No-Frills Set-Top On Tap
BBT Box to Have Downloadable Security Features
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 12/31/2006 7:00:00 PM
What do you do when suppliers don’t deliver what you want? For a trio of small cable operators, the answer was to design it themselves.
Beyond Broadband Technology is a virtual company styling itself as a grass-roots effort by independent operators who needed a low-cost set-top box to convert to all-digital networks. BBT, formed by Buford Media Group, Tele-Media Broadband and WinDBreak Cable, boot-strapped itself in 2002 with the design goal of creating a $35 box that would support both analog and digital service to let operators reclaim bandwidth from the analog tier.
“We looked at what drove the cost of the set-top box, including the cost of the LED that says the power’s on,” said Bill Bauer, CEO of operator WinDBreak in Gering, Neb. “The whole project has been more about taking things out than that we’ve come up with something fantastic.”
Now, BBT expects prototypes to be available for testing by end of the first quarter and full-production shipments set for September from its initial manufacturing partner, R.L. Drake Co.
| Tech Spec |
|---|
| The BBT Box |
| Source: Beyond Broadband Technology |
| Price: About $100 initially, but BBT expects unit prices to drop when volumes increase |
| Initial manufacturer: Franklin, Ohio-based R.L. Drake Co. |
| Availability: Prototypes available Q1; shipping in quantity by September |
| Core chipset: STMicroelectronics’ 7109 system-on-a-chip |
| Conditional access: Either STMicro’s ST22 or Infineon’s 88 controllers |
| On-screen guide: Currently in development by BBT |
The resulting device, about the size of a laptop PC’s power supply, doesn’t have a front-panel display. It will support MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video, as well as high-definition video. Otherwise, Bauer said, “there are no bells and whistles.”
BBT plans to license the design to any manufacturer, with the idea that the set-top could become an “open standard” for the industry, said Ben Hooks, chairman of Tyler, Texas-based Buford Media, a 70,000-subscriber multiple-system operator. The model, he said, is intended to emulate CableLabs’ Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification for cable modems to drive down the cost of hardware.
More to the point, BBT wants an alternative to the two biggest set-top box makers — Motorola and Scientific Atlanta — which do not provide sub-$50 set-top devices that can handle both analog and digital video.
“I think the world of Motorola … I think the world of SA … but by nature, they’re [selling] proprietary devices,” Hooks said, adding that BBT would love to sign both manufacturers as licensees. (Representatives from Motorola and Scientific Atlanta did not respond to requests for comment by press time.)
In the process of designing a cheap set-top, BBT’s partners believe they also will meet the requirements of the Federal Communications Commission’s so-called integration ban. Effective July 1, as FCC rules currently stand, operators will be required to deploy only set-top boxes that have separable security features for conditional access.
The problem with the industry’s initial solution to the FCC ban — the CableCard, a removable piece of hardware that plugs into a set-top — is that it would almost double the cost of a $35 box, according to Bauer. And even if small operators could afford CableCard-based set-tops, he added, the big MSOs have already spoken for the initial shipments.
Instead, BBT’s device will employ software-downloadable security, using controller chips from either STMicroelectronics or Infineon (BBT hasn’t decided yet which it will use). That’s the same approach used by the Downloadable Conditional Access System (DCAS), which is being licensed through CableLabs and developed by PolyCipher, a company backed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications.
BBT’s box, at least at first, won’t be compatible with DCAS. Other limitations: Operators will have to use Drake-developed headend equipment, priced at about $10,000 per 120 channels, and receive satellite-based programming through Syndetik, a content aggregator in Reston, Va.
And at a production run of 250,000 boxes, the per-unit price is “coming out to around $100,” Hooks said. But he predicted the price would decline in larger volumes. “If we get it down to $50, I’ll be jumping up and down,” Hooks said.
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