87-268 or other proceedings related to the launch of digital television. 87-268 or other proceedings related to the launch of digital television. The purpose of this understanding is to further the common goal of expeditious launch of digital television and is not intended to impose restrictions with respect to future regulatory or legislative issues. In addition, consistent with the target date recognized in your letter to us, the parties will no longer be bound by this agreement if the FCC standard is not adopted by the FCC by December 31, 1996. The parties agreed beforehand to maintain the confidentiality of the positions taken by them in the discussions, if not agreed to as part of a final resolution of the DTV standard issue.
All parties continue to be bound by that agreement.
Because there will be possibilities for future services that we cannot anticipate today, it is extremely important that the transport architecture provide open-ended extensibility of services. Backward compatibility is assured when new bit streams are introduced into the transport system as existing decoders will automatically ignore new PIDs.