Pay TV numbers for cable operators have been suffering amid the backdrop of the growing cord-cutting trend and an array of new OTT-delivered video options.

But a small cable operator in Canada says it’s been able to buck that trend in large part to a decision to migrate to a switched IP video platform from Adara Technologies that enabled it to deploy more capable boxes and introduce a more intuitive user interface while also freeing up bandwidth for speedier broadband services.  

Coopérative de Câblodistribution de L'Arrière Pays (CCAP) of Quebec City says it has seen its base of digital video subscribers rise 22% over the past five years. CCAP isn’t large (it has about 15,000 video subs), but says Adara’s Switched IP Video (SIPV) platform has played a big part in that rise.

CCAP, which has an interconnection agreement with fellow Canadian cable operator Videotron, started to work with Adara in part because it offered the operator a way to gain more control of its pay TV product and its future roadmap, according to Stéphane Arseneau, CCAP’s general manager.

“We decided to be more of a master of our destiny,” he recalled. “It was clear that we needed to take a different path at that time.”

As an IP video transition play, Adara’s approach offers a step beyond switched digital video (SDV), a bandwidth-saving technique that some cable operators have used to switch, rather than broadcast, lesser-viewed channels. In the SDV world, a multicast stream of a given channel is created when it’s selected for viewing, allowing homes in a certain service group to also join that stream. Adara’s SIPV platform, by comparison, puts the full video service into a switched environment.

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Arseneau said that platform has enabled CCAP to upgrade its video offering without a more time-intensive and expensive bandwidth upgrade.

“It offered a way to minimally disrupt the customer services while deploying a solution where we could add more capacity to our video offering,” he said.

It also opened the door for CCAP to deploy new devices, including 4K-capable boxes from Cisco/Technicolor (Technicolor acquired Cisco’s set-top business in 2015) and outfit them with an advanced user interface. In CCAP’s instance, Adara has made several customizations and enhancements to an interface that originated with Cisco. CCAP started to deploy the new UI in Q4 2017.

CCAP is preparing to use its video platform to launch a 4K offering as it gets more boxes capable of supporting that format deployed into the field, and has already been tapping into it to introduce several new features.

An example is a mosaic capability that lets CCAP place the linear feeds of multiple channels onto the guide as smaller thumbnails at the same time. Viewers can select a thumbnail feed in the mosaic to obtain the audio feed of a channel or convert one of those mosaic feeds to full screen mode.

CCAP has introduced mosaic offerings for genres such as news, sports and kids programming, and has also done something similar using 12 video feeds from cameras set up by the Transport Ministry in Quebec. The Transport Ministry offers those feeds on the web, but CCAP has built a way to offer those feeds (two channels with six feeds each) on the set-top box.

Arseneau said these features help to differentiate CCAP’s video product. “And it shows that small cable operators are able to do some things that are different but liked by the customers,” he said.

Looking ahead to the PyeongChang Winter Games, CCAP is adding some apps and widgets that will help customers navigate the wide range of events that will be covered on TV, set reminders and recordings of specific Olympic events, and provide access to a regularly updating medal count board.

CCAP and Adara provided shed more detail on their deployment ahead of the National Cable Television Cooperative's Winter Educational Conference, set to run February 12-13 in San Antonio.

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Adara claims that its SIPV platform can free up to 80% or more of an operator’s video bandwidth for other services, such as broadband.

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So far, Adara has had the most success with independent 2/3 small- and mid-tier service providers. Other announced customers include Cass Cable of Central Illinois; Cable Cable of Ontario, Canada; Access Communications; Cablevision in Warwick, N.Y.; Scottsboro Electric Power Board (SEPB) in Arizona; Darien Telephone in Georgia; and Fayetteville Public Utility in Tennessee.

Switched digital video is not a new technology, but Adara Technologies, a supplier that’s been focused on independent cable operators, has added a new wrinkle that could help those providers migrate to IP video without breaking the bank.

MSOs such as Cablevision Systems (now part of Altice), Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications have used SDV for years to conserve bandwidth by putting lesser-viewed networks on “switched” tiers. The idea is to send a multicast stream of a specific channel or network only when a viewer in a given service group selects it for viewing. Once that stream is nailed up, others in the service group can tune into that stream. The multicast stream is then torn down when no one is watching that channel.

But Adara has taken SDV to the next level, enabling cable operators to deliver their full video service — not just the long-tail stuff — in a switched environment. The company recently carved out that switched-IP solution as a standalone product.

Adara has plenty of company in that arena, though. Evolution Digital, for example, is pitching National Television Cooperative members and other independent operators on IP video transition strategies that center on its new eVUE-TV platform.

Adara has expanded beyond its early reliance on a Cisco-centric offering to support multiple vendor platforms and set-tops, including products from equipment makers such as Arris and TiVo.

“We changed the purpose of switched-IP video,” Joseph Nucara, Adara’s CEO and cofounder, said. “It’s not just for long-tail [content] anymore.”

Under Adara’s approach, an operator can set aside channels that are typically used for broadcast TV to the new switched-IP video QAMs. Legacy set-tops, meanwhile, are preserved by embedding software from Adara that allows those devices to support the new IP-based multicast video streams.

Because new boxes aren’t required, “It’s extremely non-intrusive to the subscribers,” Nucara said.

He estimates that deployment requires freeing up eight to 24 6MHz-wide channels, depending on how much headroom the MSO needs to accommodate capacity demands.

“It’s like bandwidth on demand,” Nucara said.

Adara’s system monitors usage in real-time, and is designed to flag the operator when available bandwidth usage for the IP switched offering nears the 80% mark on a consistent basis. That, Nucara said, tells the operator when it needs to add capacity to those service groups or subdivide them.

Because that spectrum is now used to deliver IP-style “switched” technology, operators can support “unlimited content” in a smaller swatch of bandwidth, and can use reclaimed bandwidth for other needs, such as DOC SIS 3.1, Nucara said.

He said the same process could also support 4K video services, as MSOs look to take advantage of the new pixel- packed format.

Adara hasn’t broken down the exact costs of its system, but Nucara said a typical deployment requires about half a rack of equipment in the MSO’s headend, plus the new SDV components.

While Adara doesn’t preclude Tier 1s from using the platform, it has been taking hold mostly with small- and mid-tier operators, including Cass Cable of Central Illinois; CCAP in Quebec City and Cable Cable of Ontario, Canada; Cablevision in Warwick, N.Y.; Darien Telephone in Georgia; and Fayetteville Public Utility in Tennessee.

Nucara estimates that more than 75 operators are using Adara’s technology. He also thinks that the switched IP video component will draw the attention of larger, Tier 2 MSOs.