FCC

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of regulatory/government news for the past few days:

DVR vendor/service provider, TiVo, has strongly criticized the US cable industry in a response to a recently issued RFI from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that seeks "comment on how the Commission can encourage innovation in the market for video devices that will assist the Commission’s development of a National Broadband Plan" (note: for more on the RFI, see the article published on itvt.com, December 7th).

In an ex parte letter, filed with the FCC December 2nd, Panasonic Corporation of North America revealed that it will shortly be offering integrated tru2way HDTV sets in Boston (note: it already offers them in Chicago, Denver and Atlanta), and outlined its plans to launch a retail tru2way "set-back box" (SBB) that would "take advantage of the continuing nationwide roll-out by major cable operators of tru2way capability in their systems" and would "convert Panasonic HDTV's into fully bi-directional 'digital cable ready' tru2way TV's." The box was demo'd by the company at last month's SCTE Cable-Tec Expo.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue: