CONDITIONAL ACCESS SYSTEM FOR DIGITAL TELEVISION CONTENT BASED ON PREPAYMENT METHODS AND OPTIMISATION OF THE BANDWIDTH OF THE CHANNEL BROADCASTING SAID CONTENT

摘要

The invention relates to a novel method of introducing a pay digital television mechanism whereby the content broadcaster or operator does not require a subscriber management infrastructure. According to the invention, the user is not committed to the operator but instead freely acquires content access time credit by means of an electronic transaction via a point of sale on the Internet or a mobile phone message server. Another innovation of this invention is that it avoids the need to constantly send validation and authentication information specific to each user via the broadcast channel since said information is managed by means of a secure transfer mechanism when the credit is being purchased, with the time and content privileges acquired on the user platform being stored. The saving made in relation to the bandwidth is considerable when the number of users increases.