ES2365781B1 - OPTICAL NETWORK TERMINAL AND METHOD OF TRANSMISSION / RECEPTION OF DIGITAL TELEVISION CHANNELS IN A PASSIVE OPTICAL NETWORK. - Google Patents

Abstract

Optical network terminal and method of transmission / reception of digital television channels in a passive optical network. # Optical network terminal with at least one optical input / output port and a radio frequency output port with means to extract a signal from radio frequency emitted by an optical line terminator through a passive optical network, filter a subset of digital television channels contained in said signal, and emit an output radio frequency signal with said channels through the radio frequency output port; the optical network terminal comprising at least one digital television receiver (19) configured to extract a channel from a pay-per-view service and reinject it in the form of an analog signal into a free radio frequency channel of the output radio frequency signal.

Description

thus a structure of radio frequency channels.

Optical network terminal and method of transmission / reception of digital television channels in a passive optical network. Field of the Invention

The present invention applies to the field of telecommunications and, more specifically, to communications in passive optical networks. Background of the invention

The deployment of optical communications networks with PON technologies (in English, Passive Optical Network), such as GPON (in English, Gigabit capable PON), EPON (in English, Ethernet PON), BPON (in English, Broadband PON) is beginning to begin ) and its variants.

In general, a PON network is composed of at least one optical line terminator (OLT) 1, an optical distribution network with at least one optical splitter 3 and several optical network terminal modules ( ONTs, from the English Optical Network Terminal) 3.LaOLT1 is responsible for managing the network, carrying out assignments of resources, synchronization, remote configuration and, where appropriate, dissemination of the contents of an operator. For this, it has an optical receiver 5 and transmitter 6, connected to a wavelength multiplexer 4, as well as the control logic 7 necessary to operate them. OLTs capable of broadcasting television content also comprise a video transmitter 8, connected to a second wavelength multiplexer 9.

The complementary structure is in the ONT 2, with an optical transmitter 12 and receiver 13 connected to a wavelength multiplexer 10, and in the case of an ONT capable of receiving said video contents, a video receiver 15 also connected to said wavelength multiplexer 10. It also comprises the control logic 7 necessary to operate said elements and, optionally, a wavelength blocking filter 14, and a wavelength blocking filter for video

16.

Within the PON family of networks, standards have evolved to GPON technology, which has a greater bandwidth than its predecessors, as well as greater efficiency in the use of the channel. In line with what happened with BPON technology, in 2007 an improvement band for GPON-based optical access was defined (ITU-T G.984.5).

In parallel, the transmission of television channels has undergone a remarkable evolution in recent years that has taken it from traditional analog television to new digital formats, such as digital terrestrial television (DTT, or according to the English nomenclature, DVB-T , Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial). The way of choosing audiovisual content in these networks has also been subject to changes, with an increasing weight of the Pay Per Vision services (hereinafter PPV), in which the user selects those contents that he wishes to have in his terminal, paying exclusively for such content.

In general, DTT channels are multiplexed in a transmission stream (TS). These TSs are modulated in QAM (English, Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), and are transported.

The transmission of DTT through the traditional infrastructure of radiofrequency repeaters has associated a series of classic problems such as coverage or the different level of signal received depending on the position of the receiving equipment.

The use of passive optical networks for the diffusion of digital television content allows to solve these problems. For example, CN101018311 presents a method to inject DVB-T content into an EPON network. The limitations of such systems come from part of the bandwidth provided by the network depending on its architecture, and on the other hand, from the broadcast nature of PON networks, in which all ONTs have access to same channel, and therefore receive the same data fl ow (although the information can then be separated by encryption).

Thus, all users of a digital television content dissemination system through PON networks are subject to the reception of the same channels, so that for the implementation of pay-per-view services, an external team capable of of implementing those functions independently to the PON network itself. Additionally, there is a need to optimize the cost and complexity of such equipment, minimizing the components and elements of which they are formed while still fulfilling their functionality. Summary of the Invention

The present invention solves the aforementioned problem by means of an optical network terminal (ONT), connectable to a passive optical network (PON) through an optical input / output port and to a conventional Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) television or receiver by means of a radio frequency output port, capable of fi ltering a set of digital television channels from a signal from said PON network.

For this, in a first aspect of the invention an ONT is presented which comprises means for extracting from the optical signal emitted by an optical line terminator (OLT), a radio frequency signal that carries the broadcast digital television channels. The ONT is configured to perform selective filtering on said radio frequency signal, so that a subset of channels are selected which will be those received by the user of the ONT. Said filtering is tunable, that is, it does not remain static over time but can be modified in order to select different subsets of channels at different times. Finally, the selected subset of channels is converted to a radio frequency signal in which the rest of the channels are no longer found, and said signal is emitted through the radio frequency output port so that it can be received by the DTT receiver (It is already integrated into a television or a separate device).

For channel filtering, the ONT comprises two tunable pass-band filters that act in parallel. The first of the filters is in charge of separating the digital television channels destined for all the users of the network, filtering the set of transmission channels that carry transmission flows on which said channels are multiplexed. The second fi lter is dedicated to pay-per-view services, so the filtering depends on the services contracted at that moment by the ONT user. This second fi ltrate therefore has a lower bandwidth, restricting itself to the radio frequency channels that carry transmission flows over which the pay-per-view channels contracted by the user are multiplexed. The ONT therefore has the necessary control means to manage both filters.

In order to isolate the payment channels contracted by the user from the rest of the information contained in the radio frequency channels selected by the second fi lter, the ONT also preferably has a digital television receiver set to extract, from the radio frequency channel extracted by the second tunable pass-band fi lter, the digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service, and to inject said digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service in the form of an analog signal into a radio frequency channel free of the second radio frequency signal.

By transmitting the television channel of the pay-per-view service in an analogical manner, that is, without re-modulating it according to the digital television standard, the need to include the corresponding modulation device within the ONT, thus simplifying the team design and lowering cost.

One of the preferred options for the management and con fi guration of the filtering processes described is based on the use of manageable entities in the ONT, which the OLT can remotely configure through the control and management interface of the network optical terminal (OMCI, from the English ONT Management Control Interface). These manageable entities contain the necessary parameters to determine the performance of the fi lters (bandwidth, operating frequencies, etc ...).

According to another of the preferred options, the ONT also includes a manageable entity to record the information necessary to charge the payment-per-view services requested by the user. The operator can access this information from the OLT through the OMCI channel.

Also preferably, for the management and con fi guration of the fi ltration processes, the ONT comprises a Near Field Communications Microcontroller (NFC), which allows the fi ltrate to be con fi gured through an external communications equipment. (for example a mobile phone). In this way, the operator can send to the ONT the configuration information that it needs to perform the described filtering, using resources external to the PON network.

Preferably, in all the cases described above, the radio frequency channels on which the filtering is performed are extracted from an improvement band for optical access based on passive optical networks with gigabit capacity, such as the one defined by the International Telecommunications Union in document G.984.5.

In another aspect of the invention, a method is presented for the transmission and reception of digital television channels over a passive optical network, including pay-per-view services that the user may request from an operator. Said method begins with the multiplexing of digital television channels in the corresponding transmission flows, which in turn are modulated in radio frequency channels and sent through the passive optical network. Already at the end of the user (that is, on the ONT), said radio frequency channels are fi ltered, then recovering the digital television channels contained therein. This step of recovering digital television channels comprises extracting, by means of at least one digital television receiver, a digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service of a radio frequency channel previously extracted by a tunable pass-band filter. in accordance with that described for the ONT of the invention.

Then, those channels that correspond to broadcast services to all users, or pay-per-view services requested by the user, are discarded, discarding the rest of the channels. The channels that are not discarded are used to reconstruct a radio frequency signal by injecting said digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service previously extracted by the digital television receiver, in the form of an analog signal in a free radio frequency channel of said Radio frequency signal that is rebuilt.

Preferably, the sending of radio frequency channels is performed on the improvement band for optical access based on passive optical networks with gigabit capacity.

Also preferably, the described method has a management system based on the use of networks external to the PON network itself. To this end, an ONT asks the OLT to transmit content corresponding to a pay-per-view digital television service. The operator of said service uses a text message to send the corresponding configuration information to a mobile device associated with the ONT. Finally, the mobile device shares this information with the ONT through a near-field communication connection, whereby said ONT can correctly perform the corresponding filtering and provide the user with the pay-per-view digital television channel that he had hired.

These and other advantages will be apparent in view of the detailed description of the invention. Brief description of the fi gures

In order to help a better understanding of the features of the invention according to a preferred example of practical realization thereof and to complement this description, the following figure is attached as an integral part thereof, the character of which is illustrative and not limiting:

Figure 1 shows a scheme of a conventional passive optical network (PON).

Figure 2 shows the elements to be added to a conventional optical network terminal (ONT) for carrying out the present invention.

Figure 3 presents in detail a DTT receiver integrated in the ONT according to a preferred embodiment thereof. Detailed description of the invention

In this text, the term “comprises” and its derivations (such as “understanding”, etc.) should not be understood in an exclusive sense, that is, these terms should not be construed as excluding the possibility that what is described and defined can include more elements, stages, etc.

Figure 2 shows the elements that the present invention incorporates to those of a conventional ONT. Said functional blocks act on a radio frequency signal extracted from the optical signal that transports it through the PON network. In the preferred embodiment, the improvement band for GPON access defined by ITU in its Recommendation G.984.5 is used for said transmission, although the subsequent data processing is transparent to the PON link technology.

As indicated by the present invention, the ONT has two tunable pass-band filters that act in parallel:

-

A narrow pass-band fi lter 18 that selects the radio frequency (RF) channel modulated in QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) that conveys the transmission fl ow (TS) on which a user-requested pay-per-view service is multiplexed .

-

A wider 17-band-pass fi lter that selects all radio frequency channels modulated in QAM that contain television channels intended for all users.

The ONT comprises at least one digital television receiver 19 that receives the selected RF channel from the narrow-band filter 18, extracting from the TS transported in said RF the digital television channel of the pay-per-view service requested by the user of the ONT. The described architecture allows to include several digital television receivers 19 acting in parallel in order to extract several channels of pay-per-view services.

The digital television receiver 19 itself transmits said pay-per-view channel in an RF signal. Said channel is injected as an analog signal into a free radio frequency channel (as detailed below), that is, without being re-modulated according to the digital television standard.

Subsequently, the RF fl ow from the digital television receiver 19 and the wider band-pass fi lter 17 are added by an adder or combiner 24, generating a new RF multiplex with the open and pay-per-view channels contracted by the customer. , so that the DTT receiver incorporated by the client's television receiver is responsible for decoding the channels transported by the new RF multiplex generated by the ONT.

Figure 3 shows the detail of the DTT receiver 19 to be incorporated in the ONT GPON with RF support 2. This DTT receiver 19 consists of a tuner 110, a COFDM 120 demodulator, since COFDM is the type of modulation used in DTT, of an FEC 130 decoder for error detection and correction, of an MPEG 140 processor that on the one hand delivers an analog composite video signal 160, either in CVBS format or in YCrCb format, as well as an audio output digital which, through the analog digital converter 150, is transformed into the stereo analog audio signal 170. The analog video signals 160 and analog audio 170 modulate, by means of a radiofrequency modulator 180 (modulation according to the analog television standard, PAL , NTSC or SECAM, which applies in the corresponding country) to a radio frequency carrier fOUTPUT 190. This frequency corresponds to the carrier frequency of the analogue TV channel on which It is necessary to reinject the output signal of the DTT 19 receiver. Since television sets are capable of working with analog TV channels in the band from 47 MHz to 862 MHz, and taking into account that with the implementation of DTT in many countries It will stop working with analog TV channels, the preferred embodiment of this invention contemplates that the reinjection of the analog signal at the output of the DTT 19 (or receivers) included in this proposal, is done either in a 7 MHz channel of the VHF band between 230 and 300 MHz, or on an 8 MHz channel of the UHF band between 302 and 470 MHz. Thus the output signal of the receiver of DTT 19 of the ONT GPON with RF 2 support does not overlap the RF channels with the DTT signal received through the TV antenna installation of the user's home.

The tuner 110 comprises an internal oscillator that generates a tone at the central frequency of the DTT channel with the contents in pay per view that are to be displayed, so it is not the same frequency as generated by the oscillator fOUTPUT 190, which corresponds with that of the channel where the output signal of the DTT receiver 19 is reinjected.

The RF channel into which the demodulated DTT channel is re-injected, that is, the frequency of the oscillator fOUTPUT 190, is selected by the control means 22.

In order for the invention to be translated into a commercial pay-per-view (PPV) service without the need to include a decoder, the tuning frequencies of the two bandpass filters must be indicated to the ONT in some way. For this, the present invention has two alternatives.

The first alternative involves using new manageable entities through GPON's OMCI channel, the channel through which OLT manages the connected ONTs. The purpose of these new manageable entities is to be able to indicate to each ONT (user) the channel in PPV that can be tuned to receive the content (channel) demanded. These entities are not covered by current standards (ITU-T G.984.4) and must either be included, or resort to proprietary implementation.

The second alternative is based on the inclusion in the ONT of an NFC microcontroller that allows to receive, via NFC a code that will be used by the ONT 22 control to tune the bandpass filter and extract the digital channel in PPV requested by the user . The end user, through the mobile terminal with NFC support, can send to the NFC microcontroller of the ONT the necessary information for tuning and extracting the desired DTT content.

Going deeper into the first of the alternatives, a managed entity like the one raised in this patent application is not contemplated in ITU-T G.984.4. Therefore, a new managed entity that contemplates this scenario should be considered. And within that managed entity, at least four new attributes must be defined:

-

Start frequency of the open channel band (channels broadcast to all network users), that is, the band corresponding to BTV (Broadcast TV). This is a default parameter or attribute, whose value is set by the GPON access operator based on the set of channels it is transmitting and the spectrum that said channel multiplex is occupying.

-

Frequency of finalization of the open channel band, that is, the band corresponding to BTV (Broadcast TV). As in the previous case, this is an attribute with a default value, whose value is set by the GPON access operator based on the set of channels it is transmitting and the spectrum that said channel multiplex is occupying.

-

Start frequency of the requested PPV channel. The invention is transparent to the selection mechanism used, which can be via an IP application through the conventional upstream channel, or through the return channel, if this is enabled. In the latter case, to continue maintaining the absence of an external decoder, the functionalities of the video return channel are included in the ONT itself.

-

PPV channel bandwidth requested, to contemplate possible frequency plans at 6 MHz (ANSI / ATIS) or 8 MHz (ETSI). As in the first two attributes, it takes a default value, depending on the standard in force in the country where it operates.

In DVB-T (DTT), each RF channel carries a transport stream TS consisting of N channels (for example, between 4 and 8 with MPEG2, depending on whether they are of high definition or standard definition). Therefore, to extract a channel, an additional parameter, a pointer, is required to select the individual channel to be provided to the user, and which then serves as the basis, together with a padding, to generate the new TS in the same RF channel that is added to the output signal delivered by the ONT through its coaxial interface.

This scheme also allows commercialization of packages of pay-TV channels, in which case the pointer must take a default value that allows the delivery of all TS channels contained in the tuned RF channel to the user's receiver.

Since this type of content is ephemeral in nature (sports broadcasts, bullfighting, live events such as concerts, ...), the opening of the channel so that it can be received by the user should only be valid for a limited period of time. For this reason, the managed entity must contain in the form of attributes the start time of the content contracted in PPV, as well as its duration.

Finally, the managed entity must also manage the key used for content security.

The second of the mentioned options does not require the creation of new manageable entities on GPON's OMCI channel. In this case the information necessary to tune the channel in PPV, which is the same as indicated in the previous option, will be received via NFC, for example, from a mobile phone with NFC support. This information is transferred by the NFC microcontroller installed in the ONT, to the ONT processor, which in turn will act on the tunable bandpass filters and the ONT multiplexer and demultiplexer.

To identify the content to be selected, the following parameters are required:

-

Frequency of the DVB-T channel with the TS containing the requested content.

-

Associated channel within the TS.

-

Start time and duration of the content.

-

User identification (USERID) of the IPTV service (associated, for example, with an MSISDN, of the English Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number, in the service database).

-

Identifier of the ONT (HARDWARE ID, such as the serial number).

-

Key used for content security.

The NFC hardware required in the ONT for the implementation of this control option is an NFC microcontroller with the ability to operate in read / write mode and with an API (of English, Application Programming Interface) that allows to develop the NFC application.

The present preferred embodiment considers two content purchase scenarios using this second method:

-

Purchase without mobility, in which the user who buys is the owner of the ONT. In this case, the action procedure is as follows: the user makes use of the navigation guide offered by the service to select the purchase of a content. At the moment the user completes the purchase, the ONT activates the NFC application and generates a request to the network indicating the ONT HARDWARE ID (internally stored), the USERID (internally stored) and the selected content. The purchase platform, upon receiving said purchase request, first identifies the user and obtains the MSISDN associated with it, and then generates and sends to said MSISDN an SMS PP (Point-to-Point SMS message coded by the operator and that the The user does not have the possibility to see since it goes directly to the card) with the parameters required by the ONT to allow the visualization of the content. Once the user has received the message (he will receive a notification, for example a visual indication), he should only approach the terminal to the NFC controller of the ONT to transmit said parameters. Finally, the ONT applies these parameters and allows the display of the content.

-

Purchase with mobility, in which the user who buys is a visitor and different from the owner of the ONT. Here the action procedure is as follows. As in the previous case, the user makes use of the navigation guide offered by the service to select the purchase of a content. However, at the time the user completes the purchase, the ONT activates the NFC application and waits for the user to approach his NFC terminal to know the USERID against which he will charge the purchase. Once this identifier is available, it generates the request to the network indicating the ONT HARDWARE ID (stored internally), the USERID (acquired through NFC) and the selected content. As of this moment, the process is the same as in the previous case. The purchase platform, upon receiving said purchase request, first identifies the user and obtains the MSISDN associated with it, and then generates and sends to said MSISDN an SMS PP with the parameters required by the ONT in order to allow the display of the content. Once the user has received the message, they should only approach the terminal to the NFC microcontroller of the ONT and transmit said parameters. Finally, the ONT applies these parameters and allows the display of the content.

In view of this description and figure, the person skilled in the art may understand that the invention has been described according to some preferred embodiments thereof, but that multiple variations can be introduced in said preferred embodiments, without departing from the object of the invention such and as claimed.

Claims (11)

1. Optical network terminal with at least one optical input / output port and a radio frequency output port comprising means for:

-

extracting, from a signal emitted by an optical line terminator of a passive optical network and received through said optical input / output port, a first radio frequency signal that carries a plurality of digital television channels;

-

performing, on said first radio frequency signal, a selective tunable filtering of digital television channels transported by said signal; Y

-

emitting from said radiofrequency output port a second radiofrequency signal carrying said fi ltered digital television channels.

where the means to perform said selective filtering include:

-

a first tunable pass-band fi lter (17), configured to extract, from said first radiofrequency signal, a plurality of radio frequency channels that carry transmission streams on which multiplexed digital television channels are broadcast to all users of the passive optical network;

-

a second tunable pass-band fi lter (18), which operates in parallel to said first tunable pass-band fi lter (17), configured to extract, from said first radiofrequency signal, a radiofrequency channel carrying a transmission fl ow on the that a digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service requested by a user of said optical network terminal is multiplexed;

-

control means (22) for con fi guring said first tunable pass-band fi lter (17) and said second tunable pass-band fi lter (18)

characterized in that it also includes

-

at least one digital television receiver (19) configured to extract, from the radiofrequency channel extracted by the second tunable pass-band fi lter (18), the digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service, and to inject said channel digital television corresponding to a pay-per-view service in the form of an analog signal on a free radio frequency channel of the second radio frequency signal.

2.

Optical network terminal according to claim 2, characterized in that the free radio frequency channel of the second radio frequency signal is a radio frequency channel selected from the UHF and VHF bands.

3.

Optical network terminal according to any of the preceding claims, characterized in that the control means (22) comprise, at least, a first manageable entity comprising a plurality of attributes to configure said first tunable pass-band fi lter (17) and said second Tunable pass-band fi lter (18), said attributes being controlled by the optical line terminator through the control and management channel of the network optical terminal of a passive optical network with gigabit capacity.

Four.

Optical network terminal according to claim 3, characterized in that the control means (22) further comprise a second manageable entity comprising a plurality of useful attributes.

z by an operator to carry out a fee payment per vision services requested by the user, said attributes being controlled by the optical line terminator through the control and management channel of the network optical terminal of a passive optical network with capacity gigabit

5.

Optical terminal according to any one of the preceding claims characterized in that it comprises an entity manageable by an optical line terminator through the control and management channel of the optical network terminal of a passive optical network with gigabit capacity, said manageable entity being configured to select the free radio frequency channel of the second radio frequency signal.

6.

Optical network terminal according to any of claims 1 and 2, characterized in that the control means (22) for configuring said first tunable band-pass fi lter (17) and said second tunable band-pass fi lter (18) comprise at least one microcontroller of Near-field communications capable of operating in read / write mode, said near-field communications microcontroller being configured to receive con fi guration information from a mobile device external to the passive optical network.

7.

Optical network terminal according to any of the preceding claims characterized in that said extraction of said first radio frequency signal is performed on an improvement band for optical access based on passive optical networks with gigabit capacity.

8.

Method of transmission / reception of digital television channels, including pay-per-view services requested by a user, in a passive optical network, comprising:

-

multiplexing said digital television channels in a set of transmission flows;

-

sending said modulated transmission fl ows on radio frequency channels, through said passive optical network;

-

fi ltering said radio frequency channels into an optical network terminal;

-

recovering the digital television channels contained in the modulated transmission fl ows in the filtered radio frequency channels;

-

discard those recovered digital television channels that do not correspond to channels broadcast to all users or to pay-per-view services requested by the user of said optical network terminal;

-

reconstruct a radio frequency signal formed by those channels that have not been discarded;

-

transmit the reconstructed radio frequency signal to an external digital television decoder.

characterized in that the step of recovering the digital television channels comprises extracting, by means of at least one digital television receiver (19), from a radio frequency channel extracted by a tunable pass-band filter (18), a digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service; and because the step of reconstructing a radio frequency signal comprises injecting said digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service in the form of an analog signal in a radio frequency channel free of said radio frequency signal that is reconstructed. A method according to claim 8, characterized in that said radio frequency channels are sent using an improvement band for optical access based on passive optical networks with gigabit capacity. 10. Method according to any of claims 8 and 9 characterized in that it further comprises:

-

request from a network optical terminal, to a line optical terminal equipment, the transmission of a digital television content for pay-per-view;

-

send, at least, a text message to a mobile device associated with a user of said optical network terminal, with information necessary to filter said digital pay-per-view television content;

-

transmitting said information from said mobile device to the network optical terminal, through a near field communication connection.

SPANISH OFFICE OF THE PATENTS AND BRAND Application no .: 200930894 SPAIN Date of submission of the application: 23.10.2009 Priority Date: REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE TECHNIQUE 51 Int. Cl.: H04J14 / 02 (2006.01) RELEVANT DOCUMENTS

Category

Documents cited Claims Affected

Y

US 5790170 A (SUZUKI MITSUHIRO) 04.08.1998, 1-10

column 1, lines 7-10; column 1, line 17 - column 2, line 15; column 5,

line 55 - column 6, line 14; column 8, line 39 - column 9, line 5; column 9,

line 36 - column 12, line 20; column 20, line 21 - column 23, line 30;

Figures 1,3,6,8,9,17-20.

Y

US 6848116 B1 (LAND THOMAS) 25.01.2005, 1-10

column 1, line 15 - column 2, line 16; column 2, line 66 - column 3, line 42; column 3,

line 60 - column 6, line 32; Figures 8-11.

TO

US 5303229 A (WITHERS ANDREW L et al.) 12.04.1994, 1-10

column 1, lines 36-53; column 3, line 57 - column 4, line 65; column 13,

line 45 - column 14, line 56.

TO

WO 2007 046876 A1 (THOMSON LICENSING et al.) 04.24.2007, 1-10

paragraphs [1-4,11-16,19,20,22,26]; Figures 1-3,8,10-12,16,18-20.

Category of the documents cited X: of particular relevance Y: of particular relevance combined with other / s of the same category A: reflects the state of the art O: refers to unwritten disclosure P: published between the priority date and the date of priority submission of the application E: previous document, but published after the date of submission of the application

This report has been prepared • for all claims • for claims no:

Date of realization of the report 28.06.2011

Examiner B. Pérez García Page 1/5

REPORT OF THE STATE OF THE TECHNIQUE Application number: 200930894 Minimum documentation searched (classification system followed by classification symbols) H04J Electronic databases consulted during the search (name of the database and, if possible, terms of search used) INVENES, EPODOC State of the Art Report Page 2/5  WRITTEN OPINION Application number: 200930894 Date of Completion of Written Opinion: 06.28.2011 Statement

Novelty (Art. 6.1 LP 11/1986)

Claims Claims 1-10 IF NOT

Inventive activity (Art. 8.1 LP11 / 1986)

Claims Claims 1-10 IF NOT

The application is considered to comply with the industrial application requirement. This requirement was evaluated during the formal and technical examination phase of the application (Article 31.2 Law 11/1986).  Opinion Base.- This opinion has been made on the basis of the patent application as published. State of the Art Report Page 3/5  WRITTEN OPINION Application number: 200930894 1. Documents considered.- The documents belonging to the state of the art taken into consideration for the realization of this opinion are listed below.

Document

Publication or Identification Number publication date

D01

US 5790170 A (SUZUKI MITSUHIRO) 04.08.1998

D02

US 6848116 B1 (LAND THOMAS) 01.25.2005

D03

US 5303229 A (WITHERS ANDREW L et al.) 12.04.1994

D04

WO 2007 046876 A1 (THOMSON LICENSING et al.) 04/26/2007

2. Statement motivated according to articles 29.6 and 29.7 of the Regulations for the execution of Law 11/1986, of March 20, on Patents on novelty and inventive activity; quotes and explanations in support of this statement The state of the art document closest to the invention is DO1 which discloses an optical network terminal and an optical line terminal for transmitting bidirectional information such as video signals on demand. Following the wording of claim 1, D01 describes an optical network terminal with at least one optical input / output port and a radio frequency input / output port (column 8, lines 43-49) comprising means for:

-

extracting, from a signal emitted by an optical line terminator equipment of a passive optical network and received through said input / output port (column 3, lines 8-32), a first radio frequency signal carrying a plurality of digital television channels (column 8, lines 43-49 and column 9, line 46-column 10, line 24, fig 6, 8 and 9);

-

performing on said first radio frequency signal, a tunable selective filtering of digital TV channels transported by said signal (column 8, lines 43-49 and column 9, line 46-column 10, line 24, fig 6, 8 and 9);

-

emitting from said radiofrequency output port a second radiofrequency signal carrying said filtered digital television channels (column 8, lines 43-49 and column 9, line 46-column 10, line 24, fig 6, 8 and 9);

where the means for performing said selective filtering comprise:

-

a first tunable pass-band filter, configured to extract from said first radio frequency signal, a plurality of Rf channels that carry transmission streams on which digital TV channels are multiplexed broadcast to all users of the passive optical network ( column 9, lines 46-65, fig 9 - elements 304, 305);

-

a second tunable pass-band filter, which operates in parallel to said first tunable pass-band filter, configured to extract, from said first radiofrequency signal, a radiofrequency channel that carries a transmission flow on which a channel is multiplexed digital TV corresponding to a pay-per-view service requested by a user of said optical network terminal (column 9, line 66-column 10, line 26, fig 9 -elements 307, 308 and 309);

-

control means for configuring said first tunable band-pass filter and said second tunable band-pass filter (column 11, lines 27-43, fig 8 -element 320);

and characterized in that it also includes: -a digital TV receiver to extract from the radiofrequency channel extracted by the second tunable pass-band filter, the digital television channel corresponding to a pay-per-view service (column 10, lines 16-25; column 23, lines 911; fig 9, elements 310 and 311, fig 20, element 511). A significant difference between the first claim and D01 has been identified. In D01, the digital channel of the pay-per-view service is not injected as an analog signal into an RF channel free of the output RF signal of the network optical terminal. The objective technical effect of this difference is that the payment channel is transmitted analogically, resulting in the consequent saving of the modulator - required according to the digital TV standard - within the optical network terminal. The objective technical problem is how to avoid using said modulator. State of the Art Report Page 4/5  WRITTEN OPINION Application number: 200930894 The solution is provided in D02 where an on-demand programming access system is presented. In this a modulator is not used, but to obtain the desired channel and isolated from other channels, the signal is shifted to a free radio frequency band (Ftarget) and filtered (column 5, line 54-column 6, line 32; figures 11A-11H). According to this reasoning, the first claim does not meet the requirement of inventive activity by the combination of the documents D01 and D02 (Art. 8 of the LEP). The second claim defines that the free RF channel is chosen between the UHF and VHF bands. This is a design alternative that does not contribute to the technical result of the invention and therefore has no activity. inventiveness. Claims 3-5 establish that the control means comprise manageable entities with attributes for configure tunable pass-band filters, said attributes being controlled by the optical line terminator through of the control and management channel of the network optical terminal. Attributes can allow charging by a network operator. These characteristics are defined, for example, in D02 (column 4, lines 14-32 and column 4, line 56 - column 5, line 2). They lack inventive activity. Claim 6 adds that the control means have a near-field communications microcontroller for Receive information from a mobile device external to the network. These NFC communications are widely used in the state of the art and incorporate them into the invention, not It has inventive activity for an expert in the field. The seventh claim provides the use of an improvement band for optical access. This is also known for An expert in the field. Claims 8-10 define the method using the system of the preceding claims. Said method perform the obvious and necessary steps to solve the technical problem raised, and as in the previous case, no They meet the requirement of inventive activity. In summary, the application presented has no inventive activity, according to Art. 8 of the Spanish Patent Law, by the disclosure of documents D01 and D02. State of the Art Report Page 5/5