Case Study:
Cox Prime Integrator
NDS as Prime Integrator for Cox Trio
With more than five million subscribers across the US, Cox Communications is the third largest MSO in North America. It is one of 6 major MSOs to have signed the FCC’s tru2way Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing to support tru2way. Tru2way is an open standard that provides a national distribution footprint for cable operators to deliver interactive services.
Prime Integration for Cox Trio
Cox required a prime integrator for the Trio UI, a centralized metadata delivery center and the corresponding service layer on the tru2way STB which manages the distribution of data and the functionality of the new Cox Trio UI. Cox Trio is a 16:9, high definition interface that gives customers a single window to the wealth of content that Cox provides as part of the advanced whole home DVR solution.
The Project
NDS was asked to become the Prime Integrator for Cox Trio, a very high profile project, delivering a next generation User Interface that would simplify entertainment selection, content discovery and content consumption.
Cox Trio required a centralized metadata management system, initially being developed by TV Works, a joint venture between Cox and Comcast. Meeting Cox’s aggressive timescales for deployment, coupled with the complex nature of the new tru2way infrastructure placed a great burden on the shared resource of the TV Works joint venture. As a result of this, and of Cox’s realization that they needed additional support in the form of an experienced prime integrator to take control of the Trio project, Cox asked NDS to take on the role of overall prime integrator.
The NDS task included taking over the management and development of the TV Works system components and STB service layer. NDS also had to implement a multi-room DVR solution as part of the service, utilizing the MoCA home networking standard.
The NDS Professional Services contribution
NDS had already been chosen by Cox to implement the Cox Trio guide on top of the service layer, as well as integrate it with the centralized metadata management system. Thanks to the successful work on the Cox Trio UI, Cox was confident that NDS could succeed as prime integrator. It also wanted NDS to take over the TV Works role in the development and integration of the critical headend metadata system and corresponding STB service layer.
NDS assigned a dedicated team of veteran cable engineers to manage the entire project. They conducted an initial detailed discovery program which determined the development and deployment plan for all vendors involved to ensure a successful, integrated delivery which would meet Cox’s demanding schedule.
NDS took over development of the TV Works headend and STB service layer components—rapidly turning them around. Then NDS succeeded in aligning the delivery of many products from other vendors, managing the development of critical components of the end-to-end solution and ensuring compliance to new, evolving standards in the form of tru2way and MoCA, in a coherently integrated system.
NDS is proud of our partnership with Cox, which succeeded in the deployment of Cox Trio—the advanced platform solution on their new tru2way plant. We continue to work with Cox as prime integrator to enable the evolution of their advanced platform to meet their customers’ needs.