By Jeffrey Krauss, Gabardine Garbage Collector and President of Telecommunications and Technology Policy

As an MSO, what obligations do you have to deliver a "perfect" signal to your subscribers? If you receive a "damaged" signal from a broadcaster, can you pass it through to subscribers, or do you have to "repair" it?

These questions might be covered by your retransmission consent agreements. They might be covered by FCC must-carry rules. Or maybe not. They might be covered by (shudder) franchise agreements. Hopefully not.

For analog NTSC, it's pretty simple. For example, the FCC rules specify that a broadcaster must deliver a signal of good quality to the cable headend, defined as a signal level of at least -45 dBm for UHF or -49 dBm for VHF.

For digital signals, it is no longer just a question of signal strength. Instead, it becomes much more complicated, and that's largely because of PSIP. PSIP (Program and System Information Protocol) is an industry standard for digital television that you can download from the ATSC Web site (www.atsc.org). (If you do, be sure to get the latest version of standard A/65 and all the amendments. It keeps "evolving.") PSIP consists of channel mapping data, program guide data, information about closed captions and content advisory ratings, and other data related to the current and future programs.

Suppose that the PSIP data, as created by the broadcaster, is wrong. (Yes, it's scandalous but true; many broadcasters still haven't gotten it right.) Does the cable operator have an obligation to fix it? Take a close look at your contracts and franchise agreements, because they might address this question.

Suppose your franchise agreement says that the signals that you deliver to subscribers "must comply with all applicable FCC rules." That is not a problem, not yet anyway, because the only FCC rules covering digital television broadcasting are those intended to prevent co-channel and adjacent channel interference. There are no FCC rules covering digital must-carry. There are no FCC rules covering digital TV signal quality. There are no rules that even require a broadcaster to carry PSIP data. Not yet, anyway.

Suppose your franchise agreement says that the signals you deliver to subscribers "must comply with all industry standards." That might be a problem. Even though industry standards, unlike FCC rules, are voluntary, a franchise agreement might make them mandatory. There clearly is an industry standard (ATSC A/65) that describes PSIP and how it is supposed to be used by broadcasters, and specifies what constitutes a valid PSIP data stream. And there is also an SCTE standard (SCTE 65 2002) that tells how cable systems can carry PSIP data in the out-of-band channel.

But what to do about "wrong" data? PSIP is a very complex data structure. The ATSC Web site contains both a tutorial and a 93-page implementation guide for broadcasters (document A/69) because of the problems that arose in implementing it.

The PSIP data, as broadcast, might carry the wrong channel mapping data or the wrong program guide information. The Virtual Channel Table, for example, is supposed to carry channel mapping information about the broadcaster's digital channel, including all of its multiplexed standard definition programs, as well as that broadcaster's analog NTSC channel. It may also contain similar information about other local TV channels that the broadcaster might own (a so-called "duopoly"). The PSIP tables are very complex, rigidly defined, and the PSIP generators now on the market for use by broadcasters are not as user-friendly as they might be.

Cable boxes rely on the data in the out-of-band channel for navigating from one channel to another, but digital TV receivers do not. They use the PSIP data contained in each broadcast channel. If a cable subscriber complains that when his digital TV is connected to the cable system, it doesn't navigate properly because of bad PSIP data, can the cable operator blame the broadcaster? Maybe, but it may depend on the franchise agreement.

Maybe a cable operator can legally pass the blame to the broadcaster if the issue is covered in a retransmission consent agreement. I don't know about existing contracts, but in the future, you might want to add a requirement that the broadcaster must supply signals that comply with the PSIP standard.

But that option isn't available with must-carry. There is no contract, and if the traditional analog rules are applied to digital must-carry, the cable operator might even be prevented from correcting bad PSIP data in a broadcaster's signal. (Not that you would want to buy the expensive equipment that makes this possible.)

So my advice to cable operators is to focus on threats that increase your obligations to fix digital signals. Watch out for technical standards that might increase your obligations to correct the garbage coming in. Watch out for retransmission consent agreements. Watch out for new FCC digital must-carry rules. And watch out for changes to your franchise agreements. The transition from analog to digital will take place in steps, channel by channel, station by station, contract by contract, and rule by rule. And every step is a threat.

Have a comment? Contact Jeff via e-mail at: jkrauss@cpcug.org