The SCTE and the ECCA Meeting, 2003

ECCA - The European Cable Communications Association ECCA is the trade association for European cable operators. It holds an annual meeting, in a different European city each year, which is a combination of AGM, conference, exhibition and social gathering. SCTE President, Dr. Roger Blakeway, attended the 2003 congress. Here's his report.

Prague, venue for ECCA's 2003 meeting	The ECCA AGM, 2003, combined with EBC2003, Prague. The first informal co-operation between European cable operators dates back to 1949. As these informal meetings became more frequent, a formal structure for European co-operation was deemed appropriate. On 2 September 1955, AID (Alliance Internationale de la Distribution par cable) was set up by representatives from Switzerland, Belgium and The Netherlands. In 1993, AID was renamed the European Cable Communications Association, stressing the communication aspect of broadband cable services in today's interactive world as well as the European goals of the Association. The UK CCA was a member before its demise but ntl and Telewest now participate in their own right. After the closure of the EBC cable show at Olympia and the cancellation of the proposed Maastricht event, ECCA has involved the EBC organisation in producing their 49th conference and associated exhibition. The three-day event presented a mix of business topics; spanning issues which included programming, internet development, content, technology deployment and the growth of broadband in the eastern European countries. It was good to see that the overall attendance had not been affected by the downturn experienced at other cable events in the last couple of years; but, this is a 'top level' conference and senior delegates are drawn more to the ECCA name rather than just attending another cable show. This year's event, held in the Prague Marriott, also saw a sizeable delegation from Eastern Europe as those countries prepare for accession to the European Union.

At the ECCA Board meeting and General Assembly, John Riorden, President and CEO of UPC, was elected as the new ECCA President, replacing the incumbent for several years, Henk de Goede, MD of Casema. The General Assembly also approved new member companies and associations from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany. ECCA exists to serve its members and is ostensibly a political lobbying organisation. In the past it has backed DVB-RC and the 'EuroModem' when actual deployments were heading strongly in the Docsis and EuroDocsis direction. It seems that the initial policy that backed the introduction of the MHP middleware may have been tempered by their past experience and the call is now for 'compatibility' rather than trying to push an inherently expensive solution, especially for MSOs with legacy STBs. Little needs to be said of the exhibition, it really is a sideshow for the conference. In many ways it reminds me of a Labour or Tory Party Conference where British Rail, Vodafone, etc. take booths to lobby rather than sell. SCTE Patron members ADC, Corning Gilbert, Motorola, Pace, Scientific Atlanta, Technetix, and Tratec had exhibition stands whilst Harmonic hosted a hospitality suite. In total just 20 exhibitors.

A distinguished panel at the ECCA conference.	The conference more than made up for the small exhibition, with top Government and MSO speakers providing keynote and panel sessions. Much attention was focused on the emerging broadband industries in Poland, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Romania and the problems of deregulation and strong incumbent Telcos. The CEO panel session, discussing 'Business Opportunities in Candidate Countries' was particularly notable with speakers John Riorden, President and CEO of UPC, Richard Callahan, Chairman of Cable Partners Europe, Ferdinand Kayser, President and CEO of SES-Astra, Ernst Uhlig, MD of ish GmbH and Bernard Cottin Director general of Numericable. Dick Callahan admitted that Callahan Associates (now renamed Cable Partners) had not been immune from market realities, but now was not the time to sit back and ignore the possibilities and challenges. He pointed to the fact that when broadband services had been marketed properly, cable consistently outperformed its DSL competitors. Telenet, Callahan's Belgian affiliate, had amply demonstrated this and served to underline Callahan's regular theme of "triple play works". There was, however, a need to fully understand and not ignore the competitive broadband technologies, including 3G, if cable was to succeed. Bernard Cottin, CEO of the French operator Numericable agreed with Callahan on broadband cable, but went further saying that cable should forget the technology hype and instead become more customer centric. Partnerships should be forged with content providers (Numericable is owned by Canal+) and with public authorities where appropriate. This was echoed in a later session by Telenet's Hans Witdouck who explained how partnerships were being formed with the handful of broadcasters that make up the 90 per cent of viewing in Flanders as well as the Intercable consortium that represents the smaller cable operators in the region. Ferdinand Kayser expounded the possibilities and advantages of broadband delivered via satellite, a possible solution to the rural problem, building on the success of DTH TV services and a move towards the 'triple play' concept beloved of cable operators.

A pre-conference seminar was given by Cisco Systems Inc., addressing DOCSIS Migration Planning. It aimed to provide in-depth answers to questions surrounding capital expense and operations implications of migrating from DOCSIS 1.0. The seminar proved very interesting and was well attended. A lively question and answer session ensued. It helped to identify key issues that need to be considered in planning for advanced services such as large-scale flexible Commercial Services and PacketCable over DOCSIS 1.1 and 2.0. It is hoped to make a copy of this paper available in CTE in the next few months but, in any case, a more detailed account of this seminar, together with an expanded report of the conference as a whole will appear in the June issue of CTE. Dr. Roger Blakeway May, 2003


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