Shapiro Blasts NCTA ‘Delaying Tactic’ on CableCARD Security
NCTA Pres. Robert Sachs asked FCC Chmn. Powell to convene a meeting of “business and technical representatives” from the cable and CE industries to “clarify” key issues in the debate over whether to scrap or extend the July 2006 integration ban on cable set-tops or keep the deadline intact. But CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro, whose group has vehemently argued for maintaining the July 2006 deadline and forcing cable to use the same CableCARD interfaces as CE, labeled the NCTA bid “a delaying tactic” to forestall an imminent FCC vote cable knows probably won’t go its way. Shapiro repeated CE’s oft-stated claims that the issue had been postponed enough and that a final Commission decision was long overdue.
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Sachs sought the meeting in a letter he sent Powell Mon. and publicized in NCTA news releases Tues. Sachs said cable believes it has “amply demonstrated” the integration ban no longer is necessary “to achieve its intended purpose.” The letter acknowledged the CE industry disagrees -- that without the ban, CE believes, “innovation will be stymied unless cable must rely on the same security scheme as do retail devices.”
Sachs quoted Powell aide Jonathan Cody as having told NCTA recently he believes a meeting could be “constructive” in resolving the debate. Sachs said NCTA envisions a meeting presided over by Powell and his staff and involving no more than 5 representatives from each side. “We understand that such a meeting could not be convened until mid-January, and while time is of the essence, it is equally important that the Commission have a clear understanding of the relevant issues involved and the facts underlying those issues before it makes a decision that can have significant ramifications for cable companies and millions of cable customers.”
NCTA would arrange for cable representation at Powell’s “earliest convenience” if the FCC chmn. found “merit” in the proposal, Sachs said. He sent Shapiro a copy of the letter in the hope, he said, that CEA would arrange for CE representation. While CEA and NCTA can “facilitate” a meeting, as they have the plug-&-play negotiations, “the people from whom we think you need to hear are technical and business people, not Washington representatives.”
But Shapiro, reached by our affiliated Consumer Electronics Daily in Las Vegas, where the CES is set to open Thurs., told us he hadn’t known of Sachs’ letter until we asked about it. Shapiro praised Sachs as “fair- minded,” but described as “a publicity stunt” the dissemination of a letter to Powell just as the CE industry was preoccupied with “the biggest trade show of the year.” With speculation rising that the Commission might decide on the integration ban as soon as its next open agenda meeting Jan. 13, Shapiro said NCTA’s bid for a meeting with Powell amounts to a desperate effort to forestall a vote cable knows will go the other way, he said. Cable “wouldn’t have attempted a hail Mary pass if they knew they had the votes,” Shapiro told us.