The SCTE at the US SCTE Tech-Expo

The US SCTE Tech-Expo The US SCTE holds an annual convention and exhibition, called its 'Tech-Expo', which is the largest show dedicated to cable telecommunication engineering in the world. In 2003, SCTE President, Dr. Roger Blakeway, travelled to the USA for the convention. Here's his report.

The show floor. The Cable Games test your skill in a fun atmosphere.	The US SCTE Tech-Expo, May, 2003. The US SCTE held its annual Expo at the convention centre in Philadelphia in the second week of May. Armed with a complimentary registration, courtesy of John Clarke, President of the US SCTE, and travel/accommodation expenses paid by our own IBC your intrepid explorer braved SARS/terrorist threats/taxi drivers/K-Mart etc. to see how the market conditions would affect the show. I was accompanied by Peter Owen of IBC who was evaluating the broadband marketplace and looking for possible new exhibitors for Amsterdam. This was the US SCTE's 20th Anniversary Expo and I have attended many of them over the last ten years or so. Despite the problems of the marketplace this was the biggest yet with over 400 exhibitors. The Philadelphia Convention Centre, right in the centre of town, was a great venue, plenty of space, good facilities, adjacent to the Hilton and Marriot hotels and connected to a huge shopping mall. The Expo is carefully organised so that conference sessions, workshops and exhibition opening hours do not significantly overlap. As well as providing delegates with the opportunity to attend all options, it also delivers the maximum number of people onto the floor of the exhibition, giving it the 'buzz' that exhibitors like and providing plenty of opportunities for networking. The main message from the conference was that all the MSOs would be investing billions of dollars in the next couple of years and there seemed to be unanimity that upgrading to DOCSIS 2.0 was essential for their business aspirations. VOD was still a hot topic and some of the workshops concentrated on network and operation problems of implementation.

As usual, the organisers arranged a full programme for the evenings (well, you can't allow cable guys to run around loose on their own in a city) with receptions, the CableTec games and an Expo evening at the Ben Franklin Institute. The latter is a science museum with lots of interactive exhibits suitable for kids and satisfying to the inquisitive minds of the cable guys. Include me in. The whole Expo event was well worth attending but if I had to pick a single highlight from the show floor, it would be the prize raffled by Scientific Atlanta, a motorised two wheel scooter would not normally create so much interest amongst delegates, but this one had its wheels side by side! Discussion on how we would get it on the 'plane or whether the NASA technology was exportable was cut cruelly short when someone else won it.		Everything's bigger in the USA. SA's prize trolley.

	Report by Roger Blakeway, pictures by Peter Owen.


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