Perry Hoffman
GATINEAU – Canadian cable operators do not believe that a local-into-local signal carriage regime imposed on DTH companies would be disastrous for the operations of Bell TV and Shaw Direct.
Bell TV and Shaw Direct say in their submissions on 2010-488, the review of the direct-to-home satellite distribution policy they don’t have the capacity to carry all local over-the-air (OTA) signals, and despite technological improvements in compression coming online in the future complying with a local-into-local regime will be problematic.
Both say that if forced to carry all over-the-air (OTA) stations, they will have no choice but to remove specialty and pay services from their lineups because new additional satellite capacity isn’t coming online in the near future.
“The consumer backlash against such an event – which would result in a significant loss of distinctive programming in favour of a larger number of signals that are identical but for the limited amount of local programming – would be significant and would foreseeably undermine the competitiveness of Shaw Direct,” the company tells the Commission.
Enhanced compression technology resulting from the migration to MPEG4 will help, says Bell, but it comes with substantial costs particularly if it’s required to carry all local OTA signals. Because none of its standard definition (SD) installed set-top boxes are capable of decoding MPEG4, the company would have to do a wholesale swap, which “would have a prohibitive cost and is both operationally and financially impractical.”
The cable companies don’t buy the capacity constraint argument.
FreeHD Canada Inc., a third DTH distributor that has yet to launch commercially, says a local-into-local regime is possible if satellites use the appropriate technology, namely a spot beam configuration. Such technology, notes the upstart DTH provider, is “a very efficient way to deliver up to 100 OTAs to Canadian BDUs and/or DTH households.”
The Thornhill ON-based firm says if Bell TV and Shaw Direct had chosen to adopt spot beam technology on their new satellites (Shaw’s Anik G1 and Bell’s Nimiq 6), they would have had enough capacity to “do local-into-local and fully support the digital transition, with minimal impact on either operator’s satellite capacity costs.”
Rogers Communications Inc. says Bell’s and Shaw’s statements regarding the technical inability to carry all local OTA stations has little to do with capacity issues but rather “the willingness (or unwillingness) of the DTH licensees to make the necessary investments in technology upgrades and recognize the carriage of local signals as a legislated priority under the Broadcasting Act.”
The distributor and broadcaster points to a Lemay-Yates Associates study it filed as part of its submission that shows capacity is not the main factor limiting DTH carriage of local signals. DTH providers could support a local-into-local signal carriage regime by gradually “upgrading their channel coding scheme to MPEG 4 at a reasonable expense,” according to the report.
The Lemay Yates study says that if Bell and Shaw upgraded their infrastructure to support MPEG4 technology, they would realize a more than 50% improvement in capacity, “more than ample space to carry all OTA stations in HD format.”
EastLink tells the CRTC that it’s time to level the playing field between terrestrial BDUs and DTH operators. The company says it has had to spend a significant amount of money expanding capacity to meet its regulatory obligation “and there is no reason that the commission should not expect the DTH BDUs to do the same.”
Partial distribution proposal
A solution to local signal carriage matter, according to Bell, is partial distribution. The company says this will allow communities such as Windsor ON, Trois-Rivières, Lethbridge, Yorkton and Kelowna to receive programming unique to their community, while having content that is the same nationally.
“Discussions with broadcasters to arrange such partial distribution of signals that are not currently distributed have had limited success. This is unfortunate because it would allow Bell TV subscribers in those areas to view the unique local content such as news, weather, sports and other local programs without the company having to duplicate the entire network programming, which is already available. The partial distribution solution is efficient and effective,” says Bell.
Cogeco Cable Inc. says the Broadcasting Act is clear: all distributors should give priority to the carriage of Canadian signals and in particular local Canadian TV stations. “In this regard, there is no carve-out in the Act for DTH satellite distribution, or indeed any particular distribution technology,” the company says.
Rogers argues that it’s time the Commission adopt regulatory symmetry for all broadcast distribution undertakings (BDUs) and that DTH DBUs should have to follow the same rules as cable. The company notes that a few short months ago Bell argued for regulatory symmetry on wholesale access to certain broadband services, but is now advocating for an asymmetric approach with respect to local signal carriage.
“Bell Canada cannot have it both ways,” states Rogers. “If regulatory symmetry is the appropriate principle for the regulation of competitive telecommunications networks, then regulatory symmetry must also be the appropriate principle to guide the regulation of competitive broadcasting distribution networks.”
Shaw says regulatory symmetry would “undermine” competition between DTH and terrestrial BDUs. “DTH has unique technical features that require unique regulatory approaches,” the company tells the commission.
The DTH framework hearing is set to begin on November 16.
