Downloadable Conditional Access System

DCAS is growing in popularity as a less expensive alternative for CableCARD, with major North American operator deployments from Cablevision[1] and Charter.

[2] DCAS deployments can be expected to grow in the coming years, thanks to favorable regulatory view from the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014[3] and FCC appointing a Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee,[4] and wider support for key ladder (K-LAD) functionality from system-on-chip (SoC) vendors and set-top box manufacturers.

DCAS in the early days, was a controversial proposal for a variety of reasons: it did not exist, had no set deadlines for support on all cable systems, no specification even in draft form was public, may not have satisfied FCC requirements that security modules be separable, and required an operating system (OCAP) that a majority of consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers did not wish to implement.

OCAP programs then would be used as the sole method of interacting with DCAS since it will enable cable companies to force the download of new security software.

The scheme could possibly be used more broadly and was being advanced by Rupert Murdoch's company NDS as a DRM method useful also for portable media players and other devices not attached to cable networks.

[6] According to Brian Dietz of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA): ...we expect downloadable security to be supported nationwide by MSOs by July 2008.

It was asserted that if cable companies were finally forced to agree on a standard for two-way communication that CableCARDs will be able to be remotely configured as would be the case with DCAS devices.