TOP STORY: AT&T: No Need for FCC Set-Top Waiver Policy: Verizon Gave FCC Last-Minute Digital-Video Pledge On the Front Lines · Verizon Looks to Take On Tampa · C&W, Inuk Reach U.K. IPTV Deal One-Liners

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AT&T didn’t seek a set-top-box waiver from the Federal Communications Commission because the company claimed that its IP-video-delivery technology isn’t covered by the law that forced traditional cable operators to discontinue deployment of integrated set-top boxes July 1.

AT&T spokesman Mike Balmoris said that because the company’s U-verse TV pay TV service didn’t use cable set-tops that contained both channel-surfing and signal-security features, it didn’t need a waiver.

“The intelligence that this ban is seeking to separate doesn’t reside in our set-top box. It’s in our network,” Balmoris said. “We beam one channel at a time into your home, like when you download a Web page.”

On July 1, the FCC barred cable companies without legal waivers from issuing integrated set-top boxes. Going forward, they need to deploy boxes that rely on CableCARDs as their anti-signal-theft technology.

The FCC granted dozens of waivers June 29, especially to providers that promised to be all-digital by Feb. 17, 2009. Verizon Communications received a waiver for low-end, two-way boxes until Dec. 31, 2009, and for high-end HD/digital-video-recorder boxes until July 1, 2008.

The FCC said the high-end waiver was necessary because CableCARD-enabled boxes haven’t been made for video operators that rely on IP technology.

Since AT&T U-verse is an IP-based system, it was also covered by the FCC’s June 29 order, Balmoris added.

“It’s not just AT&T U-verse: It’s all IP video, which includes, of course, AT&T. We are not the only IP [provider],” Balmoris said. FCC spokeswoman Mary Diamond said the agency didn’t issue AT&T a waiver. “You need to request a waiver to be granted a waiver,” she added.

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Verizon Communications June 29 informed the Federal Communications Commission that it would eventually move to all-digital video distribution, hours before the agency issued an order exempting the phone company from the integrated-set-top ban based on that commitment.

Late June 29, the FCC’s Media Bureau granted waivers of the July 1 ban to Verizon and about 120 other video providers that currently have all-digital networks or have promised to convert to all-digital transmission by Feb. 17, 2009. Meanwhile, the agency denied requests by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and 10 cable operators.

The FCC said all-digital-video providers will support the agency’s mandate requiring TV broadcasters to provide digital-only transmission by February 2009. All-digital cable and telco TV networks also will “enable expanded service offerings, promote efficient use of the spectrum, deliver broadband services, spur competitive entry and expand universal service,” the agency added.

In a June 29 letter to the FCC, Verizon documented a conversation between the telco’s regulatory-affairs personnel and FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s legal advisor, Michelle Carey. Verizon vice president of federal regulatory affairs Dee May wrote that Carey was informed that “if [the telco] is granted a waiver of the integration ban for all of its set-top boxes, Verizon will commit to transitioning to a strictly digital network and video service by Feb. 17, 2009.” The FCC cited the letter in its order granting Verizon a waiver.

Verizon said its FiOS TV service currently provides a “small subset of channels” in analog format, intended as a “convenience” to customers who want to watch programming on second or third TV sets without needing an extra set-top.

In a July 3 letter to the FCC, Jonathan Friedman, an attorney representing Comcast, said the agency’s treatment of the Verizon waiver request “raises serious questions about the integrity of the waiver process.” He noted that Verizon, in its original petition or filings prior to June 29, had not committed to go all-digital by Feb. 17, 2009. “Curiously, Verizon finally made that commitment in an ex parte filed with the commission on June 29, 2007 -- the very same day it received its waiver request,” Friedman wrote. In response, Verizon director of external communications Brian Blevins said the company has had an “ongoing dialog” with the agency since early May about moving FiOS TV service to all-digital transmission. “The FCC’s interest in granting waivers based on commitments to going all digital has been obvious since the first such waiver was granted on Jan. 10,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the FCC’s Media Bureau similarly said the commission had “emphasized the importance of going all-digital going back to January” for operators seeking waivers.

The FCC had previously granted waivers to three small cable operators -- Oregon’s BendBroadband in January and Alaska’s GCI and Texas’ OneSource Communications in May -- that committed to eliminating analog-video transmission by the beginning of 2009. However, it wasn’t until June 29 that the agency explicitly granted exemptions to all multichannel-video programming distributors that offered the same guarantee. Verizon would have been unable to meet the July 1 ban using its existing hybrid set-top boxes from Motorola, which use traditional coaxial cable for linear video channels and IP for interactive services.

Friedman called Verizon’s claim that it could not technically comply with the separable-security mandate “preposterous.” “Verizon is an enormous competitor … [it] knew full well what its obligations were under the commission’s rules and has proven itself perfectly capable of controlling the design and development of equipment used in its FiOS TV network,” Friedman wrote in the July 3 letter.

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Verizon Communications filed for a franchise to offer its FiOS TV service to 77,000 more households in the Tampa, Fla., area. The telco is aiming to take on Bright House Networks in Tarpon Springs, Comcast in Sarasota and Bright House and Knology in parts of Pinellas County. Verizon expects to have approval for its application on or before July 24.

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Cable & Wireless reached a five-year deal to provide national IPTV services in the United Kingdom via Inuk Networks. Inuk will have access to C&W’s nationwide multicast network, enabling the delivery of television, telephony and broadband services, and C&W will offer Inuk's IPTV platform as a white-label solution to other wholesale digital-subscriber-line customers that want to provide their subscribers with a digital television offering. The two companies said the deal is valued at about £70 million ($141.13 million) over five years. In related news, Inuk announced that it will provide access to live Barclays Premier League games on the Setanta Sports 1 channel as part of its new premium TV offering, Freewire TV Extra: Student Pack.

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• Korea Telecom launched its new IPTV service using HD set-tops based on STMicroelectronics’ STi710x family of highly integrated HDTV decoder chips.

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