Based on its belief that Microtune’s is the only tuner chipset fo...
Based on its belief that Microtune’s is the only tuner chipset for coupon-eligible converter boxes that’s “fully compliant” with ATSC A/74 receiver specifications, “we question how any converter box that didn’t contain an A/74- compliant tuner could pass certification,”…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Microtune CEO James Fontaine told analysts Monday in a quarterly earnings call. In side-by-side tests of Microtune-based boxes and CECBs with rival chipsets, “we found that certain certified boxes that are currently and widely available in the national retail chains failed at government mandated specification on multiple channels,” Fontaine said. Microtune chips are in 11 of the 70-odd CECBs that have been certified, including EchoStar’s, he said. The issue Microtune raised in the letter it wrote NTIA last month (CD March 27 p17) “is a critical one,” Fontaine said. “We are concerned that U.S. taxpayers may be subsidizing defective products via the converter box coupon program that do not meet the government’s own performance requirements, and which may in fact result in loss of TV signals for unsuspecting consumers.” Microtune thinks the NTIA “has taken the complaint very seriously,” Fontaine said. “It is our understanding that the NTIA is currently conducting a confidential investigation concerning the issue raised by Microtune.”