The SCTE and the ECCA Meeting, 2005

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 2005 congress. Here's his report.

Budapest, venue for ECCA2005	President's Address This year, the European Cable Communications Association's annual Congress took place in Budapest from 21-23 March. With the weather sunny but a little on the chilly side, this years Congress attracted more than 400 delegates, a 25% increase on the 2004 event held in Barcelona (Click here for the 2004 report ). The mix of delegates included senior business executives and government officials in telecommunication and media from around Europe but it is not an event that attracts 'your average engineer'. We were welcomed at the Cocktail Reception by Kalman Kovacks, the Hungarian Minister of Informatics and Communications. The event provided the usual opportunity to meet old friends and renew acquaintances; the SCTE was well represented with members from the UK, Benelux and Germany.

The Opening Session The Congress was opened by Malcolm Harbour, Member of the European Parliament who commented that 'Cable had proved a useful tool to prod the Telcos into action'; an interesting view of the use of cable which was followed by praise for Cables operational effectiveness: "We don't get many complaints (at the Commission) about Cable"! With 10 new EU members raring to go there was a new dynamic within the Commission with expectation of growth in jobs and competition. However there was still some tension within member states about a 'green social' Europe moving to a market lead economy; there were still some 90 barriers in place providing protection for individual country's economy. There was lots of noise about making incumbent telcos toe the line and the EU pushing de-regulation; it was a fact, however, that politicians found media regulation much more attractive (every politician an expert) than tackling the problems of economic deregulation.		Malcolm Harbour MEP

Bernard Cottin, CEO Numéricâble	General Assembly At the ECCA General Assembly Bernard Cottin, CEO Numéricâble, was re-elected as President, and Manuel Cubero, Vice President Kabel Deutschland, as Vice President of the Association. In his opening address, Bernard Cottin commented that "our industry is in far better shape than it was two years ago" and noted that cash flow was improving and technology advances such as VoIP would mean a significant change for Telco competition who, in any case, had problems still with pan-European operation. However the cable industry need to remain vigilant and "as the environment in which we operate becomes ever more competitive, it becomes ever more important for the industry to be represented by a strong organisation such as this one. ECCA will continue to defend cable interest in Brussels, and promote cable's image throughout Europe." In order to address this, ECCA has undergone some internal re-structuring to reflect the importance of triple-play, formed a relationship with CTAM and has set-up EuroCableLabs (ECL) to coordinate the evolution and implementation of digital broadband technologies and services being deployed (or envisaged) by cable operators across Europe.

Press Conference Sudhir Ispahani, CTO of UGC Europe and President of ECL, stated at the press conference that, "The consolidation of emerging technology research, technology standards, vendor certification and the development of common technology platforms into EuroCablelabs has already demonstrated positive results for the cable industry in Europe. ECL is currently under the temporary directorship of Chuck Carrol (SCTE Fellow and ex-Executive Committee member) with Dr Dirk Jaeger (SCTE Member) as Deputy Director. Their first output was the 'Simple Decoder' specification produced in 2004 for a common economic platform across Europe. At this years Congress they announced that they had signed a co-operation agreement with the US Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs). Under this co-operation, ECL and Cablelabs have agreed to improve their mutual communication, to coordinate activities and initiatives and to create consolidated points of view. At the press conference, Christopher J. Lammers, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of CableLabs, stated that "ECL and CableLabs will identify opportunities to more closely align their technical initiatives in areas of common focus, including specification development, product testing and standards activities, resulting in a more robust set of products and services available to consumers in North America and Europe'. In practice this means establishing the next generation of data-over-cable standards, Docsis 3.0 and EuroDocsis 3.0.		Sudhir Ispahani, President of ECL

	Triple Play Pays Off At the same press conference there was a presentation of research compiled by the consultancy OVUM which concluded that years of investment and restructuring have finally paid off for the European cable industry. Where cable operators have rolled out triple play services, broadband Internet penetration is up to three times higher, and telephone service is cheaper. Digital TV services and the impending launch of video on demand services are making the cable proposition more attractive to the consumer. However, the industry faces increased competition as incumbent phone companies and digital terrestrial networks are also offering digital television services. Consolidation of the European cable sector will continue in 2005 and beyond, and remains a necessary process in order to provide the scale needed for sustainable business performance in order for the industry to provide the widest range of services at the highest quality to European consumers.

ECCA 2004 and 2003 Reports from previous ECCA meetings are still on the site. The ECCA 2004 report is here. The ECCA 2003 report is here.


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