FCC requests comments about the future of CableCARD and AllVid
Who knew that our love for all things technology would lead to us learning about the executive branch of the Federal Government? We sure didn't. We did learn that in order to change the rules, the FCC has to issue a Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making in order to give everyone involved a chance to have their opinions heard. Well the cable industry and others are officially on the clock as they now have 30 days from yesterday to let the FCC know how they feel about the new rules that are supposed to help fix CableCARD (and another 15 for responses). On the same day the FCC issues a Notice of Inquiry about CableCARD's eventual replacement to which comments will be accepted for 60 days (responses have another 30 after that). The replacement has a new nickname too, AllVid, but other than that it seems everything is up for discussion. In fact the FCC is trying to determine just about everything, but it does believe that industry standards already in place should be required like DLNA and UPnP. Other questions remain though, like how long after the AllVid devices are deployed should the CableCARD mandates stay in effect? One other interesting note in the 28 page PDF is that the FCC thinks that either a dual tuner set-back box would work, or a 6 tuner version for the whole house -- or some combination. At this point it is all speculation but if you want to take an active role in the process download the PDFs yourself and get your comments in before its too late.
