An interesting fact about triple play is that it’s a return of carrier service and control past the demarcation point to include CPE devices; it’s been a very significant and profitable change. Another interesting fact is that offering all sorts of other services past the demarc is the pipe dream of carriers and the possibility of remaining a dumb pipe their nightmare. We will explore in this series of articles the feasibility of expanding Triple Play (News - Alert) past set-top boxes and access modems to an arbitrary number of CPE devices or what I like to call “N-Play”. We examine how the evolution of carriers into full-fledged HSPs (Home Service Providers) in itself constitutes an almost endless offering of “all sorts of other services.”

 

Considering set-top boxes, one thing to note is that with recent standardization efforts by bodies such as Broadband Forums TR-69 and CableLabs (News - Alert) DOCIS 2.0 extensions, set-top boxes have become highly controllable and uniform. This greatly expands the spectrum of devices and manufacturers that fit into each carrier’s infrastructure and also brings down the cost of administration and support considerably. Beyond this outcome, the high level of control has turned these boxes into extensible service platforms. As an example of this in action, many service providers are offering the ability for consumers to remotely control and program their set-top/DVR hybrids via cell phones. Even more impressive, the set-top box as a service platform allows you to perform an action based on the state of another CPE device or service, as an example, displaying caller-ID on the television when a call comes in on the phone. I’m mentioning this because in order to expand media delivery to an arbitrary number of devices, they will have to posses this level of control and “fitness” for the carrier’s infrastructure and be able to interact with other devices and services. By not only delivering media to various DVRs, TVs and stereo systems but also allowing them to perform an action based on the state of another CPE device or service, you create a system where the sum is really greater than the parts, and that’s the essence and value of N-Play.

 

Fortunately there is a quiet revolution happening in the consumer electronics industry which is making this possible, almost every media appliance and device in the home is becoming IP communications enabled, remote controllable, and very importantly, in a standardized manner. This standardization is steered by the Digital Living Network Alliance or DLNA for short. DLNA is built on top of UPnP and standardizes the media formats for devices as well, so for example, all TVs must be able to receive video in MPEG2 format from DLNA certified media servers. It also standardizes what elements of control a device must make available as remote UPnP web services, so again for example, a TV must support volume, muting, and brightness control among many other features as a Web service. These Web services can be used to create a remote control user interface, which can be displayed by any device with an embedded web browser such as a cell phone or even more impressively they can be used to create distributed applications which orchestrate the various devices in the house to work together. As I mentioned, this leads to a sum greater than the parts, much like Web mashups do. By giving a typical use case scenario of N-Play in action we will understand the value clearly:

 

The star of our use case is Tara, a lawyer who works downtown but lives in the suburbs. Tara has finished work and is waiting for her train to come. She finds out the subway has been delayed, there is no way she will make it home in time to see her favorite TV show. She’s not upset, because thanks to her carrier’s support of DLNA devices all she does is pull out her cell phone, open the media control application and program her DVR remotely to record the show. She then commands the media server located in her home to stream her music play-list directly to her cell phone. She gets off the stop where she’s parked her car, and upon entering her car, at a press of a button, the music is streamed from her cell phone to her DLNA certified car stereo. While driving home her friend Sara calls and invites her over. They have dinner together and end up watching the movie on Sara’s TV, streaming from the DVR at Tara’s house.

 

DLNA, by itself, has shortcomings that prevent it from being a basis for services over the public Internet but, combined with the granular infrastructure and managed media network of last mile FMC providers, the home can be made part of the cloud.

 

In the next article we will delve into the limitations of DLNA by itself and the needed supporting technologies which FMC carriers can leverage to integrate their cellular and land-line networks for ubiquitous home media management. In the third article we will talk about another class of devices that fit the N-Play service model, those of home automation. In the fourth and last of this series, we will dive into the future and speculate on the market for HSPs in the next decade. Stay tuned.