Cable Tells FCC to Kill Its AllVid Proposal for Universal Multichannel TV Device Access – CE Makers Say Ignore Cable's "Shiny Thing Over There"
Bill Niemeyer, Senior Analyst
July 15, 2011
AllVid is a long-in-coming and slow-to-move FCC proposal to develop a standard for software-based security that will allow retail purchased devices to directly access service from multichannel TV operators (also known as MVPDs, as in cable, telcoTV, and satellite TV providers) without the need for an operator provided set-top box. The FCC is doing this under a Congressional mandate to open up the device market for MVPD access and third-party content and services (including navigation and search/discovery).
Unsurprisingly, MVPDs are not in favor of this, and last week former FCC Chairman and current NCTA CEO Michael Powell wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. It seems, in their opinion, AllVid is DOA.
In his letter, Powell says advances in technology have made AllVid unnecessary and even harmful to innovation. As proof, Powell cites a wide range of demos (and the resulting "buzz") at the recent Cable Show in Chicago including connected TVs accessing cable TV service, Comcast's cloud-based hybrid IP/cable navigation solution, and TV Everywhere on tablets and smart phones.
As well, a major cable vendor has asserted AllVid is not only unnecessary but (already) a historical relic. TDG Senior Partner Colin Dixon attended Cisco's C-Scape analyst event on Tuesday where Bob McIntyre, CTO of the Service Provider Business Unit, said AllVid is all but dead, primarily because Cisco has convinced the FCC that Videoscape (Cisco's IP/cloud TV platform) makes AllVid redundant.
When I attended the Cable Show, there was a pervasive feeling of accelerated innovation (even a "buzz"). While encouraging, most of these “innovations” were simply demos of products not widely available to consumers, others but days out of the laboratory. Moreover, keep in mind that the cable industry has a long history of showing demos and making announcements that take a very long time to happen, if at all. Despite all the activity with cable and CE devices, there is still a very large gap between what’s possible and what’s real.
Here's a thought experiment to put it in context. One past and one current FCC chairman walk into Best Buy with the mission to buy a CE device they can take home and use to directly access MVPD service (that doesn't use CableCARD). Can't be done.
The AllVid Tech Company Alliance (a group including Sony, Mitsubishi, Google, Best Buy, and TiVo) wants the FCC to move forward with AllVid and recently filed a response to Powell’s letter. They even got a bit snarky, saying MVPDs are pointing to the "shiny thing over here" rather than addressing the mandate in the Communications Act of 1996 that the FCC foster a market for devices that can access the full range of MVPD services.
The keyword in moving forward is "cooperation." While some operators and CE makers are cooperating on a pairwise basis (as some Cable Show demos illustrated), what's lacking is a broad joint effort between MVPDs, tech companies, and the FCC. Without cooperation, we will probably see a difficult drawn-out process that results in a standard that doesn't work well for operators, CE makers, or consumers (lest we forget what that can be like - see CableCARD).
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