From: acquiredfm
In the early days of pay television, obtaining premium channels like HBO for free was relatively straightforward. This was largely due to a lack of robust security for video signals, often referred to as “security by obscurity” [00:00:32]. Individuals with even mild technical skills or basic tools like an Allen wrench could manipulate their cable box to access channels without payment [00:00:22]. The challenge for providers was to devise a system that consumers could not easily bypass by simply unscrewing a box or moving a wire [00:00:39].
Linkabit’s Solution
Linkabit, a company co-founded by Irwin Jacobs and Andrew Viterbi, developed a video scrambling system specifically for pay TV on cable systems [00:00:06]. This system addressed the vulnerability that allowed unauthorized access to channels [00:00:47].
The technology was widely adopted by major pay TV channels, including HBO [00:00:52]. It is even suggested that the iconic HBO opener, which depicts a scrambled signal de-scrambling, was inspired by Linkabit’s technology [00:00:56]. Linkabit’s video scrambling system was a key product for the company throughout the 1970s [00:01:11].
Acquisition and Growth
In 1980, Linkabit was acquired by Macom (M/A-COM), an East Coast radio technology company, for $25 million [00:01:17]. At the time of its acquisition, Linkabit had grown to over a thousand employees [00:01:48] and continued to expand within Macom, eventually reaching 1,500 people [00:01:56]. The success of its video scrambling system and other products meant that other cable TV channels also sought to use their technology [00:02:04].
Impact on Future Innovations
The expertise and business acumen gained by Jacobs, Viterbi, and their team at Linkabit, including their work on secure communications, would later prove foundational for their next venture, Qualcomm [00:02:22] [00:02:41].
One notable technical innovation that stemmed from their subsequent work was Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) [00:11:32], a method patented in 1986 for terrestrial cellular networks [00:19:51]. This patent, U.S. Patent number 4,901,307, became one of the most valuable patents in history [00:20:08] [00:20:12], laying the groundwork for digital cellular communication.