Telecom, Cable Heavyweights Slam Consumer Video Choice Coalition for Set-top Hill Briefing

Two heavyweight industry coalitions sparred Friday over the nature of a private set-top box briefing that the Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVCC) held for Capitol Hill staffers that day at Google’s Washington office. The new Future of TV Coalition called the briefing a “secret Google field trip,” outlining opposition to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s set-top box proposals and the NPRM on deck for the February (see 1601270064). CVCC members told us such a briefing was standard and the same demonstration publicly recorded in the FCC docket last year.

“Amazingly, Google plans to demonstrate its new AllVid-style TV set-top box, presumably in order to build support for the new rules being considered by the FCC on video competition announced to much fanfare just this week,” Future of TV said in a Friday news release. “But this raises a burning question: how does Google have a box that could possibly comply with the FCC’s proposal when an intentionally vague framework of the proposal was announced just two days ago; when the FCC says there are still numerous technical issues to be addressed; and when no technical specifics are yet available to the public? Chairman Wheeler’s ‘fact sheet’ says a new ‘independent open standards body’ will be formed to determine technical specifications for these new devices, a process that could take years. Yet Google already has a working box?”

Future of TV heavily opposed Wheeler’s latest actions earlier last week. The coalition’s members include the American Cable Association, AT&T, Comcast, Dish Network, MPAA, NCTA, NTCA and USTelecom. The coalition’s members are troubled, it said. Future of TV said the demonstration may be “little more than a fantasy -- a Potemkin set top box that will undoubtedly look good on the surface, but tells us virtually nothing about how it might exploit the many plausible loopholes in any new FCC mandates that could hurt creators and consumers.” Hill staffers shouldn't tolerate “the secrecy and subterfuge,” it said, arguing the “AllVid scheme being flogged by Google and the FCC is unfair and destructive to values held far too dearly on Capitol Hill.” Wheeler repeatedly has told Hill lawmakers the AllVid label belongs to an earlier 2010 proposal, not the current proposals.

Consumer Video Choice Coalition members include Google, plus the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Incompas, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and TiVo. Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer wasn't present but told us later the demonstration attracted a “full house” comprising a mix of House and Senate staffers, most of whom focused on telecom policy and a roughly equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

The Friday Hill demonstration was nothing new, CVCC members told us, saying it was the same technical demonstration previously offered to FCC staffers. One such description of the demo was found in the CVCC’s Dec. 14 ex parte filing with the commission. “Different devices with distinct user interfaces and program guides displayed linear video feeds and metadata from the same MVPD, showing how the same virtual head-end is compatible with multiple devices,” the filing said. “The demonstration also showed how a single device could display content from different MVPDs, illustrating how competitive devices could be portable between” multichannel video programming devices. In a Dec. 22 ex parte filing, CVCC attacked NCTA for criticism given “NCTA’s own history of holding demonstrations.”

“That’s desperate,” Bergmayer told us Friday of the Future of TV Coalition's attack on the Hill briefing, criticizing the coalition for casting aspersions on the honesty and public history of the demonstration. He insisted the demonstration was “all sort of public” and slammed the Future of TV rhetoric as “totally ridiculous.” The demonstration's purpose was simply to show different possibilities and not to tout any consumer product, he said.

Hill lobbying on these issues will likely stay active in the weeks leading up through the FCC’s Feb. 18 vote on the set-top box NPRM, Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Affairs Chris Lewis told us. The Senate Commerce Committee is rumored to be planning an FCC oversight hearing for early this year, and set-top box issues are likely to come up then, Lewis said. One telecom industry lobbyist told us he's heard more of the March timeframe for the Senate's possible FCC oversight hearing. “They’re up there,” Lewis said of industry lobbyists for the Future of TV members. “They’re going to be lobbying to maintain the monopoly they have on the set-top box now.” Google is also considered one of the biggest lobbying heavyweights in Washington in recent years. Public Knowledge recognizes it’s a technical issue and wants to make sure Hill offices know what’s at stake, Lewis said.

Future of TV also questioned the FCC process. “If we didn’t know better, we might think Google had a sneak preview of the FCC’s new proposal,” the coalition said in its long Friday attack. “Or maybe they’re just amazingly confident they will be able to dominate the supposedly 'open' standards setting process, ramming through specs cooked up in Google’s Silicon Valley labs. Confidence that may be justified since Google reportedly held a similar off-the-record confab with the FCC staff late last year -- a great opportunity for them to shape this AllVid 2.0 regulation from the beginning. If that’s the case, it doesn’t bode well for the openness of the regulatory process, or for independent and minority programmers and their advocates who have been sounding the alarm against the FCC’s new rule.”

“Technology demonstrations are part of the normal course of business in any FCC proceeding,” said an FCC spokeswoman, noting that the CVCC "held demonstrations for a number of FCC staff and Commissioners’ offices. We welcome presentations from all innovators and app developers who want to bring choice to the 99 percent of cable and satellite TV consumers who lease set-top boxes because they don’t have meaningful alternatives.”