Public Interest Groups Ask FCC for Rulemaking on TV Set-Top Boxes

Public Knowledge, Free Press, Media Access Project, Consumers Union, CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, and the Open Technology Initiative of New America Foundation are asking the Federal Communications Commission to initiate a rulemaking to address the lack of competition in the video device market. Specifically, they ask that the FCC: 1) combine all open proceedings relating to cable set-top box commercial availability and device interoperability, 2) freeze all separable security waiver requests until the rules are updated, and 3) issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require a standards-based gateway for accessing the video services of all multichannel video programming distributors.