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The Cable Story
Competition from satellite television operators, who had offered HDTV from the beginning, and fears about a possible mandate from the FCC, served as a wake-up call to the cable industry to begin ramping up HDTV services over the new broadband pipelines afforded by recent upgrades to digital cable platforms. The news was a breakthrough for the CE and terrestrial broadcasting industries, which had been at odds with some cable operators for their apparent lack of interest in carrying HDTV channels. By January 2006, high-definition programming was available via cable to more than 90 million U.S. homes, according to the FCC market reports. Digital Cable Subscribers Multiply
In order to receive high-definition programming from a cable operator, a subscriber must sign-on for digital cable service. As of September 2005, almost all of the 110.8 million U.S. households could subscribe to digital cable service if they wanted to, National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) statistics show. As of September 2005, more than 110.5 million households, or 99 percent of all 110.8 million households passed by cable, were passed by a broadband-cable service that offers digital cable, video-on-demand (VOD) and high-speed Internet access, NCTA said. For years, digital cable's standard-definition (SD) footprint was bigger than digital cable’s high-definition (HD) footprint by a wide margin, but that has changed. HD cable went online for the first time in 2002 in a limited number of markets, and by September 2005, HD cable service was passing 96 million households, representing 87 percent of all households passed by analog and digital cable, NCTA said. That’s up from 65 percent at the end of 2004. HD cable service was available in the top 100 cable markets and 198 of all 210 cable markets in September 2005, NCTA said. That’s up from 177 cable markets in September 2004 and 143 at the end of 2003. Digital cable delivers both standard and high-definition images in bit stream form using either 64 or 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), which was determined to be the most bandwidth efficient system within closed cable pipelines. The ATSC digital terrestrial broadcast format used the 8-Vestigitial Side Band (8-VSB) modulation format, which was deemed superior for over-the-air broadcasting. When carrying terrestrial broadcast channels, local cable operators convert the 8-VSB signals to QAM. Cable Interoperability Agreement Reached
In September 2003, the FCC took a major step in the DTV transition by adopting rules for base-level digital "plug-and-play" cable compatibility. The rules make it possible for consumers to plug their cable directly into their DTV set without a set-top box (STB) and receive both basic and premium cable channels. The approved standard provides for an integrated, one-way–only, digital cable television receiver. This would not enable such features as Video On Demand (VOD), return path of the cable system and the use of the electronic program guide (EPG) services provided by the cable operator. Consumers will have to obtain a so-called CableCARD (formerly known as a point of deployment or POD card) from their local cable operator. The card is designed to be inserted into the TV to unlock scrambled premium content. Consumers still will need a STB to receive two-way services, such as VOD, impulse pay-per-view (PPV) and cable operator-enhanced EPGs. Bi-Directional CableCARD Standard Sought
Currently in discussions is the next phase of the plug-and-play system, which is a bi-directional standard that would enable two-way services, such as navigational guides, on-demand video ordering and other interactive applications. To help speed the development of interactive digital cable ready devices, some manufacturers reached initial individual licensing agreements with Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs), a standards development and licensing body for the cable television industry. These early agreements grant intellectual property rights required to build interactive devices that are in compliance with CableLabs’ OpenCable hardware and software specifications. The agreement is known industrially as “CHILA” — the CableCARD Host Interface Licensing Agreement. (The agreement was formerly known as “PHILA,” for POD Host Interface Licensing Agreement; when the “POD” moniker was shifted to the more consumer-friendly “CableCARD,” the license name was adjusted.) At the heart of the agreements is the OpenCable Applications Platform, or OCAP, which is middleware software that enables the developers of interactive television services and applications to design products that run successfully on any cable television system in North America. OCAP will serve as a common software layer so all cable services will run on all devices. Although it is technically possible for cable providers to host applications from program networks without OCAP, it is a less-than-ideal path because programmers would have to port applications separately to dozens of proprietary CE or set-top operating systems. FCC Adds Stipulations to Agreement
The FCC modified, at the urging of broadcasters, an earlier standard agreement between the consumer electronics and cable industries by requiring all DTVs labeled as "digital cable ready" to include an over-the-air DTV tuner. The FCC order also barred all multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPDs), including satellite TV providers, from using selectable output control with their services. This would prevent the MVPDs from reducing the resolution of broadcast programming (or "down-rezing") over unprotected broadband analog outputs, while limiting transmission of high-definition signals to copy protected digital interfaces, which were not included in most early HDTV-capable television displays. The FCC said it would seek further input before addressing down resolution of non-broadcast programming. In the interim, MVPDs that plan to down-res non-broadcast programming are required to notify the FCC at least 30 days in advance. Cable Operators Deliver New Boxes
Beginning in April 1, 2004, cable operators were required by the FCC to supply, upon request, HDTV boxes with functional IEEE-1394 (Firewire) connectors, and by July 1, 2005, all HDTV set-top boxes are required to include a DVI or HDMI interface. FCC Requires Conditional Access Separation
Looking to open the market to competition and innovation in the digital cable converter space, the FCC ruled that by July 1, 2006 (the date was later delayed a year, see below), cable operators were required to separate conditional access systems from their set-top decoder boxes. This would, effectively, force cable operators to supply digital cable boxes with CableCARD slots, and would better enable third-party manufacturers to sell cable set-top decoding equipment that will be compatible with any digital cable service across the country. The deadline also would provide an incentive for cable operators to work more aggressively with other industries in arriving at a standard for bi-directional digital cable ready capability.
However, NCTAA and cable operators have appealed to the FCC to drop the requirement, citing ample market competition. Looking ahead to the deadline, cable operators aggressively have marketed bi-directional digital cable boxes without CableCARD slots. These boxes would be grandfathered for continued use after the deadline. FCC Delays Integrated Set-Top Ban
To bring about digital cable interoperability and create a competitive retail market for cable boxes, the FCC required cable operators to separate conditional access systems from their set-top boxes by July 2006. However, in March 2005, the Commission gave the cable industry a reprieve on the start of the integrated set-top box ban, voting unanimously to delay the effective date of the ban by one year from July 2006 to July 2007. Due primarily to high cost, cable operators resisted the requirements that new cable boxes include CableCARDs as conditional access systems. Therefore, the FCC said it granted the 12-month deferral to “afford cable operators additional time to investigate and develop a downloadable security solution that will allow common reliance” by cable and CE makers “on an identical software security function without the additional costs of physical separation inherent in the CableCARD solution”. CableCARD-Enabled Devices Proliferate
As cable operators continued to drag out deployment of digital CableCARDs to subscribers, CE makers scaled back, somewhat, the percentage of televisions with built-in CableCARD slots. In 2006, CableCARD slots will be found mainly in step-up and higher-end consumer digital TV sets. CE makers have said the move will help to make lesser-featured products more competitively priced, while lessening the confusion that may result after bi-directional CableCARDs or downloadable conditional access systems are approved.
Less prevalent were the numbers of CableCARDs distributed by cable operators to support the new devices. Cable operators must supply CardCARDs to subscribers in their markets who have purchased digital-cable-ready TVs. But cable operators were less than eager to promote the capability, holding out instead for the delivery of bi-directional products that would support their ancillary video-on-demand services and/or downloadable conditional access systems that would dispense with CableCARDs altogether. In early 2006, 90,000 one-way CableCARDs had been deployed by the ten largest cable Multi System Operators (MSOs), according to an FCC multi-channel video programming distributors competition study. According to CEA estimates, more than one million digital-cable-ready televisions had been sold to U.S. consumers by the end of 2005, reflecting a large discrepancy with the number of deployed CableCARDs. According to the FCC’s multi-channel video programming distributors study, at the end of 2005, there were 375 certified or verified models of CableCARD products collectively offered by 22 manufacturers, up from 60 models offered by 11 manufacturers the previous year. |
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