Blonder Tongue and Nagravision have teamed up to supply a fix for 'PowerKEY' CableCARDs that secure digital cable video services for restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools and other types of commercial venues.
Another pair of suppliers is stepping in to help cable operators keep a portion of their digital video services afloat amid an internal clock issue that could render millions of set-tops and other devices that use "PowerKEY" inoperable in the coming weeks.
Nagravision and Blonder Tongue said they have come up with a fix for video devices that use PowerKEY-based CableCARDS which service a wide range of commercial venues such as hotels, universities, restaurants and schools.
Either a fix of existing PowerKEY technology or a shift to a new platform is necessary because the internal clocks on those older digital QAM video devices are set to roll over in November 2024. The issue stems from memory limitations in the secure microprocessors that keep time in those devices. Without a fix or a technology swap, the devices will go on the blink.
The original development of PowerKEY stems back to Scientific-Atlanta, which was sold to Cisco in 2006. What's left of PowerKEY currently resides with Vantiva (for the customer premises equipment) and Synamedia (video control plane).
When Light Reading began reporting on the coming problem last year, it was estimated that about 20 million set-tops and digital transport adapters (DTAs) using PowerKEY security/conditional access systems were in the field.
Options for operators
Blonder Tongue and Nagravision are engaging with cable operators about updates capable of nullifying the PowerKEY time warp that's about to beset bulk video devices that use PowerKEY CableCARD modules to authorize video services to commercial venues.
Via that approach, operators will have the option to stay in the QAM game or start to pivot to IP video, said Tim Buck, SVP of marketing and sales at Blonder Tongue.
One necessary change is the addition of a Nagravision key server at the headend that enables Blonder Tongue's NXG Video Gateway System at the customer location to access the keys and decrypt the video. A cable modem is used as an IP-based backchannel to handle the necessary entitlements. The implementation itself uses DVB-CSA2 SimulCrypt descrambling which allows for the use of multiple key management systems.
When working in unison, elements essentially provide an overlay that can resolve the PowerKEY issue for operators, Josh Blanton, Blonder Tongue's CTO, said.
Tom Wirth, SVP of marketing and market development at Nagravision, referred to it as a secured, cardless conditional access system that enables cable operators to migrate away from PowerKEY.
Blonder Tongue and Nagravision have completed a deployment with an unidentified, top customer that their PowerKEY solution was originally developed for. They are now looking to deploy the fix more broadly, particularly among tier 2 and tier 3 cable operators and telcos that use PowerKEY for commercial video customers, Buck said.
Time is running out
But there's not much time. Though the exact clock rollover date is November 24, 2024, it's expected that PowerKEY systems will start to run into trouble well before then. Notably, Altice USA has been warning customers that their PowerKEY CableCARDs will become inoperable in October and is urging them to use the operator's Android TV-powered streamer or run its pay-TV app on Apple TV boxes and iOS and Android mobile devices.
Adara Technologies has developed a way to spoof the clock on set-tops that use PowerKEY CableCARD modules as well as boxes that use embedded PowerKEY security, such as digital terminal adapters (DTAs). Vantiva and Synamedia have also launched fixes for a subset of devices that rely on PowerKEY.
Adara CEO Joseph Nucara confirmed that his company's approach works across both residential and commercial deployments of PowerKEY, noting that the company has already converted "dozens" of sites among operators that are tapping into a broader support platform that includes the PowerKEY fix. Each site has an average of tens of thousands of commercial and residential properties being served by PowerKEY, and one still unnamed tier 1 operator has hundreds of thousands of sites, he said.
Operators are taking multiple angles to the PowerKEY problem. While some are going with fixes that keep legacy PowerKEY set-tops alive, others like Altice USA are swapping in new streaming devices. Comcast and Charter Communications told Light Reading last year that they've developed plans to rescue a portion of their legacy PowerKEY devices or switch in new video devices that don't use PowerKEY.
Cable operators are also grappling with a similar situation for older set-tops that use Digicipher, a conditional access system that originated from General Instrument and later Motorola and Arris. Those devices are at risk of becoming inoperable in the coming months due to a "hard code date" of January 1, 2025. CommScope, which now manages those Digicipher assets after acquiring Arris in 2019, has developed a patch for that headend component – known as the digital access controller, or DAC – to resolve the issue.
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