CEA Welcomes Cable Industry Pledge To Support DTV Transition

Seeks Clarification On Critical Issues Missing From NCTA Letter To Chairman Powell: National Cable Standard, Licensing Issues, And ""Plug And Play""

3-May-02

Seeks Clarification On Critical Issues Missing From NCTA Letter To Chairman Powell: National Cable Standard, Licensing Issues, And ""Plug And Play""Praising the ten cable operators who pledged their support for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell's voluntary digital television (DTV) transition proposal, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) welcomed the cable industry's DTV endorsement, but noted clarification is needed on several critical cable issues either absent from or unclear in the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) letter sent to Chairman Powell. The cable industry response to Chairman Powell's plan came just one day after CEA filed its semi-annual cable compatibility report with the FCC and reiterated that a successful DTV transition will not occur without consumer electronics (CE)/cable compatibility. ""Combined with recent announcements of several cable systems agreeing to carry HD programming, today's announcement marks yet another welcome step toward HD by the cable industry,"" said CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro. ""With some 70 percent of consumers receiving their primary television signal via cable, the more cable embraces the transition to HDTV, the better for consumer and for the overall transition.""While welcome news, the cable letter to Chairman Powell also raises several questions. For instance, absent from the letter is any mention of 'plug and play' compatibility or a timetable for the implementation of a national cable standard."" In the cable compatibility semi-annual report filed with the FCC yesterday, CEA requested regulatory intervention to ensure that a firm implementation timetable for an open and fully-featured national cable standard is adopted, and also to ensure that cable systems allow competitive boxes to access independent electronic program guides (EPGs) and Impulse Pay Per View (IPPV) services. CEA noted that these provisions were not clearly addressed in the cable industry pledge. ""We are disappointed that NCTA's response does not include a commitment to support products designed according to the cable industry's own specifications to work on any and all cable systems,"" Shapiro said. ""Under cable's plan, consumers would be urged to purchase boxes that can only be used where they currently live on the cable system to which they currently subscribe. The 50 percent of cable consumers who prefer not to use a set-top box will be left out entirely. Additionally, NCTA should elaborate on the reference to 'value added DTV programming' in its letter to Chairman Powell. ""While we are heartened to see cable embracing Chairman Powell's proposal, more questions remain to be answered in order to satisfy the millions of cable consumers anxiously waiting to see HDTV in their homes.""For more information about the CEA, visit www.ce.org.

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