The GI CFT-2200 Power Box

by Active Matrix

Recently my cable company upgraded its system and installed new "power boxes" in subscribers' homes.  Also, they replaced all of the underground cable in my town with fiber optic cable to facilitate two-way communications.

This upgrade to "interactive television" is slowly spreading throughout cable companies in the entire U.S.  Fiber optic cable is being laid, and slowly but surely more and more cable subscribers will be getting new features.

The boxes our local cable company is using are General Instrument (same company who makes the Jerrold boxes) CFT-2200s.  I don't know if these will be the standard, but you can expect other brand-name boxes with the same features.

The CFT-2200 looks a hell of a lot nicer than your typical clunky cable box.  It is a bit larger and sleeker, and has a certain hi-tech look to it.  The box is capable of two-way communications.  Unlike old fashioned addressable boxes, which could only receive signals from the cable company, this box can send signals to the cable company as well as receive them.  This facilitates instant ordering of pay-per-view without making any phone calls, and things like TV polls you can answer.

On the back of the box are your two typical cable in/out coax connectors, plus left/right stereo audio jacks, and a composite video jack.  There is also an IR Blaster plug and an IPPV connection (the latter works with the STARFONE option, see below).

Finally, there is a metal plate where optional circuitry may be added.  The manual mentions STARFONE and STARVUE as two options to connect there.

After looking up some info at GI's web site, I found out that the STARFONE option allows you to hook your box up to your phone line to make a standard addressable box act like a two-way one.  Why this option would be available on a standard two-way box I don't know.  I couldn't find anything out about STARVUE.  I asked my trusty cable company about these options.  After being put on hold for half an hour I was connected to a rep who had no clue what I was talking about.

System Features

The CFT-2200 has a lot of nice on-screen features.

When you flip channels, the name of the channel you're on is displayed at the top of the screen.  At the bottom is a box that tells you what show is on, when it started, and when it will end.  The remote control has a four direction arrow pad, pushing the right arrow shows you what show is on next.

A press of the Info button will bring up a window that will describe the program in depth.  If it's a movie, the rating and the actors in it are also included with the description.

The box has a program guide, which basically will show you in a table format what is on at any time on any channel.  You can even go ahead up to seven days.  Looking through the guide is done with the arrow buttons, a Page Up/Down button, and a Day Up/Down button.

Because of memory limits, in depth program descriptions are only available for current and subsequent programs, if you go ahead too far you'll get no more than the show's name and a "Sorry no data available" when you press Info.

As far as pay-per-view goes, all you do is flip to the channel showing the movie you want.  You have from 10 minutes before to 10 minutes after the movie starts to order.  The screen turns black, and the letter "E" for event flashes on the box's display panel.

If you press the Select button on the remote a confirmation will appear, another press of Select and decryption immediately starts.  That's why the time frame is limited to 10 minutes before or after.  Earlier than that and you'd catch the credits of the previous movie.  A four-digit password may be set to prevent unauthorized ordering.  By default it's the last digits of your phone number.

Bugs and Tech Info

Of course with all new technology comes bugs.

For instance, a week after I got the power box, the cable company uploaded an updated software revision (erasable ROM in the boxes incidentally) to every power box at around 4 am.  It didn't work for everyone though, and 500 boxes were completely screwed up, mine included.  You couldn't reset them, change the channels, nothing.  They had to actually order 500 new boxes from GI, and replace the messed up ones in each home.  The messed up boxes were taken back to the factory to be reprogrammed according to the cable guy who came to replace my boxes.

Another annoying thing is that the boxes have to be off to be updated with the latest program schedules.  If you leave your box on overnight, you have to unplug it for a few seconds, then plug it back in.  Within ten minutes it updates itself.

One final thing is that you must have a strong signal for the boxes to work properly.  If you have a splitter in your basement to run cable lines to multiple TVs, which I do, you may run into some problems.  I noticed that on the higher channels (80 and up), which are all pay-per-view, I was unable to order a movie with the Select button because the signal was so bad (the higher you go, the poorer reception quality is).

These boxes ain't cheap, the replacement fee for lost ones is around $300 so I can assume that's what they would list for.  The internal architecture according to data on the GI web site is dual-processor.  The secure processor takes care of message processing and on-screen displays, an 860 MHz tuner, and is described as a "smart card" renewable security system.

The Feature Expansion Module has a Motorola 68000 chip.  This is what takes care of the downloading and updating of program schedules in the guide, with a re-writable ROM.  This also handles the pay-per-view ordering.

Other features listed include an optional RS-232 interface for use with a printer, fax, or other serial device.  The boxes can be remotely turned into a "lump of clay" by the cable company.  Your screen will flash black and a message will say "Your terminal has been deactivated.  Please call your cable company."

The first time your box is installed, this message comes up and the cable guy has to call his central office and read off a long set of characters/numbers, which I assume is the ID of the particular box.  Just wish I had a tape recorder handy then.

No More Secrets

The ability of the box to send and receive signals means more than ordering pay-per-view without calling some automated phone number.

It means that your cable company has the ability to know exactly what you are watching all the time.  It would be unwise to use a descrambler with this box. I'm sure they'd get suspicious if you were always watching the pay-per-view channel yet never ordering any movies.  There is no doubt they have the ability to do so, but do they?  I can't say yes or no but I wouldn't be surprised.  Just think how much you can learn about a person from what they watch on TV.  Their lifestyle, hobbies, marital status, age.  I shudder at the thought of the records they would have the ability to keep.

While the new power boxes are very powerful and convenient, there is a definite sacrifice in privacy.  Is it worth it?  Hard to say, since I'm unsure exactly how much they monitor.  With the fiber optic cable Internet cable service will be coming shortly.  This means high speeds of several megabits per second, making ISDN look like a 110 baud modem.  I'd be interested in knowing from anyone on the "inside" what type of monitoring techniques, if any, cable companies employ with two-way boxes.

Send a letter to 2600 and let us all know what's going on.  Expect another article on the Internet cable modem when and if I can get my hands on one.

The GI web site www.gi.com has the tech details, some mentioned here, on the CFT-2200.  Check it out.