Cisco Patents the Triple Play 143
Aditi.Tuteja writes, "Cisco was recently granted a patent on a 'system and method for providing integrated voice, video and data to customer premises over a single network.' Sound a lot like 'triple play?' Yes it is. The patent, which was filed back in 2000, describes a system that would allow consumers to receive all of their home services through one service provider instead of two or three. The patent's wording seems broad enough to cover nearly all existing implementations of triple play, and some are worried that Cisco will try to wield the newly granted patent against such providers as AT&T and Comcast. If such a thing were to happen, progress on AT&T's Project Lightspeed could slow even more."
Cisco = Scientific Atlanta (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not exactly sure why the author of the article thinks that they'd sue the cable operators, many of whom use the Scientific-Atlanta technology in question... perhaps he wasn't aware of the link between Cisco and Sci-Atl.. which leads me to question his authority to even speak on the topic in the first place.
Old prior art (Score:4, Informative)
I got yer prior art right here... (Score:0, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Triple Play question (Score:5, Informative)
We call that the network layer.
Converter box or software separates the single datastream back into the 3 (or more) original feeds.
And that would be the transport layer.
Prior Art (Score:4, Informative)
KIT offered the three services that are now called Triple play, Telephone, Video (both VOD and broadcast) and data (Internet and Walled Garden content).
Kingston Interactive Television October 1999. [google.co.uk]