The BBTSolution™

Beyond Broadband Technology, LLC, (BBT) has developed an end-to-end system, the BBTSolution™ that unitizes a downloadable security system for content access control. The complete system is comprised of an uplink facility, cost effective headend equipment and a low cost set-top device. The BBTSolution™ answers the difficult question of how a cable operator can provide an inexpensive, highly secure digital video delivery to the home viewer.

The uplink facility aggregates over 200 SD and HD video channels and encodes them into MPEG2 and MPEG4 signals. The headend equipment combines the satellite receive, MPEG multiplexer and QAM modulator into one cost-effective unit allowing the operator to easily groom the signals into efficient QAM channels. The low cost set-top device supports analog, digital and HDTV signals. Fundamentally this device accepts any form of video signals and converts the video signals into what is required for the customer's television.

A Headend controller handles access control and channel maps telling the set-top device where and what channels it can deliver to the customer's television.

The system was designed to allow for flexibility and diverse implementation to meet the needs of many cable operators. The discrete parts of the end-to-end system can be used together or separately according to the needs of the operator.

Typical headend end design of the BBTSolution™

Prototype testing of the first low cost basic set top devices using the BBTSolution™ will begin by the end of the first quarter of 2007. Full deployment is expected to commence by the fourth quarter.

The BBTSolution™ provides a fully downloadable and highly secure conditional access system at a price-point for deployment that is considerably lower than any system currently on the market. It also provides cable operators with a fully customizable migration path from analog to digital distribution, allowing the operators to recover and manage broadband spectrum far more efficiently without the necessity of major new capital expenditures.