PolyCipher, a non-profit company backed by three of the nation's largest MSOs, has taken the reins of a high-level industry project that aims to replace the clunky and expensive CableCARD with a much more elegant downloadable conditional access system (DCAS).

Although PolyCipher's mere existence and its general role with DCAS is not a huge secret, officials there and within the cable industry have been relatively tight-lipped about specifics and so far have been unwilling to speak publicly about the venture.

However, in a filing made Wednesday by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association to theFederal Communications Commission that seeks a limited time waiver on a mandate that cable operators stop deploying digital set-tops with embedded security starting next July (for more on this, please see next story), it was cited that cable operators have already invested $30 million in the establishment of PolyCipher, a joint venture of Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable and  Cox Communications.

Sources say Comcast and Time Warner each have a 40 percent piece of PolyCipher, and Cox has the remaining 20 percent.

PolyCipher's primary purpose is DCAS (here's a primer), a separable security platform that will enlist a secure micro processor and secure loader for the keys and other security elements that are delivered to the DCAS-enabled host, be it a digital television or set-top.

In some ways, PolyCipher will take over where the original NGNA LLC project left off.

NGNA, an acronym for Next Generation Network Architecture, first came to light publicly in May 2004. One primary component of the original RFI (request for information) was conditional access, and how operators could correct the existing Motorola-Scientific Atlanta duopoly by extracting the CA element -- not just from the set-top -- but from the network itself. While the CableCARD implementation provides set-top portability, it does little to unlock a cable system's legacy CA system at the network level.

PolyCipher is operating a Web site that provides precious little detail to the public. One needs a passcode and proper authorization to obtain information beyond what is provided on the home page.

However, the home page does supply one nugget: "Chameleon," which is apparently the product name (or internal codename, perhaps) of the PolyCipher downloadable conditional access system. The site also acknowledges that PolyCipher is what was formally known as NGNA LLC.

At last check, PolyCipher had at least four full-time employees on the books, including CEO Tom Lookabaugh, the former president of the DiviCom division of what was then C-Cube Microsystems (DiviCom was sold to Harmonic Inc. in 1999; LSI Logic acquired C-Cube in 2001).

The primary functions of PolyCipher are based in the Denver area, but the company is also working with a separate subcontractor that specializes in secure silicon.

"There will be 20 [full-time employees] before you know it," said one knowledgeable source recently. With consultants and seconded personnel from cable operators added in, "there are a lot of moving parts...but the buck stops with Lookabaugh, basically."

Although PolyCipher has ties to Comcast, it is not tethered directly to Combined Conditional Access Development (CCAD), a 50-50 venture between Comcast and Motorola under which the companies are working on, among other things, next-gen CA systems and multi-stream CableCARDs based on Motorola's MediaCipher CA technology.

Although PolyCipher won't create and sell DCAS solutions, it's understood that it will oversee and analyze the effort, as well as select the components of the platform. PolyCipher's domain is said to cover sub component functions such as chip qualification, operations of the keying facilities, as well as infrastructure and software security functions.

In this respect, some liken PolyCipher to an apolitical "execution engine" of DCAS - a streamlined, efficient entity that can turn on a dime and make decisions faster than the big MSOs can.

While PolyCipher will endeavor to keep DCAS on track and moving forward, it's widely acknowledged that CableLabs will step in to handle product certification for set-tops, TVs and other products that use DCAS, once things get that far.

The cable industry is "desperate to get DCAS working," says one cable exec.

And the industry has made some progress with prototype demos that show a Motorola box running on an SA network, and vice versa. Some see field trials of DCAS starting in mid-to-late 2007, with a possible national rollout in 2008.