The SCTE at the US SCTE Tech-Expo

The US SCTE Tech-Expo, 2004 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. SCTE President, Dr. Roger Blakeway, travelled to the USA for the 2004 convention. Here's his report.

The Orange County Convention Centre.	The US SCTE Tech-Expo, June, 2004. Florida in summer may not be everyone's cup of iced tea, with high humidity and temperatures in the 90's, but this did not deter over 10,000 cable guys and gals from attending SCTE Expo 2004 held at the Orange County Convention Centre between the 14th and 17th June. With some 77 new exhibitors amongst the total of 377, an increase of 6% over 2003, the show floor had something for everyone with an engineering bent. There was some evidence of downsizing of the larger exhibitors although Mike Jones of Commscope managed to get a full sized cable distributing tractor and trailer on their stand. Harmonic too was sufficiently large to accommodate a host of delegates who descended upon them for their cocktail party! There was certainly a significant increase in the number of small 'shell scheme' stands perhaps reflecting the number of new entrants. HDTV and VoIP were the unsurprising main themes of the show. Amongst old friends I bumped into were Bill and Anna Riker; Bill is a past president of the SCTE and is now setting up an organization to enable US overseas troops to have videophone contact with their families back home using the Motorola IP Videophone.

As well as the exhibition, Cable-Tec Expo provides an engineering conference, a comprehensive set of workshop sessions and a full social calendar. Although this provides a daunting list of 'essential viewing', carefully arrangement and timing provides minimal overlap. For instance the Engineering Conference takes place in the morning and the Exhibition floor opens in the afternoon. The wealth and number of workshop sessions, however, means that it is not possible to attend all of them, the only small criticism of what is otherwise a superbly organized event.		The busy exhibition floor.

SCTE Exec member Chris Bailey with Gary Napolitano.	After an introduction by US SCTE President John Clarke the Engineering Conference got underway with a CEO Panel Session chaired by well known author and columnist Paul Maxwell. The two main topics discussed were HDTV and the continuing threat to cable by Satellite and DSL services. Bob Miron of Bright House, the Orlando system operator, said that they already had over 40,000 subscribers using HD (8% of their digital subscribers) with 15 channels of HD being available at no extra cost. HD inevitably put a strain on available bandwidth and analogue migration/switch off was becoming a significant need. (N.B. with existing analogue cable ready TVs and an unknown number of cable outlets per home, the STB costs are a major factor). Bandwidth was still cables big advantage opined Jim Chiddix, CEO of OpenTV and Carl Vogel, CEO of Charter agreed with the comment that Charter was also shifting its outlook for new builds to include business and the use of wireless to temporarily extend their reach. The conversation moved on to threats from both alternative delivery platforms and also 'invisible' users of cable bandwidth such as external VoIP providers such as Verizon. Innovation, including number portability, was something that Cable operators would need to embrace said Brian McFadden of Nortel Networks, customers would be using voice over cable networks whether MSOs knew it or not. Direct TV and DSL delivered services were still a worry; Starz had just introduced a subscription VOD service to compete with cable. As always with a cable oriented panel in the US, the wrap up concluded with a certain amount of possibly justified smugness that cable was in a great position to fight off the competition.

The CTO panel concentrated a little more on technology although the 'big picture' was still in their minds. Chris Bowick, CEO of Cox, was adamant that cable was not running out of bandwidth, contrary to rumors spread by the competition. Tools were available, such as 256QAM, advanced multiplexing techniques and analogue migration without upgrading bandwidth again. Wayne Davis, SVP at Charter, agreed that the current $85billion network bandwidth upgrade program, almost complete, would not need to be repeated and digital migration and optimization would cost much less. One hot topic discussed was NGNA (Next generation network Architecture); Cox Communications, Comcast and Times Warner have been working on a scheme for a common reference architecture for an all-digital, multi-service network running on HFC plant. The objective, through standards bodies and involving CableLabs, was to open networks to all vendors on an equal basis and help funnel R & D in a common direction. Marwin Fawaz, CTO of Adelphi, agreed that this was a worthy aim and a program that they would wish to join as soon as possible. Another hot topic for the CTO panel was the question of CableCARDs. Not having heard this name before, your reporter was thrown for a while until it dawned on him that the DVB Common Interface concept had been re-invented in the US. There was now a July 1 deadline for MSOs to stock and supply one-way CableCARDs for use with cable ready digital TVs. William Check of the NCTA commented that consumer products from manufacturers such as Panasonic were already starting to appear in retail stores although he regarded the July date as more of a milestone than a deadline. There was also a need to support PSIP, the US version of PSI to enable non-proprietary programme guides to be generated; Marwin Fawaz admitted to still having a fair amount of work to do since DACS and CMTSs needed changes to enable PSIP. The unidirectional nature of the device was already causing customer confusion and Chris Bowick had already had one incident where a customer wanted his STB back since he couldn't get his IPG or VOD service.		Motorola's IP videophone.

Ron Hranac, SCTE Member of the Year.	Lunch on the first full day took the form of an Awards Luncheon, with the SCTE honoring some of the good and greats of US cable. Amongst the awards was that of 'Member of the Year' which went to Ron Hranac for his long time service to the SCTE including spells as President and as Member of the Board. Ron is well known in the international arena and is an Honorary Fellow of the UK SCTE.

Details of the workshop sessions are too voluminous to report here but the SCTE produces a Proceedings Manual and an excellent CD Rom, which gives both PDF and PPT versions of all the papers. Both are available from the US SCTE bookshop at their website www.scte.org. It would be remiss of me to end without mentioning again the social side of Cable-Tec Expo. From Arrival Night reception through breakfast receptions, Award luncheon, Expo Evening, Cable-Tec games and Closing Night receptions there is scarcely time and little need to explore the delights of Orlando. My own favorite networking session is always the Ham Radio Reception (sic) where in addition to free food, booze and good company there are enough tombola prizes to ensure that everyone goes away with a memento of the evening. As always the organization was tremendous and congratulations are in order for a very enjoyable and informative week. Next year the bandwagon will roll into San Antonio, Texas (remember the Alamo?) for Expo 2005, which will be held between 14th and 17th June.



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