CE Proposal at FCC Would Speed Deployment of 2-Way Plug & Play Devices

“To the extent that CE companies -- for the first time - - have developed a consensus proposal for bringing 2-way devices to the marketplace, this new proposal should be discussed at the continuing inter-industry discussions that have been under way since 2003,” said NCTA Gen. Counsel Neal Goldberg in a statement: “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.”

But more than 2 years of such inter-industry talks “have not yielded a mutual agreement on a bi-directional specification,” said the CEA proposal. Also signing it were Dell, Hitachi, Intel, JVC, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Sharp Labs, Sony, Toshiba and TTE. “This delay has harmed both the cable and CE and IT industries and, most importantly, consumers,” the proposal said. “Cable customers who wish to obtain even the simplest interactive digital services presently have no alternative to leasing a cable operator-supplied box and relying on multiple remote controls and devices. Consumers deserve an easier, more elegant, option: a single, integrated device that displays and allows them to navigate among the interactive video services of their choice.”

Achieving a workable regulatory framework for 2-way products “should involve competitive entry across the spectrum of the marketplace,” the proposal said. “Such a framework must also include support for non-OCAP retail products, equivalent to those for which a waiver has been sought by Comcast and Charter,” it said: “This approach would give consumers access to basic 2-way programming without saddling them with unnecessary costs and untested technologies.” Implementing it would require developing extensions to today’s CableCARD to allow interactive functionality such as VoD and PPV not possible with the current unidirectional CableCARD, the proposal said.

Goldberg said cable “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. The more ‘cable ready’ products available to consumers, the more consumers will choose cable over our video competitors.” CableLabs has published technical specs that facilitate the development and deployment of 2-way digital cable ready TV sets by CE manufacturers, Goldberg said. Several already have signed license agreements with CableLabs, and at least one, Samsung, demonstrated a working 2-way digital cable ready TV set at the last CES, he said. To speed availability of more 2-way devices in the market, NCTA 11 months ago filed a “deregulatory” proposal at the FCC that would “establish straightforward technical specifications for use by any manufacturer wanting to build these devices,” Goldberg said. But the Commission has yet to float the proposal for public comment, he said.

Samsung was among the notable names missing from the CE industry proposal. LG and Panasonic also didn’t sign. All have signed the CableLabs CableCARD Host Interface Licensing Agreement (CHILA), which defines the 2-way host profiles that use OCAP for the deployment of bidirectional plug & play products. None of the companies commented on the CE proposal.

What was originally a Sony proposal (CED Nov 7 p6) evolved in the last few days to an “industry proposal,” Sony Electronics Exec. Vp Michael Williams told us. “Sony has long advocated a consumer-friendly solution to the plug & play issue,” Williams said. “We worked with CEA, along with other companies like Philips, Microsoft and Intel, to create a consensus proposal that would create a competitive plug & play market that benefits consumers, CE and IT manufacturers, and even cable operators,” he said. A “common understanding” was reached quickly among the 12 companies that signed it, Williams said.

Cable operators appear to have no intention to use OCAP middleware in their low-cost, limited-capability set-tops, the proposal said. Those are the same set-tops for which Charter and Comcast are seeking CableCARD waivers at the FCC. “Retail products should compete on a level playing field with leased products with respect to price, features, and functionality,” the proposal said. “Accordingly, we propose that competitive manufacturers have the option, but not the obligation,” to include OCAP in devices for “basic” interactive services, it said. They also may use OCAP in devices for more “advanced” interactive services, it said: “Rather than absorbing all the cost and uncertainty associated with OCAP, competitive manufacturers would be permitted to offer functionally equivalent bi-directional products that build on existing digital cable compatibility technologies.”

The CHILA “regime” unnecessarily hinders competition and denies consumers the benefits of choice and innovation, as CEA has argued often in filings at the FCC, the proposal said. It would “remedy these shortcomings” by adopting 5 “consumer-friendly principles,” it said: (1) Safeguarding consumer choice and competition; (2) protecting consumer investment; (3) establishing fair and open technical standards; (4) requiring a level playing field; (5) removing barriers to innovation. The proposal calls for specs to be developed by a mutually-agreed-on standards- setting body with Commission oversight. As with unidirectional CableCARD, manufacturers would be free to self-certify their products once a product receives initial certification, the proposal said.

Manufacturers would be free to build non-OCAP devices for basic interactive services through changes to the existing CableCARD interface standard, or through software updates, such as cable’s promised downloadable conditional access system (DCAS), the proposal said. If the FCC requires including OCAP in any CE devices, cable operators also should be required to deploy OCAP in all headends by “a date certain,” it said. It also urged that cable operators: (1) Be required to incorporate the same version of OCAP in a “substantial percentage” of their leased boxes; (2) Be barred from unilaterally modifying OCAP, or discontinuing its support or use.

Though the proposal backs OCAP as an option, “we prefer a non-OCAP approach,” its supporters said: “A requirement to include OCAP in all retail devices would impose significant and unnecessary costs and design restrictions on interactive digital cable ready products.” It said a non-OCAP solution even “might deliver the best consumer, service provider and device manufacturer value if implemented in conjunction with an ‘open DCAS’ solution,” such as those proposed many of the companies signing the document. As with any OCAP mandate, “if the Commission endorses a software-based solution, it should require nationwide deployment of that solution by a date certain, and should also require a substantial percentage of proprietary devices to use the identical regime in order to ensure consumers the benefits of common reliance,” the proposal said.

For non-OCAP devices, under downloadable security, a single chip could be physically soldered, in a secure manner, into the CableCARD host device, or the security requirements “satisfied through other robust approaches on multifunction devices,” the proposal said. Using a CableCARD solution would require a new version multistream CableCARD, it said. But “this would not impact in any way the deployment of the current multistream CableCARD planned to be available soon for use by cable set-top boxes and OCAP-equipped digital cable-ready products,” it said.

The technological changes necessary for one-way CableCARD devices to allow consumers access to basic interactive services are “evolutionary, and not revolutionary, in nature,” the proposal said. “This approach requires no changes to the interface between the cable provider distribution network and its client-side conditional access technology. It does require additions to the currently implemented interface between the conditional access technology and the host device. The conditional access technology itself would handle translation between the network-side interface and the host-side interface.”