Existing Standard and Certification Procedures
Cable providers in the United States are required by the FCC to support the CableCARD 2.0 standard. The specification was developed by CableLabs, a research group run by a consortium of cable companies. Devices that use CableCARDs are known as "Hosts" and must be certified as compliant with the specification by CableLabs. The certification process can be lengthy and is performed in batches on a regular cycle every three months.
The first test tool to verify compliance of OpenCable hosts with the CableCARD one-way single stream specifications, HPNX, was released by SCM and Digital Keystone in 2003. Subsequently the HPNX Pro version, supporting two-way and M-card specifications, was released by Digital Keystone in 2006. The "M-UDCP Device Acceptance Test Plan" published by CableLabs defines how to use the HPNX Pro test tool to validate the OpenCable host devices.
The first test tool to verify compliance of the CableCARD devices with the OpenCable specifications, Host Emulator Tool, and produced by Margi Systems, was first utilized by CableLabs to validate the Scientific Atlanta (Cisco) and Motorola POD devices in 2003 (POD later renamed to CableCard).
Cable companies in the United States are required to provide CableCARDs conforming to this specification, and must correct incompatibilities between their networks and certified CableCARD devices.
The current CableCARD standard was born out of an adversarial process between two main groups: cable companies represented by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and consumer electronics companies represented by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). The portion of the CableCARD specs that could be agreed on describe how one-way services work, and so only the portion known as UDCP (Unidirectional Digital Cable Product) was required by the FCC. As it was the only thing required, most of the early devices were only one-way capable; however all the actual CableCARDs produced were always two-way capable. Many enhancements to the CableCARD standard including the optional Multi-Stream support became known as CableCARD 2.0.
Although an optical cable service, Verizon FiOS is classified as a cable service and must by FCC rules also support the CableCARD standard. No cable providers in Canada currently support CableCARD. Video providers in Europe must conform to the DVB standard which is a more comprehensive open standard governed by independent standards bodies.
CableCARD also supports non-television functions. It can also act as a cable modem controller, again with the host providing modulation and demodulation functions, and the card providing decoding and IP routing functionality; however this feature is rarely used, and depends on the cable provider.
Read more about this topic: CableCARD
Famous quotes containing the words existing, standard and/or procedures:
“... the yearly expenses of the existing religious system ... exceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God’s will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Young children learn in a different manner from that of older children and adults, yet we can teach them many things if we adapt our materials and mode of instruction to their level of ability. But we miseducate young children when we assume that their learning abilities are comparable to those of older children and that they can be taught with materials and with the same instructional procedures appropriate to school-age children.”
—David Elkind (20th century)