Atlanta, Georgia, May 4, 1998—Significant portions of the draft OpenCable™ specification are largely complete, and the first draft documents are being released to the vendor community for their review and comment.

"This puts OpenCable™ right on track to meet the cable industry's needs for interoperable digital set-top devices," said William T. Schleyer, chairman of the OpenCable™ working teams that are developing the specification.

The OpenCable™ digital platform is a CableLabs-managed initiative aimed at developing key interface specifications to foster interoperability among advanced digital set-top boxes built by multiple vendors and used in broadband two-way cable networks. OpenCable™ is consistent with, and furthers the goals of, Section 629 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that requires competitive availability of navigation devices.

The first two documents released are a service requirements document and a functional requirements document. The service requirements document is a brief description of what services an OpenCable™ set-top box must be capable of supporting. The functional requirements document is a more detailed discussion of what technical capabilities will be required in the box.

"These are the first in a series of documents that are in the pipeline," said Laurie Schwartz, CableLabs OpenCable™ project manager. More detailed interface specifications, which will provide enough information to enable suppliers to actually build an OpenCable™ box, are now under review by the cable operator representatives on the OpenCable™ team, and will be released to the vendor community for review and comment in mid-June, she added.

"The release of these documents keeps us on track for completing the specification in 1998, the original goal of the project," according to Don Dulchinos, CableLabs director, business development. "We're beginning to design a process to certify boxes as cable operators begin to take shipment on their recent orders," he added.

In addition to the drafting of the documents described above, work continues to progress on reaching industry consensus on a number of issues raised by the OpenCable™ effort.

Critical Harmony technology, such as the agreed upon modulation and MPEG formats, has been tested. The Harmony core decryptor has been designed and initial testing has been performed. GI and SA are in the process of implementing an architecture that will allow an operator to use DigiCipher II and PowerKEY in the same system.

The software technical team has made significant progress in defining the software architecture and OpenCable™ application programming interfaces (APIs). The members have agreed on the architecture and process for defining the remaining open APIs, standardizing on an open middleware architecture that leverages existing Internet technology.

The software technical team has made significant progress in defining the software architecture and OpenCable™ application programming interfaces (APIs). The members have agreed on the architecture and process for defining the remaining open APIs, standardizing on an open middleware architecture that leverages existing Internet technology.

OpenCable™ set-top boxes are based on high performance microprocessors with real-time operating systems. The OpenCable™ initiative does not specify a single microprocessor or operating system. Most interactive services will be implemented at the middleware layer using existing open Internet specifications, including HTML, CGI, JavaScript, and popular plug-ins.

The OpenCable™ project continues to have the strong support of Silicon Valley; companies like Microsoft, Network Computers Inc., Oracle, Sun Microsystems and others continue to provide information to the OpenCable™ team. Companies from the computer industry also are busy forming business arrangements with individual cable companies to contribute their technologies to cable operators' set-top orders.

"General Instrument has committed a large amount of resources to this activity and we continue to be highly motivated by the activities in OpenCable™ and the aggressive pursuit of specifications and, ultimately, a new generation of products," said General Instrument President and CEO Ed Breen.

"The OpenCable™ initiative has made significant progress over the past year," said Larry Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp. "Through Oracle and our Network Computer, Inc. affiliate, we have always advocated standards-based cable technology which will speed the deployment of Internet-based services into the home."

"We're honored to be serving a lead role in developing OpenCable™'s system integration and set-top specifications," said James F. MacDonald, Scientific-Atlanta President and CEO. "The project's outcome will be a tremendous boon for the cable industry, so we're delighted that the OpenCable™ team's efforts are quickly coming to fruition."

The project also relies upon great many components that already have been standardized. For instance, in March, OpenCable™ announced it had specified an existing high-speed interconnect called IEEE 1394 as the link between OpenCable™ advanced digital set-top boxes and devices such as television sets and digital videodisk players. This 1394 interface allows for pass-through of vast amounts of data at rates up to 400 million bits per second, which is important when delivering digital video and data services.

A high definition reference architecture has been agreed upon that will enable OpenCable™ set-tops to deliver whatever HD formats broadcasters decide to transmit. The OpenCable™ team is working on several technical solutions that will allow the members to meet this objective in both the immediate future and in the long-term.

The OpenCable™ effort has been working closely with another CableLabs-managed interoperability project known as DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), which is nearing an interoperable cable modem architecture. DOCSIS modems will be made part of some elements of the OpenCable™ family of digital devices.

OpenCable™ FAQs

Q. What is OpenCable™?
A. OpenCable™ is a fast-track initiative of the cable television industry being managed through CableLabs with a goal of attaining interoperable digital set-top boxes manufactured by multiple vendors. These devices would be capable of delivering digital video, data and interactive services to a television set. The OpenCable™ initiative has a number of components. First it is the process that will define the advanced digital devices, including set tops. Second, it is a blueprint for a way of delivering a series of advanced services to consumers, third it is a family of cable digital devices and fourth, it is a consumer brand.

The process of OpenCable™ entails a team of CableLabs technical staff working with technical representatives from member companies. There is a parallel team of cable company business executives also involved in the OpenCable™process. The CableLabs Executive Committee initiated OpenCable™ in spring 1997 with a series of meetings with top executives at computer industry companies. There followed another series of meetings of CableLabs, cable chief technology officers and computer companies. OpenCable™ was launched in July 1997 and a request for information was issued to leading companies in the consumer electronics and computer industries.

Twenty-three companies responded and their data were reviewed by technical teams from CableLabs and member companies and by business teams from cable system operating companies. The commonality of these responses led to the CableLabs Executive Committee reaching consensus on some key elements in November 1997, and agreeing to put the project on a fast track. Since that time, the working groups have been busy writing a specification for the core functionality of OpenCable™ devices.

The process is intended to foster competition among suppliers for key elements of digital cable networks, while ensuring interoperability of devices connected to cable networks. Recall that the Executive Committee chose to pursue an open specification rather than to anoint a single proprietary solution. This competitive environment will, in turn, lead to competitive pricing for set-top boxes and the introduction of digital cable ready television sets and set tops into retail distribution. OpenCable™ also will provide cable with a highly flexible platform for the introduction of new services and revenue streams.

The architecture component of OpenCable™ could be thought of as a blueprint for suppliers to use in building advanced digital set-top boxes. The OpenCable™ architecture will provide suppliers with the plans not only of how to build advanced set-top boxes, but also will allow those suppliers to migrate OpenCable™ functionality into a family of other devices, including VCRs, television sets, DVD players, and personal computer cards.

Q. What were those key elements that the Executive Committee agreed upon?
A. The key OpenCable™ interfaces that were agreed upon include the formats for digital cable television signals (MPEG-2), the consumer privacy system and the interfaces for high-speed connections to the Internet (Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification [DOCSIS]). The OpenCable™ teams are continuing to work on the interfaces required to author interactive applications and the copyright protection system.

It also was agreed that OpenCable™ set-top boxes will be based on high performance microprocessors with real-time operating systems. The Executive Committee agreed not to specify a single microprocessor or operating system. And, most interactive services will be implemented at the middleware layer using existing open Internet specifications, including HTML, CGI, JavaScript, and popular plug-ins.

Q. What is the current status of OpenCable™?
A. Technical teams at CableLabs and its member companies, working under the direction of William T. Schleyer, are nearing completion of a draft specification for OpenCable™ and will soon distribute it to suppliers. Then, suppliers will have a chance to make comments, and following that period, the specification will be edited if necessary, and then the specification will be considered completed. CableLabs has contracted with Scientific-Atlanta to assist in integrating the various components of the specification to use Scientific-Atlanta's expertise in this area to ensure that the different specifications do ultimately work together in an end-to-end system.

Q. If a specification is not yet complete, how could CableLabs member companies be announcing purchase orders as early as January of this year?
A. CableLabs members have stated in their purchase orders that whatever they buy under those agreements must first comply with the OpenCable™ specification. CableLabs is establishing a certification process that will be put into place to give suppliers an opportunity to have their products tested and then credited with compliance by a certification board. That process will be created later this year and will be ready to certify boxes shipping at that time. The announced purchases include 15 million units ordered from General Instrument by a consortium of cable operators that includes TCI, Time Warner Cable, MediaOne, Cox Communications and Comcast Corp. Another group of cable operators has ordered 1.4 million set tops from Scientific-Atlanta. These operators include Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Adelphia Communications, Cox Communications, Marcus Cable, MediaOne, Rogers Cablesystems Ltd., Videotron ltee and Cogeco Cable.

Q. How does OpenCable™ account for High Definition Television?
A. HDTV is foreseen as a key component of the cable television's programming service for the future. The cable industry is format agnostic on HDTV. So, the OpenCable™ boxes will pass through any of the formats approved for advanced television by the Advanced Television Systems Committee. The industry intends to pass signals without impairing either the audio or video quality to a HDTV set. The cable industry through CableLabs has been involved in the HDTV process since its inception through work at the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC) and through the CableLabs request for information and request for proposal that date back to 1991. CableLabs also has conducted HDTV field tests with the ATTC via Time Warner Cable and other cable operating systems located in Charlotte. HDTV requires a higher bit rate and greater bandwidth than current NTSC television. This will be accommodated by way of a special interface that will connect the OpenCable™ set-top box with the digital television. This interface is called the IEEE 1394, named after the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that standardized it. This interface may accommodate 400 million bits per second of throughput, and there are efforts underway to expand that capacity to one billion bits per second. It is standardized, it exists and is highly capable of carrying the payload cable operators will deliver, so it fits nicely into the OpenCable™ family of specifications.

Q. It seems that there is a lot to do in a short time with regard to OpenCable™. How can it possibly get product into the marketplace this year? A. Cable operators will continue to deploy advanced digital set tops this year, such as the Explorer® 2000 and the DCT 1200 boxes. These devices are wholly consistent with the OpenCable™ architecture. OpenCable™ products that are portable and that are available in the retail marketplace are not anticipated in large volumes until the middle of 1999. The process is capable of moving that fast because OpenCable™ relies upon a great many protocols that already are standardized by organizations such as the IEEE, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Q. What about the Internet connection in OpenCable™
A. All set-top devices in the OpenCable™ family of products, which also will include VCRs, television sets and DVD players, will have the ability to offer an enhanced television viewing experience by way of some data complement to the video. In the devices that cable operators lease to customers, there may be a "small footprint" software in the set top that communicates with a server in the cable operator headend. In the higher end devices that customers may buy at retail, the box may contain a fully functioning DOCSIS modem that allows high-speed two-way Internet access via the cable plant. OpenCable™ accommodates either strategy. It also accommodates different extensions of OpenCable™ functionality that some cable operators may wish to obtain to meet their market needs.

Q. OpenCable™ has been described as several things, including as a brand. What does that brand mean?
A. The word OpenCable™ may appear on set tops, personal computers, television sets and more. It is a commitment from the cable industry to make cable set-top boxes available at retail. Our pledge as an industry is that OpenCable™ boxes have been certified by CableLabs as being interoperable with a whole family of devices on every participating cable system. The OpenCable™ brand devices will be portable. That is they may be purchased in one community and will work in any other community where the cable operator supports OpenCable™.

Q. A lot of what OpenCable™ is about has to do with computer software and operating systems. Where is the cable industry getting the expertise it needs to monitor these software developments?
A. The cable industry wishes to attract many new suppliers to the cable industry. These suppliers bring with the new concepts and capabilities along with technologies that complement the efforts of the industry's traditional suppliers. Much of the expertise that is part of OpenCable™ is coming from the suppliers that wish to participate in the OpenCable™ process. Recall that the CableLabs Executive Committee chose to have OpenCable™ remain nonexclusive with regard to computer operating systems and to microprocessors. A number of computer software companies may participate in this process, such as companies with operating systems like Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and PowerTV. We appreciate having these companies involved and working together with the cable industry, and the industry also is intent upon not giving up control of this effort. A second layer of computer software issues may arise around the application programming interfaces (APIs). The cable industry wishes to be inclusive on APIs because it is at this level that many services will be enabled. That expertise is available and is being added to the cable industry at a rapid rate.

Q. How far along is the Harmony agreement on transport and encryption between traditional cable suppliers General Instrument and Scientific-Atlanta? Can companies other than these two license this technology yet?
A. OpenCable™ continues to work with these two companies to ensure that conditional access is not a roadblock to OpenCable™ deployment. CableLabs announced in October 1996 that the two companies had agreed, and one year later they had worked out an agreement. We are confident that more progress will occur. In 1996, we announced that CableLabs and its members had agreed upon major elements of a specification that covers how cable systems will transport digital video and data. Among the areas covered in the specification are that systems will conform to MPEG-2 main profile at main level parameters, that the specification transport multiplex will also be MPEG-2; that the audio element will be Dolby AC-3. As for signal security, the General Instrument DigiCipher® implementation of the DES encryption standard was set as the core encryption system. Multiple conditional access and control data streams such as PowerKEY™ and DigiCipher® will be supported. Downstream digital modulation will conform to the ITU standard ITU-T J. 83 Annex B. This standard calls for 64 and 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) with concatenated trellis coded modulation, plus enhancements such as variable interleaving depth for low latency in delay sensitive applications such as data and voice. Using 64 QAM, a cable channel that today carries one analog video channel could carry 27 Mbps of information, or enough for multiple video programs. Using 256 QAM, the standard 6 MHz cable channel would carry 40 Mbps.

Q. As technology shifts, how does the cable industry make sure that OpenCable™ stays current?
A. CableLabs members are keenly aware of technology shifts. These companies will work with CableLabs to ensure that there is no chance of OpenCable™ becoming out of date. Also, with key OpenCable™ allies in Silicon Valley, the cable industry has gained suppliers that are adept in an environment of rapid technological turnarounds.

Q. So what remains for OpenCable™ to accomplish?
A. Having product available in the marketplace, for one thing. Beyond publishing a final specification in the second half of 1998, the project will continue working to implement the Harmony agreement. There's a need to write a test plan in order to have something by which to certify compliance with OpenCable™ specifications, and to organize the interoperability testing. All of this must be done in a way that does not block suppliers from delivering product promptly to the cable market and ultimately to retail distribution channels. That is the ultimate end game.

About CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories (www.cablelabs.com) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. A non-profit research and development consortium, CableLabs delivers innovations that enable cable operators to be the providers of choice in their markets. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org and www.ebif.tv.

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