The SCTE and the ANGA Meeting, 2004

ANGA - The German the Association of Private CATV-Operators The ANGA Cable Show, born 6 years ago and regarded as a parochial German event, has finally come of age. Held at the Cologne Messe during the second week of May, this years show had 216 exhibitors from 27 countries occupying an area of 5,028 sq. meters. The number of exhibitors has increased by 40 percent and the number of visitors by 25 percent since last year, the latter exceeding 5,000 for the first time.

	President's Address In his opening address Thomas Braun, the dynamic and respected President of the Association of Private CATV-Operators (ANGA) stated that "The industry is in euphoric mood, the fair has shown that network upgrading is picking up speed and all market partners agree that digitalisation is driving the positive market developments." Braun was also keen to set DTT in its place: "We are glad the hysteria is now over and reality sets in; DVB-T will not offer universal access to German television and coverage will be limited to urban areas, some areas will only have public channels on DVB-T and no private broadcasters and large parts of the country will not have access to DVB-T at all".

Conference Themes Accompanying the trade fair, which has expanded to cover satellite and multimedia as well as cable (around 60 manufacturers of satellite equipment were present this year), was a conference featuring more than 70 international speakers, with presentations in German and English with simultaneous translation available. The opening session was a discussion on Cable, satellite and DVB-T: partners or competitors? Highly topical given that digital terrestrial TV is set to expand to new regions in Germany within the next few weeks. The session was oversubscribed with all standing wall space occupied as well as over 500 seats; a sign of the general success of the event. This was be followed by strategy and technology panels on finance, business, regulation and copyright.		The conference in session.

The Harmonic stand.	HDTV and the Transition to Digital. As with the recent NAB conference, HDTV was a hot topic and the local cable operator NetCologne-MultiKabel, in partnership with Scientific-Atlanta, Sharp and Samsung, organised a presentation of the HDTV actually being carried by the network. ANGA president Thomas Braun commented "We are committed to HDTV because quality is our main objective". He might have added "and perhaps this is the killer-app that will finally drive digital", but perhaps that's just me being cynical.

International Interest Grows. The 'Internationalisation' of the show was noticeable and exhibitors commented on the increasing number of international visitors. This included senior executives from parent companies that had previously had relied on their local representatives for exhibition presence. SCTE Patrons included Harmonic, Tratec, Scientific Atlanta, Motorola, Technetix, C-Cor amongst many others; Teleste had their usual welcoming stand and also hosted a great evening 'medieval' banquet at the Wolkenburg Palace in the centre of Cologne as part of their continuing golden anniversary celebrations. Amongst many familiar faces I was pleased to meet with Dan Stroie of Telemache, Bucharest; Dan was responsible for translating the SCTE Training Courses into Romanian and for the several hundred successful students that have passed through his training in the past couple of years. The general buzz on the exhibition floor was reminiscent of the London ECC/EBC show at its peak and there seemed general agreement amongst exhibitors that this was now the cable show in Europe.		David Hall and Dan Stroie discuss SCTE training in Romania.

UK visitors checking up on the German industry.	ANGA 2005 The next ANGA Cable will take place from May 31 - June 2, 2005, in Cologne. Further information is available at the ANGA website.


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