Digital Migration in India

Promoting Freedom of Choice on Digital Cable Networks through Secure Reception Techniques The success of any broadcasting (e.g. digital TV) operation depends on two fundamentals: the availability of attractive content and the ability to manage that content. 

India stands on the threshold of entering the digital cable television era, with cable operators in the country's largest cities Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata switched from analog to digital networks with effect from December 31, 2006. 

To speed up this “Digital Migration,” India's broadcast regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), supported by the judicial and executive branches, has sketched out a fine blueprint for the transition to digital cable operations. The entire switch to digital cable television is set to be completed by the time India hosts the Commonwealth Games in 2010. 

Irdeto, a global leader in providing content protection across digital TV, IPTV and mobile networks worldwide, is in an unique position to focus on India's passage into the digital cable era. Being part of the multinational media group Myriad International Holding (MIH), which manages pay media platforms around the world, Irdeto is nurtured by experts who provide guidance in technology to ensure that everyone from content owners to broadcasters to Multiple System Operators (MSO's), cable operators and individual subscribers derive the maximum benefits from the switch to digital cable. Lessons Irdeto has applied in China helped the company become the market leader and an authority on digital migration. 

Every society has its own set rules and ways of doing business, and soon the broadcast stakeholders broadcasters, MSO's, cable operators and subscribers/viewers - will find themselves in new territory as the rules guiding digital migration are implemented in India. Based on the experiences of other countries that have gone through digital migration, along with regulations that fit each society, everyone in this broadcast value chain will discover a spectrum of new possibilities as this era unfolds. 

India's expanding middle class, its vibrant Bollywood film industry, and its steady advances in broadcasting technologies are all laying the foundation for the introduction of digital cable television, which will deliver a new freedom of choice for viewers in terms of television channels and content, an enforced truce among broadcasters, MSO's, and cable operators, and reduced fees for subscribers. 

The success of any broadcasting (e.g. digital TV) operation depends on two fundamentals: the availability of attractive content (e.g. films, sport and music programs) that subscribers will pay extra to view, and the ability to manage that content as it moves from content owner to broadcaster to MSO to operator to the ultimate subscriber/viewer. 

A unique feature of digital migration is that everyone in the broadcast value chain will become a stakeholder, since subscribers are identifiable, and every link in the chain can be managed through a Conditional Access System (CAS). 

This CAS, or Addressable Sytem, is a description used for a matrix of Set Top Boxes (STB's) and connected software used at different stages in the distribution of a TV network, through which normally the pay channels are transmitted in encrypted form. The subscriber is given an authorization depending upon his request to view one or more encrypted pay channels of his choice. This authorization is given and managed by the MSO's that own the conditional access system in a digital cable television network. In this, the MSO is often assisted by the local cable operator. The MSO and the broadcaster will know the exact number of subscribers per pay channel, and the amount that is due from each subscriber. 

This requires that every subscriber be equipped with a STB with a viewing smart card in it. Once this is done, then it becomes possible for the MSO to encrypt the signals for all pay channels, and to send these signals to the subscriber's STB, where the viewing smart card decrypts the signals of only those pay channels the subscriber has chosen to pay for and watch. Of course, free-to-air channels will automatically be available for viewing because their signals are not encrypted. 

The present practice in India is that the MSO, after buying/receiving the signals of various channels from different broadcasters, bundles them into a single “bouquet” and transmits them to individual subscribers' homes through the cable operators, and charges for the entire bundle. This sometimes results in a subscriber paying for channels he does not want to see, but has to pay for because they are part of the bundle. However, with the introduction of conditional access following TRAI's mandate, it will be possible for the consumer to decide and choose which channels he or she wants to view and pay accordingly. 

Yet as broadcasters and operators migrate to digital technology, so will pirates! Pirates often called 'hackers' - will probe and attack, trying to gain access to premium television content. If successful, pirate attacks will force content providers to rethink licensing agreements, and viewers might lose access to premium programming. Any victory by pirates will also drain resources and revenues from MSO's and cable operators, who will ultimately pass on their losses to viewers. 

To protect against these attacks, Irdeto has developed globally recognized content protection technology, which is now being deployed by leading MSO's and cable operators across India, as well as in the rest of the world, because it outperforms all competitors. Industry-wide, experts talk about smart cards having a maximum life span of two to three years before they fall in pirate attacks, and there have been signs that some cards produced by Irdeto's competitors may already have suffered this fate in India. In sharp contrast, Irdeto's security solutions for broadcasting across digital TV, IPTV and mobile TV platforms have successfully defended against every pirate attack waged for the past six years, and the company has currently four generations of hack-free cards available in the market. Irdeto is the only CA vendor that uses a pro-active security strategy, and develops new generations of smart cards every 18-24 months. This minimizes the risk of piracy for the operator. Irdeto's Flexiflash technology ensures that smart cards are periodically and securely updated over-the-air, thus averting the need for costly smart card swaps. 

The CA system supports a wide array of business models, and allows MSO's and cable operators to provide more value-added services, such as pre-paid (time- and event-based) and on-demand broadcast services.

In fact, just one group stands to lose with the creation of a digital cable network in India that is protected by Irdeto's advanced technologies: pirates. After probing but failing to infiltrate any Irdeto-protected digital television network, these pirates are likely to embark on their own migration, to the lands and airwaves of analog television networks that are not guarded by Irdeto's impenetrable defenses. 

Yet the capability of Irdeto's CA system to manage content includes much more than just providing state-of-the-art security. 

The CA system supports a wide array of business models, and allows MSO's and cable operators to provide more value-added services, such as pre-paid (time- and event-based) and on-demand broadcast services, without the need for operators to change or upgrade the smart card or STB. 

Special “multi-sector” smart cards allow up to 15 separate broadcasters and cable operators at different levels or in dispersed districts to share the same smart card, and to coordinate and manage their offerings to each subscriber. This, in turn, can expand the viewer's range of choice. Being a great tool for future expansion and/or change of ownership in the networks, this approach averts friction among broadcasters, MSO's and operators over providing services to viewers or managing revenues. 

Smaller MSO's and cable operators can start with a more compact conditional access system, and seamlessly expand as the number of subscribers grows. Irdeto's solutions are modular, convergent, and backwards compatible, which means that operators can upgrade and scale up their offerings even expanding to IPTV services - without ever having to change a single set top box or smart card. And, down the road, cable operators and MSO's that use Irdeto's open-standards technology can easily merge and interweave their business. 

Irdeto realizes that in India, as in the rest of the world, the success of digital migration will depend on the introduction of moderately priced, superior and well-branded set top boxes. Irdeto works with top-echelon set top box makers worldwide, and is now engaged in talks with several Indian manufacturers, in order to integrate the company's CA into a broad range of STB's. 

Irdeto also works with set top box producers to turn out “multi-view” models, which allow households with more than one TV set to simultaneously receive different television programs, “convergence” models, which can handle digital video broadcasting and IPTV streams, and PVR's, which can record up to 200 hours of digital programs, depending on the size of the disk. 

The new era of digital cable television that India's top cities are entering now and in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games is opening a spectrum of advances for the entire broadcasting industry: if this new conditional access network is safeguarded by Irdeto's next-generation security technology, film producers and other content providers in India and across the globe will feel secure in providing their premium programming; MSO's and cable operators can work together in a transparent system that prevents friction and enables cooperation at varying levels and districts; content and revenues can be tracked and managed by a web of partners, who can in turn expand operations while offering subscribers a growing array of individualized viewing models and means of payment; viewers gain an amazing new array of choice in selecting television programming, which will ultimately lead to even more individualized entertainment models through such services as video on demand and pay-per-view television. 

By: Thierry Raymaekers, Managing Director

Source: http://cablequest.org/articles/broadcast-technology/item/1294-digital-migration-in-india.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/articles/broadcast-technology/item/1294-digital-migration-in-india.html