Intellectual Property Law

Adapters

By Susan Crawford

The FCC yesterday issued a Notice of Inquiry on “specific steps we can take to unleash competition in the retail market for smart, set-top video devices that are compatible with all multichannel video programming distributor services.”

Translation:  Why should the video distributor (your cable company or satellite service) control the market for devices that are capable of accessing video programming?

[Note: there is a heck of a lot of “unleashing” going on at the FCC.  Dalmations and Dobermans are leaping through the corridors.  Perhaps they’ll hold a contest for another word at some point.]

The Commission admits that its efforts so far haven’t led to a functioning market in gateway devices, and isn’t convinced that the major cable operators will take steps that will prompt the creation of the commercial retail market that Congress asked for back in 1996.

The FCC is asserting that what’s needed is a standardization effort - something akin to the standard Ethernet interface that has allowed connection of innumerable consumer devices to high-speed Internet access networks.  Printers, game consoles, wireless routers, computers - they all connect to transmission lines via an Ethernet gateway or port.

So the Commission is suggesting the development of standardized adapters provided by the video distributors that would act as conduits between competitive devices and the network.  They’ve called for comments on the configuration of these adapters, what protocols they’ll use, and a host of other questions.

The idea is that this standardized adapter will lead to the development of many new consumer devices, allow people to link pay TV and online activity (chatting, searching, a huge variety of uses), and allow for innovation on both sides of the adapter without constraint.

I’ve written about this before, but I wanted to mark the moment when the Notice of Inquiry was unleashed.  It’s a big deal.

Full post as published by Susan Crawford Blog on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).