Waive Again

Verizon was one of the lucky video providers granted a 1-year waiver to the FCC’s integrated set-top box ban, but the telco wants more. Verizon petitioned the FCC Mon to grant it a 3-year waiver. Sounding a lot like cable, the telco argued that it would have to expend "enormous resources" to develop an interim solution to the ban only to replace that solution with Downloadable Conditional Access Security (DCAS) once the tech’s available. Verizon argued that an existing, off-the-shelf CableCARD option, like the one traditional cable ops are using to comply with the ban, doesn’t currently exist for it. — NCTA is asking the FCC to reconsider the Media Bureau’s ruling rejecting an industry wide waiver for the ban until DCAS is ready or 2010 (whichever comes first). NCTA argued that while the Bureau claims common reliance on the same security tech is vital, it only holds NCTA to that standard—exempting more than 30% of the multichannel marketplace from the rule, including Verizon and Qwest. The Bureau is "doing exactly what Congress forbids: ‘freezing or chilling the development of new technologies and services’—but insidiously, only by cable," NCTA wrote. Who knows when the full Commission will get around to acting on these requests? Comcast’s Jan request for a review of the Media Bureau’s denial of its waiver has yet to be acted on.