Bo Ferm, director of product marketing at Verimatrix, looks at enabling new business models for higher value pay-TV services.

The convergence of broadcasting, broadband and mobile communications is creating new opportunities and challenges throughout the media delivery value chain. Triple/quad-play operators offer a new commercial approach with a single service brand. In parallel, consumers expect similar on-demand services on the TV as on PCs and other ‘connected devices’. Commercial and technical improvements have the potential to significantly increase average revenue per user (ARPU), while reducing churn. The package as a whole becomes ‘stickier’. Multi-network technical requirements often focus on combining one-way linear broadcast channels (via satellite or terrestrial networks) with two-way services like video-on-demand (VOD). So-called hybrid networks are emerging to meet these needs, enabling operators to serve multiple tiers of customers and deliver material ranging from blockbusters to niche content. While the multi-network approach appears promising, it also raises unique issues regarding content security and digital rights enforcement. These challenges may involve various incompatible content security solutions including legacy conditional access (CA) systems. Dealing with more than one security platform creates financial and operational challenges. A holistic approach to multi-network content monetisation can help overcome these challenges through a multi-layered revenue security architecture that supports all types of digital assets, delivery networks and subscriber devices – from a single content authority.

Common network transition scenarios
Analogue to digital broadcasting transition: For terrestrial free-to-air TV, the analogue to digital switchover is proceeding around the world. Meanwhile, pay-TV operators realise that the future demands more than a simple substitution of digital TV for their existing analogue services. New offers must feature interactive services and multi-screen delivery. Therefore, many operators plan or already implement multi-network support, transitioning from traditional broadcasting to higher-value services for users willing to pay for a richer experience. Cable operators include terrestrial broadcast content in the base package, and have additional spectrum for premium pay-TV offerings. As cable plant spectrum is transitioned from analogue to digital, the opportunity for additional revenue grows significantly. Moreover, a two-way cable system enables IP-based interactive services. Adding broadcast services to IPTV: While an IPTV managed network is inherently better suited for interactive services, compared to one-way broadcast networks, it is not ideal for linear broadcast services unless using a fibre-to-the-home infrastructure. In xDSL networks, bandwidth is a constraint, particularly for multi-channel HD. These factors encourage IPTV operators to adopt hybrid network approaches. The combination of terrestrial or satellite-delivered linear programming with IP for on-demand, using a hybrid receiver, is gaining popularity. Adding IPTV to broadcast services: Satellites are excellent for broadcasting multi-channel content across countries and even continents. However, they have insufficient capacity to give each user a return path for interactive services while also being impractical for on-demand delivery to thousands of users simultaneously. Without the structural advantage of cable operators – where video and interactive services come over the same pipe – satellite operators need to operate parallel broadband networks or partner with ISPs. Meanwhile, cable operators increasingly add IP video via DOCSIS infrastructure or through ‘direct-to-edge’ approaches.

Opportunities to monetise content
While deciding upon the most suitable transition strategy, operators must also consider business model enhancements. To improve competitiveness, operators should focus on these fundamental objectives: Retaining existing subscribers (reducing churn) while gaining new subscribers; Increasing ARPU through premium content and transactional offers; Generating opportunities for targeted advertising; and Reducing delivery, programming and/or support costs. IP-based technologies help operators meet all of these objectives. Throughout the head-end and backbone network, and inside the networked home, IP is the common building block.

Delivery to multiple devices
By delivering programming to customers wherever they are, rather than just at home, stickiness improves and the potential for advertising increases. Multiple devices also create opportunities for revenue sharing among broadcasters, IPTV and mobile operators. Mobile devices are also uniquely placed within quad play services to control the TV service at home.

Real-time interactivity
Many pay-TV operators support real-time personalisation and interactivity, eg VOD, catch up TV and DVR. Network DVR is emerging as an attractive option for both operators (reduced set-top box costs) and consumers (no worries about what to record). Operators can also offer interactivity to increase stickiness, such as: Providing additional viewing options, eg different viewing points along a race track; Facilitating audience participation in competitions and voting; and Enabling targeted and interactive advertising based on knowledge of users’ habits while allowing consumers to order products directly.

Support for home networking
A major advantage of video delivery over IP is the ability to incorporate a home network within the service. There are still challenges for service management beyond the set-top box, but IP offers a universal service layer on which various security implementations can be supported. One option is to install a ‘home hub’ as part of the operator service and retain some control over the network behind it.

Self-provisioning and account management
Customers appreciate the convenience of easily configuring and managing aspects of their service. Features like managing DVR recording online or from a mobile device, on-screen Caller ID and chat room messaging, increase stickiness while reducing both call centre costs and expensive ‘truck rolls’.

Over-the-Top (OTT) content
OTT and ‘long tail’ content can be offered within a walled garden environment, insulated from virus threats. Emerging techniques such as adaptive rate streaming enable the best possible viewing experience for any given bandwidth.

Privacy and parental control
AP-based infrastructures can facilitate Internet-like chat rooms and user generated content. If such services are made available within the walled garden, operators are better positioned to enforce privacy rules, accommodate content ratings and parental controls.

Business model security foundations
The demands of ‘content anywhere, anytime’ consumers, combined with the wide range of network technologies, bring new challenges for digital asset and usage rights management. Defending a viable business model against piracy becomes imperative. Therefore, digital asset security architectures in the converged digital age need to be multi-dimensional, addressing the three key aspects of this new pay-TV distribution challenge – secure delivery over multiple networks, support for diverse consumer devices, and a multi-layered ability to detect and address threats. This shifts the central value proposition for the pay-TV enterprise beyond that of content protection alone, towards the broader perspective of revenue security. A multi-layered revenue security approach allows operators to optimise the content monetisation for different business objectives, delivery networks and consumer devices, within a single platform.

Advantages of software-based security
Content security is a virtual arms race against piracy. Renewability of security subsystems is an obvious advantage in a landscape of fast changing opportunities and threats, making software-based security the key for operators to stay a step ahead. Software-based revenue security is the best foundation for addressing all types of devices in a multi-network pay-TV world.

Digital watermarking
User-specific forensic watermarking enables detection and tracing of misappropriated content. Watermarks embedded in the video can identify the content, date, time and last authorised recipient. This security layer hence extends content protection beyond the digital network.

Theft of service prevention
Operators could experience loss of revenue through service theft. Sophisticated attacks may involve ‘cloned’ STBs mimicking legal equipment by duplication of theoretically unique identifiers. By adding a clone detection security layer, theft of service can be reduced or eliminated. Data generated from client devices can be used to detect operational differences between otherwise identical devices, such as discrepancies in channel viewing patterns or timing of key requests.

Making the multi-network transition
Operators must also consider a revenue security system transition plan for multi-network services. For example, traditional one-way broadcasters have historically favoured hardware-based CA systems. As they add IP-channels they need to upgrade to hybrid STBs. They are then faced with the choice to either manage two separate security systems, which would be both expensive and operationally cumbersome, or select a unified revenue security approach that protects both broadcast and IP-delivered programming. The DVB Simulcrypt standard, which enables two or more security systems to work side by side, facilitates the transition from legacy to hybrid receivers without disrupting operations. Operators can phase in new receivers rapidly to enhance. Implementing this ‘cap-and-grow’ strategy, the operator can make the transition gradually while both securing and growing subscriber revenue. With this strategy in place, new opportunities to address mobile devices and OTT delivery can be readily supported.

Unified revenue security approach across networks
Most consumers are simply looking for device and network transparency relating to the material they purchase. A unified revenue security approach eliminates the potential impact of disparate content usage policies, allowing consumers to simply enjoy what they purchased. Operators benefit from a unified revenue security architecture, which not only brings significant cost and operational savings from managing just one platform, but also enables the deployment of a transparent security regime across all the network and device permutations that subscribers demand. A single, software-based content authority plays a vital role in the transition towards hybrid and all-IP networks by supporting multi-layered protection and transparent usage rights, allowing new business models to emerge and flourish.