Three vendors now signed up with OpenCable POD agreement

Three set-top box vendors--Motorola, Scientific Atlanta and Pace Micro Technology--have signed the CableLabs’ POD [Point Of Deployment] Host Interface License Agreement [PHILA] to get licenses to deploy proprietary technology necessary to manufacture OpenCable set-top boxes that eventually can be sold in retail outlets.

PHILA focuses on copy-protection technology of the connecting point between and OpenCable POD and OpenCable set-top. This interface is the link that allows a retail cable box to be portable across a variety of different cable system headends by standardizing the communication between individual addressable POD modules and the connected set-tops.

--Jim Barthold, senior editor