Cable-CE Debate on RF Traps Intensifies Ahead of Likely FCC Encryption OK

RCN is the biggest of a handful of cable operators with encryption waivers pending at the FCC, whose Media Bureau is working on an order allowing the scrambling of broadcast-TV and other basic-cable programming (CD Feb 16 p7). Another CE company that relies on clear QAM so users can get basic cable said there may be merits in using traps to cut down on signal theft that prompted operators to pursue encryption.

The CE-cable war of words over traps isn’t likely to lead the bureau to require operators use them, FCC and industry officials predicted. They said bureau staff continue working on an order to allow encryptions, and a ruling may circulate for a vote within weeks. But they said the work has been slowed by clear QAM concerns raised by Boxee -- which has made seven filings on the subject this month in docket 11-169 (http://xrl.us/bmsk76) -- and was the subject of a Feb. 9 NCTA blog. A Hauppauge Computer Works filing sought the use of traps, while the CEO of Really Simple Software said the idea ought to be considered. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.

NCTA called traps “an old school way of controlling authentication,” in Friday’s blog by Paul Rodriguez, senior director of social media strategy (http://xrl.us/bmsk8g). Traps date to the 1970’s, Rodriguez wrote, and there are numerous “problems with using them.” Technicians must visit and perhaps enter a cable subscriber’s home to install or take out a trap, because “operators need to ensure that the installed traps are physically secured,” he wrote. “Otherwise, someone could simply remove the trap and continue receiving an unauthorized signal.” The traps can “make it difficult to re-arrange channels or launch new services, because channels that might be utilized are being physically blocked by hundreds of traps at customers’ homes,” Rodriguez wrote. “As RCN reported in a filing with the FCC, traps don’t always work in this new world where broadband services and television programming may be pretty close in frequency."

Boxee took aim at that operator’s filing (http://xrl.us/bmr9n3). The company, whose Boxee Live TV product uses clear QAM, said it’s RCN’s responsibility to install traps to prevent signal theft, since it made the “choice” not to use them. Boxee said its “position with respect to Clear QAM is no more ‘of its own making'” -- a phrase RCN used in a filing to say Boxee decided not to install CableCARD ports, and so its product won’t work with encrypted content -- “than is RCN’s exposure to basic-tier ’theft’ from opting not to use traps.” Boxee built its Live TV to “existing standards and regulations” in “addressing a problem specifically highlighted by the National Broadband Plan” from the FCC, which said devices can’t always access traditional TV shows, the company said.

The Boxee Live TV “development process began approximately a year ago, and was nearly complete” when the encryption rulemaking notice was approved in October, the company said. “Boxee was unable to predict that Clear QAM may be eliminated in such short order,” it said (http://xrl.us/bmsmac). “All of RCN’s stated concerns would be addressed if the Commission required cable operators desiring to encrypt Clear QAM to instead make available a standard encrypted IP feed of broadcast channels in a way that does not require additional hardware, rental fees or cable operator consent.” The commission may examine setting a uniform standard for set-top boxes to have connections allowing home networking using a non-proprietary technology such as the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), industry and commission officials said.

A DLNA proceeding would do nothing for clear QAM gear, since it can’t get basic programming that’s scrambled, said Really Simple Software CEO Mark Ely, who lobbied the bureau last week against encryption (http://xrl.us/bmsmar). The forthcoming Simple.TV product, which will ship starting in May and cost $149 at Amazon, like other clear QAM devices has no port for a CableCARD, he told us. “When we did the design of the product starting last year, we certainly expected that clear QAM would be an option for us, and where a good chunk of our users would get their content, since obviously not everyone gets good antenna reception,” he said of terrestrial broadcasts. “We'll have to educate consumers” about encryption if the FCC allows it, which “will obviously complicate things” for the company and its customers, Ely said. “We just want to have clear QAM as an option for as long as possible, and if that no longer is an option, I don’t want to have a situation where consumers are locked into only having a device provided by the cable company.” Cable operator-installed traps seem to be an “interesting thing to consider, keeping clear QAM” while preventing signal theft, Ely said: “That seems like a fair thing."

Adding DLNA to set-tops shouldn’t be “linked” to the encryption proceeding, Boxee said in another filing (http://xrl.us/bmsmhf). “While a DLNA-based interface has the potential to increase device compatibility with cable programming” and should be pursued, it doesn’t “provide a remedy to the harms that would result from eliminating Clear QAM” and its “efficacy will depend on details that have not yet been shared with Boxee,” the company said. Adding DLNA to set-tops “may potentially remedy some of the lost compatibility caused by encryption, but it does not explain why such compatibility should be lost in the first place,” the company said in reporting on CEO Avner Ronen and other executives’ discussion with Chief Bill Lake and others in the bureau’s front office. It said DLNA and encryption are “distinct” issues.