Digging Out of the Trap

Karen Brown

Interdiction leader Blonder Tongue Laboratories Inc. is teeing off at the Western Show with a new product offering cablers a way to dig out of the broadband basic trap with its new single-port interdiction unit.

The HomeControl Single Living Interdiction Unit, which debuted this fall and quickly snared a $16 million order from Cablevision Systems Corp. for 100,000 of the devices, is aimed at MSOs large and small looking for a more efficient and less costly way to deliver authorized signals to cable subscribers.

"It's a whole new concept of interdiction," according to Emily Nikoo, marketing manager for Blonder Tongue.

Digging out of the trap will be the theme for the Blonder Tongue booth, which will sport the golf theme - right down to representatives in golf garb.

In the past, Blonder Tongue's interdiction units have been placed in the MSOs headend. Channels are beamed scrambled to the headend unit, which checks each customer's subscriber information, unscrambles the proper channels and beams them to the customers' homes in the clear.

But, increasingly, MSOs were facing problems integrating digital service. Interdiction doesn't process digital signals, so MSOs with a combination of digital and basic analog customers faced two alternatives. One called for the MSO to scramble all channels except for basic and place set-top boxes in all but basic subscribers' homes.

"That is not the way to go," Nikoo said. "Not only is it expensive for the customer to get it because they have to put a box on every television set in the house, it is not what they want."

The other method was to install traps on the side of the house to block all but the basic signals. That eliminated the need for a box for extended basic customers, but the traps were nonaddressable, inflexible units. So if customers decided to change their service, a technician had to come out to the home and remove or alter it.

But Blonder Tongue's solution to this problem is the single-port interdiction unit, which effectively takes the place of the trap. Extended basic customers do not need a set-top box and can access cable service with multiple TVs in the household. Premium and digital customers have a set-top box that unscrambles the selected pay channels.

"It's really a whole-house solution for them," Nikoo said.

For the MSO, the individual interdiction units let them change subscribers' service via computer, thus cutting truck rolls. And it provides greater security against tampering than a set-top box.

"Your interdiction architecture is present, but it is fully addressable," she said. "Everything is computer controlled."

That and the Cablevision contract are indicators the new single-port scheme will widen the market appeal for interdiction.

"This is something that breaks into the major MSO market," Nikoo said.

Just recently, an MSO interested in creating a tier between basic and extended basic has been looking at the single-port unit as a way to manage the addition. And major MSOs are looking at it to manage overbuild areas in their smaller systems, Nikoo said.

"There are a lot of different things you can do with it," she said.