Verimatrix brought to our attention this week a major Mexican Cable installation at Cablem’s which has been set up by implementer HFCNET & IP-NET, a Florida based systems integrator using a hybrid implementation of IP over cable using a combination of the DVB-C IP and DOCSIS delivery for broadband. It’s a major win for Verimatrix which supplied the conditional access using a version of its VCAS system adapted for DVB protocols (and presumably using the DVB encryption standard). Cablem’s is thought to be the second largest cable operator in Mexico, (we think Empresas Cablevision is the largest) with around
736,000 cable television subscribers, 200,000 internet customers and has just started offering VoiP services.
The digital cable service uses proprietary middleware and will support broadcast digital television in SD and HD, have an on-demand library expected to scale to many thousands of titles and time shift TV, music channels, Web radio, delivery of content to a PC, parental controls, an EPG, digital ad insertion as well as social networking applications.
It’s one of the first examples we have seen in South America of a cable operation going this route, though it has been seen quite a few times in the Far East.
‘Under the leadership of Cablem’s CEO Carlos Alvarez, the operator opted for a hybrid network because it provides optimum flexibility to offer more tiered service packages with different price points,’ said Max Morales, president of HFCNET & IP-NET. The system supplied uses a master head-end and can send content over any combination of HFC, xDSL, FTTH, DTH and wireless networks.