BSkyB has taken legal action against British Digital Broadcasting (BDB) over the extent of compatibility of the two companies’ set-top box receiver equipment. Sky is claiming that BDB has broken a contractual stipulation agreed when BSkyB was forced to leave the BDB consortium in June last year (subscribers see BSkyB Leaves The Alliance). BDB questions that this agreement ever even existed.
According to Sky, any equipment chosen by BDB for its digital terrestrial service must be fully interoperable with BSkyB’s digital satellite service. Sky believes that the present technology will be incompatible with a number of the broadcaster’s services and its electronic programme guide, the system which enables viewers to determine what programmes are available and on which channels.
BDB, however, claims that the two systems (SECA for BDB, and News Datacom System for BSkyB) are in fact compatible, the only loss being the BSkyB electronic programme guide which would be replaced with BDB’s own programme guide.
Nigel Walmsley, director of BDB said: “BSkyB claims that our set-top boxes will not be interoperable with theirs. This claim is unfounded. Our conditional access system is provided by SECA, which happens to be a competitor of NDS Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation. SECA already interoperates its system with others in Europe and can do the same with BSkyB’s system. All that is required is for BSkyB to agree to co-operate to finalise their technical agreements.”
The implication from BDB is that BSkyB’s actions stem from a case of ‘sour grapes’. The choice of the SECA system by BDB snubbed News Corporation’s NDS technology: BSkyB is 40% owned by News Corporation. The SECA system has been agreed by all the UK terrestrial broadcasters, including BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
Currently, a plug-in adapter will be required by owners of the BDB set-top technology if they wish to receive BSkyB’s digital satellite service. It is expected that the adaptor will cost customers around £50, although this is not a definite figure. However, BDB says that with Sky’s co-operation a system called simulcrypting can be built into the decoder boxes at the manufacturing level, removing the need for the adpater.
Walmsley says that BSkyB should “stop litigating and start co-operating.” He goes on to say: “We believe that consumers should only need one set-top box in order to watch digital television. That is why we have chosen a system that can be interoperable with BSkyB … That is what we said when we applied for our licences – and it is what we are saying now. We will vigorously defend our position.”
BSkyB would not comment when contacted by Newsline.
BDB has placed orders for set-top boxes with six manufacturers: Grundig, Pace, Philips, Nokia, Sony and Toshiba.
BSkyB: 0171 705 3000 British Digital Broadcasting: 0171 819 8000
