Cable-Tec Expo Recap 2016

By Ron Hranac –

If it seems like this year’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo® had an unusually high energy level, you’re right. Among the hot topics this year were energy management, wireless, gigabit service, DOCSIS® 3.1, and the Internet of Things. Attendance was up 21 percent from the year before, with over 10,000 attendees making the trip to Philadelphia in late September. That number includes more than 1,300 international attendees. In all, some 60 countries were represented in the Pennsylvania Convention Center during Expo. The number of exhibitors was up, too, at nearly 400, including 62 new companies with booths in the exhibit hall. One interesting stat: During the past two years the cable industry’s premier technical event has attracted close to 130 first time exhibitors.

A big tip o’ the hat to SCTE/ISBE staff and the program committee for another successful Cable-Tec Expo and a job well done. Quick trivia question: When and where was the first Cable-Tec Expo held? The answer is at the end of this article.

If you missed this year’s Expo or want to take a quick peek back at the show, the Society has a photo gallery of many of the confab’s highlights at http://expo.scte.org/attendees/expo-photos/. SCTE’s show-related press releases are available on-line at www.scte.org. Click ABOUT, then scroll down and click SCTE NEWS.

A Really Big Shoe (Apologies to Ed Sullivan)

Cable-Tec Expo 2016 kicked off with three packed-to-the-rafters all-day boot camps on September 25 and 26: DOCSIS 3.1, FTTx, and Wireless Broadband. For me, the heart of technical training at Cable-Tec Expo is the technical workshops, which were held this year on each of four days. My hectic schedule left time to attend just two of the workshops — “PNM Network Maintenance Technology Advances” and “Beyond DOCSIS 3.1: FDX and More” — both of which were top-notch.

By the way, if you were looking for the Expo proceedings on a USB thumb drive in your show bag, there wasn’t one. After digging through my bag, I figured someone forgot to put it in or perhaps I lost it. I made my way back to the registration and badge pickup area to inquire about the USB drive, only to be told that the proceedings for Expo 2016 are on-line. A link to the proceedings was included in the registration confirmation e-mail from SCTE/ISBE HQ (I blame low caffeine levels when I missed that link in the e-mail — that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it). Memo to SCTE/ISBE: Please bring back the proceedings on a USB drive next year.

That same hectic schedule (think almost non-stop meetings) unfortunately didn’t allow me enough time to see all of the exhibit hall, either. During the time I did have to spend in the exhibit hall, most booths were busy, the aisles crowded, and several of the vendors with whom I spoke were excited about the quality of the floor traffic. One thing I wanted to check was availability of DOCSIS 3.1 test equipment for field personnel.

The good news, especially for operators planning to conduct plant characterization tests or even deploy DOCSIS 3.1 technology, is that all of the major cable test equipment vendors now have available handheld instruments that use the latest silicon for full DOCSIS 3.1 functionality.

This year’s general session featured several industry leaders — Comcast’s Tony Werner (who was re-elected chairman of the SCTE/ISBE Board of Directors); Shaw Communications’ Zoran Stakic (and chair of the 2016 Cable-Tec Expo Program Committee); Nokia Bell Labs’ Marcus Weldon; Liberty Global’s Balan Nair; Charter’s Jim Blackley; and ARRIS’s Bob Stanzione — who discussed virtualization, advanced consumer technologies, and other topics impacting the future of the cable industry.

Amid the excitement of this year’s Expo was the bittersweet news from NCTA that after 65 years, the organization is canceling its annual flagship event, INTX, formerly known as the Cable Show (and before that, the National Show). My first National Show was more than three decades ago, when I presented a paper on the effects of single-ended, push-pull, and feedforward amplifier technology on digital signals. I have many fond memories from NCTA’s annual shows, and will miss them.

Recognizing the Top Achievers

The Society recognizes its best and brightest at Expo each year. During the annual awards luncheon, Theresa Hennesy, senior VP, group technical advisor of Comcast, was presented the Women in Technology Award. Yours truly received the Excellence in Standards Award. Three industry veterans were inducted into the Society’s Hall of Fame: Bob Foote, Steve Richey, and Cathy Wilson (yes, that Cathy Wilson). Foote is Assistant VP, sales, MSO markets, with KGP Logistics, in Ipswich, Mass. He has been a member of the Society since 1989 and is a 31-year industry veteran. Richey, president and CEO of 4Cable TV in Conway, S.C., has been a Society member since 2003 and is a 53-year industry veteran. Wilson, founder and publisher of Broadband Library, is a 37-year industry veteran and has been a Society member since 1999. The awards luncheon culminated with the announcement of the prestigious Member of the Year award, which was presented to a very surprised and humbled Bill Spies, senior manager of construction with Charter Communications in Cincinnati.

Other awards were presented at several venues during Expo. Sam Khola of Liberty Global received the Energy 2020 Award; Tony Werner presented the Chairman’s Award to two groups of individuals for their support of the Society over the past year: the Chapter Support Committee, chaired by Steve Williams, and the Learning & Development Committee, chaired by Andy Parrott. The Excellence in Learning and Development Award was presented to PCT International’s Doug MacLeod and CATV Training Institute’s Franklin Snider. GigaRed S.A.’s Juan Ramon Garcia Bish received the International Engineering Professional Award. Tom Gorman and Andrew Staniak were elevated to Senior Member status in the Society.

Networking and More

Cable-Tec Expo provides an opportunity to network with industry friends and colleagues. In addition to the annual general membership meeting and member appreciation reception, some of the networking events I attended include the Cable TV Pioneers’ reception, chairmen’s reception, ham radio operators’ reception (I’ve been emceeing the latter since the late ’80s), Expo Evening (a fun time held at Xfinity Live!), Loyal Order of the 704, and the chapter leadership breakfast.
Expo also hosts a couple very popular competitive events: the annual IP Challenge, won this year by Cable ONE’s Alexander Morong, and the SCTE/ISBE International Cable-Tec Games, with Charter’s Greg Babinski taking the crown. Babinski has won this title three times in nine years: in 2008, 2014, and 2016.

Odds & Ends

• SCTE/ISBE President and CEO Mark Dzuban unfortunately missed Expo this year. He was sidelined by a medical procedure, but was able to remotely keep up to date.

• As attendees entered the exhibit hall, they were greeted by “Innovation Avenue,” which led to Innovation Theater near the center of the show floor. Several presentations were held in the 200-seat Theater throughout Expo.

• Flanking the beginning of Innovation Avenue were SCTE/ISBE Central (for all members), a special “recharge” lounge for Executive Members, the Energy 2020 lab (and a kiosk for the Energy 2020 tour), plus the Power Café.

• During the annual membership meeting, it was announced that SCTE/ISBE membership reached an all-time high of 25,194 as of June. Wow!

• For many attendees, Cable-Tec Expo makes for a very busy several days. Perhaps the easiest way to manage one’s schedule is to download and use the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo mobile app, available for both Android and Apple platforms. Yes, there’s an app for that, and there has been for the past couple years or so. I downloaded the app for my iPhone in 2015 and again this year. Definitely a nice way to keep track of the goings-on. Look for the app again next year.

• One of the most exciting announcements at Expo was SCTE/ISBE’s introduction of the Cortex Expert Development System (www.scte.org/cortex), and the Cortex Mobile App (search for ‘SCTE/ISBE CORTEX’ in the App Store® or Google Play!). Definitely worth a look!

See You Next Year

The first Expo? It took place in Dallas, Texas May 5-8, 1983. I’ve talked to several individuals over the years who thought the first one was in Nashville, which was actually home to the second Cable-Tec Expo held March 4-7, 1984. What about next year’s get-together? Mark your calendar: 2017’s Cable-Tec Expo will be in Denver, Colorado, October 17-20.

Ron Hranac
Technical Leader, Cisco Systems

Ron Hranac, a 44-year veteran of the cable industry, is Technical Leader for Cisco’s Cable Access Business Unit. A Fellow Member of SCTE, Ron was inducted into the Society’s Hall of Fame in 2010, is a co-recipient of the Chairman’s Award, an SCTE Member of the Year, and is a member of the Cable TV Pioneers Class of ’97. He received the Society’s Excellence in Standards award at Cable-Tec Expo 2016. He has published hundreds of articles and papers, and has been a speaker at numerous international, national, regional, and local conferences and seminars.