Removable Security

CABLE WORLD STAFF

An important round of interoperability testing starts this week in Los Angeles, where nine set-top/consumer electronics manufacturers, three headend vendors and six conditional access companies are ensuring the effectiveness of removable security and opening the cable set-top market to greater competition.

The tests, shepherded by CableLabs'(r) OpenCable(tm) team, start in CableLabs' member company MediaOne Group's facilities Dec. 6, and move to the Los Angeles Convention Center in time for hands-on displays at this year's CableNET exhibits.

This interoperability round is the second in a planned series of tests involving removable security Point of Deployment modules (PODs). POD modules, which look like the slide-in PCMCIA cards used in personal computers, give cable operators the ability to uncouple conditional access and encryption from other set-top functions.

It works like this: Customers buy a set-top or integrated TV, and call the local operator for cable service. If consumers opt for premium channels, like HBO or Showtime, the operator sends out a POD module that: authorizes the services, and decrypts the channels for display on the TV set. The POD module card slips into an accompanying receptacle, not unlike how current DBS receivers work.

This week's interop tests seek to ensure the basics are covered: that a POD module card plugged into a set-top or TV receptacle works, and that premium content sent to a module from accompanying headend gear is descrambled properly.

Paul Zimmerman, systems integration manager for CableLabs, said the tests would be segmented into multiple parts: 1. Protocol check: making sure a POD module card and the accompanying TV or set-top receptacle exchange the right protocols and "speak the same language."

2. Encryption/Decryption: ensuring that encrypted video from the headend can be decrypted and displayed through the "host device," or set-top/TV.

3. Authorization/Deauthorization: making sure that in the future, only those customers who pay for premium content, receive it.

4. Copy protection: ensuring that premium content traveling from the POD module to the set-top is suitably reencrypted, so that premium services are consistently protected throughout the signal path.

5. Out of Band Signaling: making sure that the out-of-band signaling path from the headend to the POD module is functioning properly.

Following this round of tests, CableLabs will conduct several additional interops early next year, then start conducting certification waves - not unlike how cable modems are readied for interoperable, retail play.

OpenCable senior director Don Dulchinos said he's particularly pleased with the quantity and quality of the participating vendors, which represent an A-list mix of consumer electronics, PC and set-top suppliers. "It's always been our goal to make this happen not just with set-tops, but with TVs and with the entire range of devices that receive MPEG-2 video and related program content," Dulchinos said, referencing the fact that Microsoft brought a PC receiver card with a POD module interface to the tests, and Panasonic brought a prototype integrated TV/set-top terminal. "That shows that this project really has gained the momentum it needs," he said.

From a specifications standpoint, OpenCable is similarly on track. In late October, CableLabs released five key hardware specifications to more than 300 manufacturers - a green light that gives the supplier community sufficient time to start building product based on OpenCable 1.0, in time for July 2000 retail launches.