TiVo to Congress: Leave Integrated Set-Top Ban Alone

Saying the National Cable & Telecommunications Association is trying to "freeze out" retail competition, TiVo SVP Matthew Zinn plans to tell Congress that it should not allow a provision in the STELA bill that would "undermine the retail market for set top boxes and deprive consumers of choice." It says the provision has no place in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act. That is according to Zinn's written testimony for a March 12 hearing in the House communications Subcommittee on a draft of the bill that includes eliminating the FCC ban on integrated set-top boxes. Zinn said that while he would ordinarily not be opining on a satellite bill, he was weighing in because of a "completely unrelated provision that was slipped in to the STELA reauthorization legislation pushed by a cable lobbying group to eliminate choice in how consumers watch cable programming." Tivo is concerned that removing the CableCard mandate would disadvantage TiVo's Roamio retail set-top. "The provision inserted into STELA would repeal the requirement that cable operators use the same security standard in their boxes as they make available for retail boxes and allow operators to lock out competitive devices, by offering superior access to programming and functions to their own devices, and inferior and faulty access to competitive devices -- as they did before the 'integration ban' became effective." [March 11]