New Product Development for a major Cable Network Solution Company
The Calsoft Labs has provided Cable Network solutions for the CATV Industry. The Cable Network Access System (CAS) is a Hardware and Software solution for a major cable TV provider in US for controlling and monitoring the access to the cable Distribution Box.
The Cable network service providers are faced with the problem of illegal access to their cable network distribution boxes. This leads to a loss of revenue as well as customer dissatisfaction on disruption of services.
The solution to this problem pivots round authorizing access to cable distribution boxes with sufficient reliability, security and accountability. We started from defining the solution using cost effective and robust technology, and then developed a prototype to establish the proof of concept. The prototype is field tested in the clients network successfully.
We worked along with the client to make the system adapt to their environment and helped them in material procurement, fabrication and then deployment. So it has become a complete success story from beginning to end.
Calsoft Labs Solution
Cable Network Access System (CAS) - Components
The CAS solution is meant for restricting unauthorized access to the cable network distribution boxes. Host controller, Lock box controller and the web based authentication software (CAMS), which sits in the authentication server, constitute CAS.
The Lock box controller, which is part of the distribution box (CDB), controls the access to the CDB with the help of an electric lock. The Lock box controller reads the RF proximity card given to the service personnel and gets it authenticated from the central CAS server with the help of host controller. Host controller is part of the Cable TV distribution center hardware. The CAMS also does the monitoring and logging of these activities.
Schematic of Cable Network Access System (CAS)
Host controller and the lock box controller use the same cable, which connects Distribution center and the distribution boxes, as the communication channel. The host controller and the authentication server use Internet as the communication link. All the communications between lock box controller and host controller and between host controller and CAS server will be encrypted to enhance the security. Also a proprietary protocol is being developed for these two way communication processes.
CAS - Operation
The field staff from the cable service provider will be given RF proximity cards, which they can show or swipe in front of the CDB to get access to it. The lock box controller inside the CDB reads the card and sends the data to the host controller. The host controller will in turn relay the data to the CAS server. The server does the authentication and accordingly sends Accept/Reject signal to the host controller. Host controller will relay the message to the lock box controller and accordingly the electric lock will be operated to open the CDB or to keep it closed.
The RF proximity cards supplied with the field staff can be activated/deactivated through Cable Access Management Software (CAMS), which sits in the CAS server. It also does monitoring of CDB access and generates reports as well.
Conclusion
The Cable Access System (CAS) has been developed and deployed successfully. Our design can be tuned to any customer specified upstream and downstream frequency and also it will cater to changes in the signal levels based on the client's cable network configuration.
Each unit can with stand operating temperature range of 32-158 degrees F and it is fairly immune to harmonics and system noise. The power consumption for each Lock box unit is around 800 m Watts and it is possible to reduce the power consumption further. We have developed an efficient software protocol by which the data speed can be adjusted and data collusions can be avoided.
Having established communication between the lock box controller and the host controller at the head end, the same setup can be used to provide additional features, for example remote power monitoring.