Layers of security protection for IPTV may have a place in doing more than just deterring content thieves. Measures like deep packet inspection (DPI) and digital rights management (DRM) — once somewhat controversial — are now key elements in maintaining relevancy and taking IPTV across all three screens, according to industry executives today.

IPTV service providers do not lack for security options. Tactics like digital watermarking, DRM, CRM, fingerprinting and conditional access (CA) are just a few of the security means at the transport, service and content layers of the business. Thus far, however, IPTV providers have largely been disinterested in such measures. Rollouts have been limited and telcos are still searching for scale before they’ll turn their attention to content piracy breaches. This is increasingly starting to change as operators are creeping closer to achieving significant scale.

At a panel moderated by Steven Hawley, senior IPTV analyst at MRG, he pointed out that content providers’ attitudes toward DRM have changed significantly over the past few years. Content companies used to have a tight grasp on their material, but now they have really opened up due in part to consumers’ desire to enjoy the content they want on any device, at any time.

Take, for example, China Mobile, one of the world’s largest operators. Greg Zhang, senior advisor for China Mobile, agreed that the three-screen strategy is growing in importance to customers. Because Zhang’s customers are the end subscribers, he adopts their view over the content providers when it comes to DRM and how they might want to use the content. He said that DRM could actually help them use the content in better ways. To ensure this, China Mobile is working with content providers to get them to agree to nonrestrictive policies and rules.

“When the subscriber content can be shared, he can play it on multiple handsets, on other networks and when he is roaming,” Zhang said. “Increasingly, it is becoming a crossplatform, multimode operation. DRM needs to facilitate it and not restrict it.”

On an earlier panel, Steven Shepard, co-founder of Shepard Communications Group, used scare tactics to illustrate the virtues of another security measure, DPI. He said that there are a number of major companies in the industry today in a battle for their lives. “They are beginning to lose elements of relevance in the marketplace,” he said, adding that when that happens, these companies fall off the radar screen. “That is the most dangerous place of all — if you are not on the radar screen, you are not even considered a player.”

Telcos’ goal is to get as close to the customer as possible — presumably the set-top box (STB) at this point. In today’s marketplace, controlling the last yard has become more important than controlling only the last mile, Shepard said, adding that the distance between the remote and the TV is the most significant. As such, DPI’s ability to look at each packet in real time and go beyond that to explore how the packet can be used is becoming more important.
Using DPI has been a touchy subject, especially for Web companies, because it opens up the possibility of service providers using it to block content they deem undesirable, such as competing services or peer-to-peer traffic. Outside of the ability to get closer to the consumer, DPI could also give IPTV providers the ability to determine pirated content and prevent attacks on the service before they happen.
“The good news is that with the design of current routers and routing stacks DPI can be done in real time,” Shepard said. “The complex part is that it’s a TV packet. How do you build that packet? We end up creating the digital equivalent of the city dump,” he said, noting that Google is buying up analytics companies because they help it build the decision stack that tells them what to do with it once they inspect it — an important consideration in controlling the last yard.
“The future of TV is not a single subscriber base of millions, but thousands of niche bases of varying sizes and value, aggregated,” Shepard said. “At issue is not what you can sell to people to play on their computer, but the ability to easily move the right content to whatever device they want to see it on.”
This is true not so much because of the attractiveness of the content, but rather for the potential to include advertising that is equally as targeted and granular, Shepard said. As an avid photographer, he wants to see camera and film ads, not irrelevant commercials that don’t address his age or interests. This kind of targeting cannot be achieved unless telcos are able to get as close to the consumer as possible through measures like DPI.

Getting closer to consumers to understand their viewing habits also implies the need to understand their use of multiple devices. Donald Lake, program director for copy protection business development at IBM Research Group, said that based on his research on encryption technology and the IPTV market, he believes home networking will become a big deal over the next few years. IBM supports emerging standards like the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), which recently added mobile handsets to its list of supported devices, as a way for content companies to license technologies and get encryption protection. Lake stressed that telcos have to translate rights information and the content itself over to other formats to be successful going forward.

Taking it one step further, China Mobile’s Zhang said his vision for the near-term future is that when all the pieces of the puzzle come together, it won’t matter what kind of video it is — professional, user generated, sideloaded, PC video, etc. — it will simply become a part of the user’s social fabric and lifestyle. Using DRM is how he intends to make this work.

“We want to enable DRM — make it part of the solution — but at the same time have DRM systems not just work on a network, but be open so that from a device manufacturers point of view, DRM implementation and interface is not a barrier,” he said, adding that it should be something they can easily implement as part of the larger system.

These multiderived systems are a goal, but by no means a reality yet. When implemented, it will have to be positioned, packaged and marketed correctly, Zhang said, as well as properly protected — a sentiment that Yi Zhang, senior product manager at UT Starcom, echoed.

“IPTV is not just a basic service, but more like a user-generated service, a WAP service,” Zhang said. “How can you integrate it all together? The IPTV platform provides the power of the service, and DRM can facilitate the multiservice environment.”