NCTA Touts Set-Top CableCARD Progress
Trade group notes small deployment of CableCARDs in digital-ready sets.
By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/24/2008 11:48:00 AM
Major cable operators have deployed more than 6.2 million digital set-tops with CableCARD conditional-access systems since July 2007, when the Federal Communications Commission’s so-called integration-ban rules kicked in, which require operators to separate conditional access from the rest of a set-top’s functions, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association told the FCC this week.
That total, which the NCTA communicated to the FCC in one of its periodic reports on the CableCARD rollout, dwarfs the number of CableCARDS -- some 372,000 -- the top 10 operators have supplied to date to customers who requested them for digital-cable-ready TV sets or other CableCARD-compliant products, such as some TiVo digital-video recorders.
The separation of security functions -- a process the FCC started back in 2000 -- was designed to make cable set-tops a viable retail product that could be used in any cable operators’ system, as well as to create a new category of digital-TV sets that don’t require a set-top in order to watch premium cable programming.
But cable operators have opposed the ban -- albeit unsuccessfully -- on the grounds that it adds unnecessary costs to the digital set-tops they lease to subscribers without providing any tangible benefit to consumers. They also noted that adding cost to digital set-tops adds an additional hurdle to ensure a smooth transition to carrying broadcasters’ all-digital signals come February 2009.
While smaller operators have received waivers from the integration-ban rule, major operators like Comcast were unsuccessful in securing waivers and have thus plowed ahead with deploying set-tops with CableCARDs. They have also continued to supply CableCARDs to those subscribers who request them, although that demand has been slight.
According to the NCTA, some 27 consumer-electronics manufacturers have had 583 Unidirectional Digital Cable Ready Product (UDCP) models, such as digital-cable-ready sets, certified or verified for use with CableCARDs. The top five MSOs that serve nearly 80% of the country’s cable subscribers -- Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable -- have deployed only 344,000 CableCARDs for use in UDCPs. When one includes the numbers from the next five largest incumbent cable operators, there have been only around 372,000 CableCARDs deployed.
By comparison, since the integration ban went into effect July 1, 2007, the 10 largest operators have deployed more than 6,232,800 operator-supplied set-top boxes with CableCARDs, which the NCTA noted is more than 16 times the number of CableCARDs deployed for UDCP host devices.
