enormous competitor ... [it] knew full well what its obligations were under the commission’s rules and has proven itself perfectly capable of controlling the design and development of equipment used in its FiOS TV network,” Friedman wrote in the July 3 letter.
