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by This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it on Friday, 09 October 2009
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As ART moves to head off the last illegal access point to its signals ahead of next summer's World Cup, Digital Broadcast examines the company's claims to have defeated pay TV piracy and investigates what the development could mean for the industry as a whole.
Whenever the pay TV operators roll-out a new set top box the focus has been on features such as DVR capability, HD readiness and the presence of a two-way connection. The new ART set top box has not created the same buzz that new HD services or VOD options can conjure, but its impact on the region's pay TV industry could be far greater.
The loss of subscribers to a number of forms of pay TV piracy that are active in the Middle East is well publicised. Recently, these options for illegal access have contracted. The last remaining widespread form of access to ART signals is control word sharing, which uses a stream of refreshing code words, fed into the STB over an internet connection. ART now claims to have closed off this access point.
"You can't view it illegally, it will be impossible," asserts Steve Bjuvgard, head of ART's anti-piracy unit. "My job is to protect our customers. If I have a customer who is paying their subscription, why should the man next door be able to steal it? It's not fair, so as part of our customer service we will protect our subscribers. I understand why they get angry when all around them people are getting the same services for free."
With one of ART's largest content investments, the FIFA World Cup tournament on the horizon the time is right for the company to tighten the noose around signal thieves.
"We looked at what we needed to do to secure the World Cup. It's a massive investment and we need to secure it and make sure it is not stolen. It's a tremendous investment and we spoke to all the CA vendors," says Bjuvgard. "This will protect our content year on year as well, not just the World Cup. We have the largest library of Arabic movies that we must also protect and we have the largest selection of sport in the Middle East."
The security inside the box offers a two pronged attack on pirates.
"We're deploying the Viaccess PRAHA card and which is already the next generation so we've got ahead of the game, which is so important. We've gone about it a bit differently, we're using the Viaccess Secure Loader - this is the first deployment of that - and because it uses MPEG-4 and DVB-S2, most Viaccess boxes in the market at the moment won't work anyway, simply because they won't be able to decode the MPEG-4 or DVB-S2 signals. So we have two layers of soft protection there as well. This is not something the pirates can cope with."
For obvious reasons, detailed technical details of how the system operates are not for public disclosure.
So, what exactly will the new box and its multiple layers of security be up against?
Return to sender
Distributing and installing new STBs across the entire subscriber base is a costly and disruptive process. Doing so in the Middle East creates additional headaches given the large geographical spread of subscribers and the lack of formal street addressing systems in many countries.
"Subscribers were already viewing our channels and we are imposing this change on them so we need to make it as easy as possible and with as little disturbance as possible," says Namous. "We are working with several logistics companies to deliver and install the boxes direct to people's homes. We have trained them ourselves on how to do the installation to make sure the process is trouble free, for our customers as well as for them.
The high logistal costs mean that ensuring the opertation runs smoothly first time, can have a dramatic effect on the ROI time of the new box.
"Prior to installation, the subscriber receives a call from us. We check what other pay TV services they use so we can determine what they need in terms of cables or splitters, which prevents any further tech issues," he adds.
Distributing and installing new STBs across the entire subscriber base is a costly and disruptive process. Doing so in the Middle East creates additional headaches given the large geographical spread of subscribers and the lack of formal street addressing systems in many countries.
"Subscribers were already viewing our channels and we are imposing this change on them so we need to make it as easy as possible and with as little disturbance as possible," says Namous. "We are working with several logistics companies to deliver and install the boxes direct to people's homes. We have trained them ourselves on how to do the installation to make sure the process is trouble free, for our customers as well as for them.
The high logistal costs mean that ensuring the opertation runs smoothly first time, can have a dramatic effect on the ROI time of the new box.
"Prior to installation, the subscriber receives a call from us. We check what other pay TV services they use so we can determine what they need in terms of cables or splitters, which prevents any further tech issues," he adds.
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