The SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo wrapped up late last month, but Huawei put out a ICYMI last week to note that it showed off a DOCSIS-based prototype that pumped out a 25 Gigabit per second downstream by raising the usable spectrum to 3GHz

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo: Attendance Surges Past 10,000

25 Gbps is more than two times the current capacity target of DOCSIS 3.1. Meanwhile, today’s 32-channel DOCSIS 3.0 technology can get within shouting distance of 1.2 Gbps using 6MHz-wide DOCSIS channels.

Huawei noted that its DOCSIS 3.1 prototype supports a maximum downstream rate of 25 Gbps, and a symmetrical rate in the range could likewise be achieved with emerging Full Duplex DOCSIS technology.

Cable-Tec Expo: ‘Full Duplex’ DOCSIS Speeds Ahead

Of course, building out to 3 GHz is something that’s well out on the horizon, if it’s to happen at all. Notably, Vyyo/Javelin Innovations, a now-defunct startup that was once pitched a 3GHz overlay platform, envisioned a day when cable operators would need to raise the spectrum roof to handle increasing demands for bandwidth. At one point, Cox Communications put in orders for 3-GHz passive equipment from Vyyo (with an eye toward business services, but never activated spectrum up in those regions), and StarHub of Singapore once gave the vendor’s spectrum-boosting technology a serious look as a way to enable 1-Gig services.

RELATED: Vyyo Bids for Singapore Broadband Project

In a recent roundtable with Multichannel News (subscription required), Kevin Hart, EVP and CTO of Cox, which already is built out to 1.2 GHz, doesn’t see spectrum expansion in its near-term future.

“I think in the near-term we’re in good shape without having to widen,” Hart said. “It’s something we’re always evaluating and reviewing. If you’re going to be making some enhancements to the network, it makes good sense to try to future-proof it, but probably not here in the near term on that particular component.”

But Huawei’s 25-gig prototype merely scratches the surface on what kind of speeds engineers believe are theoretically possible over HFC.

Last fall, Arris engineers presented ideas that envision 50 Gbps or more on HFC. But like Huawei’s approach, that would require tapping into spectrum well above 1GHz – perhaps up to 25 GHz to support up to 200 Gbps.

SCTE/ISBE announced the creation of an Internet of Things Working Group within the organization’s standards group, noting that the aim of it is to position cable as a “pivotal delivery channel” for IoT-facing technologies, products and services.

Chris Cholas, gateway solutions architect for Intel and a former engineering exec with Harmonic and Time Warner Cable, has been appointed chair by the SCTE/ISBE Standards Engineering Committee, which approved the creation of the new IoT working group at last month’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

SCTE/ISBE said the new working group focus on what’s unique and advantageous about delivering IoT services over cable networks.

“Even as it opens the door to new business opportunities, the massive number of Internet of Things devices that are being connected to our networks present unique reliability and security requirements,” Chris Bastian, senior vice president and CTO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement.  “Our new IoT working group is intended to bring together network operators and vendors to determine how best to standardize and operationalize these new services.” 

5G, the emerging next-gen mobile standard, aims to deliver fiber-like speeds through the air while also lending valuable support to the exploding Internet of Things marketplace as well as extremely low-latency capabilities that will be required for some new (and sometimes crazy-sounding) applications like self-driving cars.

For the cable industry, 5G poses both a threat and opportunity. While some competitive providers will be able to leverage 5G as way to deliver high-octane broadband to the home, cable operators will also have an opportunity to use it in much the same way. Plus, those big wireless connections will also need a beefy wireline connection to backhaul that traffic – something that MSOs already supply in spades to wireless carriers.

A 5G study from IHS recently took a look at potential use-cases for the technology and 79% of operators surveyed put IoT at the top, up from 55% in the firm’s 2015 study. Those operators also viewed ultra-low latency as 5G’s toughest technology challenge.

RELATED: Wheeler Puts Pedal to 5G Metal

5G “is a significant advancement in mobile connectivity,” Gordon Castle, head of industry area Mediacom, group function technology at Ericsson, said. Its applications run the gamut, from low-powered sensors for IoT, meters, to high-bandwidth service.

How high? He said a 5G demo at this year’s Mobile World Congress showed it pumping out 25 Gbps at given moments. 

While that’s a look at burst speeds, the general target is about 1 Gbps per user, Ulf Wahlberg, VP, industry and research relations, group function technology, at Ericsson, said, calling it a “huge leap from 4G.”

Cable operators, meanwhile, have made WiFi a key part of their high-speed Internet strategies, and some will be looking to expand their coverage beyond fixed locations. “And 5G could be part of that,” Castle said.

RELATED: Verizon Eyes ‘Wireless Fiber’ Launch in 2017

While pre-standard 5G has been powering recent demos and trials, commercial, standards-based offerings are still about four years out, according to most estimates.

And while 5G represents a new radio technology that promises gigabit-level speeds, it really can’t exist without being paired to a solid fixed-wired network.

“The only way to do that is to bring the cells in to about 200 yards, 500 yards, but…there's not enough spectrum to backhaul it,” Charles Cheevers, chief technology of consumer premises equipment at Arris, said. “You're going to have to go to ground very quickly with 5G small cells.”

He said those backhaul partnerships will be “critical,” noting that “the marriage of wired and wireless is starting to pick up again with 5G networks.”

And whether it’s Google Fiber, a mobile operator like Verizon or a cable operator, 5G could be an economically attractive way to serve a new subdivision without having to run wirelines into it.

Operators in that group could circumvent having to connect a wireline to the last 150 yards of a subscriber in a neighborhood, Cheevers said.

“The cable industry can leverage [5G] to augment their chest of tools and find the best way to deliver the best services to their customers,” agreed Belal Hamzeh, VP of wireless technology at CableLabs. “It offers the cable industry opportunities on both ends -- either as a front haul to deliver service or as backhaul that leverages the existing infrastructure.”

PHILADELPHIA — The old axiom that the only constant is change was in play at last week’s annual SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo, as operators keyed on new technologies and platforms that will drive the industry forward in the years ahead.

And many of those discussions and new products aren’t emerging just to help technology take a leap forward for technology’s sake, but because MSOs will need them to keep their future business models from breaking.

With that as the backdrop, workshops, panels and keynotes spanned cable’s engineering gamut, but there was a particular emphasis this year around areas such as network virtualization and distributed access architectures, multiyear power savings and reduction initiatives, as well as next-generation, speedy platforms like DOCSIS3.1, and a new annex for D3.1 in the works called Full- Duplex DOCSIS.

THE FUTURE WILL BE VIRTUALIZED

The industry’s shift to distributed and virtualized networks is one that is not just filling a technology gap, but one that apparently will be necessary from a business perspective as MSOs are required to tack on capacity to keep up with the bandwidth demands of consumers and business customers alike.

An opening session panel featuring top industry engineering executives offered some hard truths on why distributed architectures and the virtualization of network functions have rapidly moved to the forefront of cable’s tech agenda.

Boiled down: Older, legacy models, driven by purpose-built hardware, simply won’t work anymore.

There’s a huge “disconnect” between the data that people are consuming and what cable operators must spend to keep up with that demand, Balan Nair, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Liberty Global, said in a wide-ranging panel session that was moderated by Bob Stanzione, executive chairman and board chairman of Arris.

In terms of network capacity planning, Liberty Global is already allocating enough bandwidth to deliver an average of about 1 Mbps per sub. With annual capacity growth in the range of 30% to 40% per year, it won’t be long before that hits 2 Mbps per subscriber.

For Liberty Global, that would equate to about 25 8-MHz-wide channels, or “like half of our whole plant,” Nair said. This trend causes MSOs to keep “feeding this beast” with capital just to expand capacity to stay ahead, he said.

“That’s a problem for all of us,” he said. “That’s not sustainable.” And it doesn’t add up with a business that grows revenue at 4% to 5% per year. “Eventually, it breaks,” Nair said. “The math will never work.”

The historic practice of buying specialized devices from traditional suppliers that cost a lot to build and buy won’t work anymore. “That model has to change,” Nair said.

The shift is toward cheap, commodity hardware running on very specialized software.

“So, we’re going to ask our vendors to think about the software and to run it on some cheap hardware because, at the current rate, it’s not sustainable,” he said.

Vendors appear to have gotten that message loud and clear. Last week, Nokia, Casa Systems and Harmonic all announced virtualized versions of Converged Cable Access Platforms that can work in tandem with distributed architectures that move away from traditional monolithic access devices.

Fellow panelist Jim Blackley, executive vice president of engineering and IT at Charter Communications, called Nair’s characterization of the situation “spot on and accurate.”

He added that, when it comes to capital, “you can’t spend it everywhere. … You can’t spend it in the home and spend it in the network and spend it on content and all of the other things we need to deal with.”

It’s also important to think about virtualizing the functions of the consumer premisesequipment (CPE) and move the compute, storage, encryption, and packaging into cloud-based centralized systems, he said.

Charter is moving in that direction with ActiveVideo (a vendor it owns as part of a joint venture with Arris). Virtualizing the CPE means “you can put out devices that will last longer,” Blackley said. “The reality of our business is, the day you [deploy] something, it’s legacy.”

He said Charter is a “huge fan” of network virtualization and separating out the MAC and PHY elements.

Zoran Stakic, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Shaw Communications, said he’s also keying on these trends and listening to partners on “how the future is going to land.”

But when it comes to a move toward virtualization, “the starting point becomes remote PHY,” he said. “The old model is not sustainable. It’s not a choice really, anymore.”

Nair said the migration to software-driven models is one of his top worries. “It requires a skill-set change in all of our businesses,” he said. “The change is not just the skill sets in our employee base, but the skill sets of our vendor base as well.”

Vendors, meanwhile, prefer to innovate on their own platforms. The interests of the two sides might not match up, and that could become a source of tension.

Nair thinks it’s best to solve that problem, “or else you’re going to see more and more operators building their own stuff, and that won’t be very good for the industry.”

The industry is starting to see MSOs exert influence on products and product road maps in other creative ways. Last week, Harmonic joined a growing group of vendors to ink warrant agreements with Comcast that give the MSO an opportunity to buy shares in those suppliers based on product sales and deployment milestones.

The warrants agreement is based on specific sales to Comcast and other “deployment milestones” involving products such as Harmonic’s new CableOS virtual CCAP platform.

Comcast has similar warrants deals with key suppliers such as Arris and Universal Electronics, a key supplier for Comcast’s voice remote for the X1 platform.

FILLING NEED FOR MORE SPEED

The panel also focused on the turn toward Gigabit-level billboard broadband speeds — something that is seemingly morphing into an option cable operators must make available for consumers, whether the vast majority of them actually need it.

Still, Nair doesn’t see 1-Gig going “mainstream” until 2018 or 2019. By that, he means it won’t become a “bullseye” product for Liberty Global that is backed heavily by marketing and promotion. Today, that’s relegated to the operator’s 250-Mbps product, he said.

“We’re looking at increasing it,” Nair said, noting that MSOs have the luxury to press two levers with broadband — price and speed — while competitors with less robust networks can only fiddle with price. “Speed wins.”

Blackley said Charter is already getting positioned for the 1-Gig future. Its all-digital migration is freeing up capacity and Charter is also plunging fiber deeper into the network.

He added, “It’s not just about speeds; it’s about latency, and it’s not just about inhome; it’s out of home.”

Blackley hesitated to say when consumers will actually need 1-Gig speeds, but said he won’t be surprised to see it happen eventually. “Like your garage, if you build it, it will get filled,” he said.

Stakic, meanwhile, warned against “irrational behaviors” occurring in the United States, largely “triggered by Google,” that might cause MSOs to rush prematurely to 1-Gig.

He questioned if adoption rates will be high enough to justify the returns, noting that there aren’t many apps now that require three-digit megabit speeds at this point, let alone 1-Gig.

DOCSIS 3.1: BELIEVE THE HYPE

The DOCSIS 3.1 era is in its early days, but the results so far indicate that the new multi-Gigabit platform for HFC networks is delivering on its promises, particularity when it comes to producing gigabit-class speeds alongside improved bandwidth-efficiency.

All 3.1-based modems have shown they can support a Gigabit-class service, initially in the downstream path, no matter the modulation profile the device is using, Jorge Salinger, vice president of access architecture at Comcast, explained during a workshop that offered a status report on DOCSIS 3.1’s deployment progress.

As a quick recap, DOCSIS 3.1 is designed to be 50% more bandwidth efficient (from a bits-per-hertz-per-second perspective) than DOCSIS 3.0 via the use of blocks of tiny OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) subcarriers in tandem with an improved forward error correction scheme called Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC).

Comcast now has “hundreds” of customers online with DOCSIS 3.1 in markets such as Nashville, Chicago and Atlanta, where Comcast is conducting advanced market trials-of the technology, he said.

Those initial, solid performance results are important, because DOCSIS 3.1 modems and cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) can dynamically tap into multiple “modulation profiles” (up to 4086 QAM) depending on the condition of the spectrum they’re using. The use of OFDM subcarriers for DOCSIS 3.1 enables operators to shift to different modulation profiles depending on the signal-to-noise ratio that’s present in the spectrum.

Operators will be able to set up multiple profiles that can be adjusted “multiple times per day” as new automated tools to manage them enter the market, Salinger said, noting that 3.1 modems are set up for five modulation profiles (four, plus one for testing), while CMTSs can handle 16 modulation profiles per downstream per service group.

Midco has also seen promising results from its early D3.1 trial work in Fargo, N.D., the first of many as the MSO looks to offer gigabit speeds to all subscribers by the end of 2017.

DOCSIS 3.1 “worked well in the lab, it worked well in the field,” Jason Miller, technical marketing engineer at Cisco Systems, which has been working with Midco on the trial, said.

In the Fargo trial, Midco used a 144-MHz block of OFDM combined with eight DOCSIS 3.0 single-carrier QAM channels and produced sustained downstream speeds of about 1.57 Gbps.

Jay Rolls, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Charter Communications and session moderator, wondered if operators would need a legion of gurus to operationalize DOCSIS 3.1, which is still a relatively new technology for the industry.

Salinger stressed that MSOs will need to adjust their operations for DOCSIS 3.1, particularly in areas such as installation and maintenance.

He also acknowledged that setting up multiple modulation profiles is a “daunting task,” noting that it takes time — sometimes a week — to do that by hand, “and we’re good at it.”

However, he said, tools are being created to automate that process on a continual basis, and he expects them to be ready for deployment this quarter.

Further out on the horizon is Full Duplex, a coming annex to DOCSIS 3.1 that will create a “dual use” band that will help cable operators deliver multi-Gigabit symmetrical speeds. Under the current spectrum model, spectrum for the upstream and downstream are split; Full Duplex will allow upstream and downstream traffic to travel in the same block of spectrum.

CableLabs announced that project, called “Full Duplex” (FDX) DOCSIS, in February. If all goes to plan, FDX is poised to become an extension to the DOCSIS 3.1 specs sometime next year, Belal Hamzeh, vice president of wireless technology at CableLabs, said in a recent interview.

There’s an expectation that existing DOCSIS 3.0 bands will not overlap with the FDX band, but those implementations will vary from one operator to another and perhaps even within the same operator, Hamzeh said.

Tom Cloonan, chief technology of network solutions at Arris, said spectrum allocation for an eventual migration to FDX is still an active discussion among MSOs and vendors.

However, a possible deployment scenario could see an MSO set aside a band for the legacy DOCSISupstream (at 5-85 MHz or 5-100 MHz), another band for the legacy downstream (perhaps at 700 MHz to 1.2 GHz), with a band sandwiched in the middle (say, 100 MHz to 700 MHz) that’s dedicated to the FDX operation.

“There might be some variations there, but at a high level, that’s the kind of spectrum some people are talking about,” Cloonan said, noting that FDX could be initially targeted to plant that has already deployed N+0 along with a move to remote/distributed architectures that move the PHY or the MAC and PHY closer to the edge.

Though the specs for FDX are still in f lux, Cloonan said there’s some optimism that the technology could be ready by as early as 2018, but sees 2019 as the year when it sees its true heyday.

“There’s a force-function to make it happen quickly,” he said. “At a very high level, there’s an awful lot of interest in Full-Duplex DOCSIS among the MSO community.”

Cisco Systems is also placing bets on FDX. Last month, Cisco introduced a silicon reference design for Full-Duplex DOCSIS alongside a pledge to contribute the design on a royalty-free basis to the cable industry to accelerate the speed of the technology’s development and eventual deployment.

Nokia, meanwhile, has also been keeping its fingers on the pulse of FDX. It demonstrated a prototype of the concept, calling it “XG-CABLE,” in May at the INTX show in Boston.

Denver On Deck

Cable-Tec Expo 2017 is set to run Oct. 17-20 in Denver, and carry the theme, “The Big Deal,” with a focus on new technologies that can power next-gen services.

SCTE/ISBE has tapped Terry Cordova, executive vice president and chief technology officer of AlticeUSA, and Charter’s Jim Blackley to co-chair the program committee for next year’s show.

SIDEBAR: Werner Calls for Industry Innovation, Collaboration

PHILADELPHIA — Calling 2016 a “foundational year” for the industry, 2017 is poised to be the year of “innovation and collaboration,” Tony Werner, president, technology and product for Comcast Cable, said in opening remarks at the show.

On the foundational side, he noted examples such as the closing of the Charter Communications- Time Warner Cable merger, with Charter now pushing ahead with a cohesive technology and service plan that covers the combined company’s new, broader footprint.

“I think the industry has got a very solid year under [its] belt,” Werner said, pointing to cable’s continued broadband growth, with accelerated rollouts of multi-Gigabit DOCSIS 3.1 technology on the horizon.

2017 is “the year that we can seize as an industry,” added Werner, who last week was re-elected as chairman of the SCTE/ISBE board for the 2016-2017 term. “The wind is at our back as we go into 2017, and I think it’s the time for us to really capitalize as an industry and as a society. … The industry has gotten knocked a few years back that we couldn’t innovate. I think we’re showing everyone that’s not true.”

Reiterating next year’s anticipated theme for MSOs, Werner said the industry’s “secret weapon” is its ability to work together.

“We collaborate, we work across,” he said. “We are not competitors, at present … It allows us to punch above our weight, which I think is so absolutely critical.”

He also presented what he said are key ingredients for the industry’s future success.

Chief among them, again, was collaboration, with Werner giving some credit to X1, Comcast’s cloud-based platform, which relies on agile and DevOps models, attracting top engineering talent and creating a culture and environment “where people like to show up and work…and build great products on top of powerful platforms.”

And Comcast is collaborating outside of its ecosystem, Werner reminded the crowd, pointing to syndication deals it has with Cox Communications and Shaw Communications.

“The collaboration back and forth [with those partners] is powerful,” Werner said.

— Jeff Baumgartner

SIDEBAR: Energy2020 in ‘Show Me the Money’ Phase

PHILADELPHIA — The Energy2020 community met on Tuesday at Cable- Tec Expo for its third annual progress report, saying that in “show me the money” terms, the initiative is working. But with only three years or so until the “2020” part of Energy2020, there’s still a ton to do.

“What the SCTE has done with Energy2020 is extremely critical,” said Balan Nair, CTO of Liberty Global and a co-founder of the program. “If we can hit the goals stated, it will make a huge difference — to us, to our management teams, to our customers.”

The initiative’s four stated goals: To reduce power consumption by 20% (on a per unit basis), cut energy costs by 25% (also on a per unit basis), optimize tech facilities and data centers by 20%, and reduce grid dependency by 10%. All of that, by 2020.

“We’re the engineers … and like any good engineer, you don’t build something for waste,” Nair said.

So far, the savings are small, but poised to grow. Dan Cooper, chair of the SCTE’s Sustainability Management Subcommittee, noted $12.5 million in energy savings since last year, ”which, compared to what we all spend on energy, isn’t a big number, but it’s a start.”

Cooper highlighted two new Charter-initiated efforts since the last E2020 update, both solar: A partnership with two utility companies in upstate New York to provide 12 Megawatts of renewable energy, estimated to save $5-plus million over the life of the project, and a new national data center in Charlotte, N.C., where the use of solar energy will offset 10% of annual energy costs.

“The key is that it’s not always capital intensive to move the bar” on energy efficiency, he said.

Sam Khola, senior manager of sustainability for Liberty Global, and the recipient of this year’s Energy2020 award, noted that energy costs are “already colossal, and they’re not staying level — year over year, they grow.” That’s what prompted Liberty’s work with Phase Changing Materials (PCMs) — a sort of thermal battery that works by capturing and storing a structure’s heat (in this case, hub sites) during the day, then discharging it at night.

“When we talked here last year, it was a tiny implementation in one of the 14 countries we serve,” Khola said. But after Liberty saw a 33% reduction in TCO, and a 43% improvement in energy efficiency, an expansion plan was evident. “The plan is to expand both geographically [beyond the Netherlands, to Ireland and the U.K.], and technologically,” Khola said.

Comcast, which typically experiences 4% growth in annual energy costs, kicked off an overhaul of its utility bill management and energy procurement processes, said Daniel Marut, director of national sustainability. “With over 200,000 utility accounts, it can be a little overwhelming for an accounts payable team, whose role is to pay the bill,” he said.

That’s what prompted a systematic way of auditing outside plant, to get an accurate count of power supplies, to start. “The idea is to systemically eliminate costs that are incurred by just basic mistakes in utility bill processing,” Marut said.

— Leslie Ellis

Like the DVR before it, WiFi is rapidly become a component of a cable operators’ whole-home product set.

Thanks to the Internet of Things alongside the proliferation of tablets, laptops, video streamers, smartphones and gaming consoles hanging off the home network, and the demands of over-the-top video and other bandwidth-eating apps, simply installing one primary WiFi access point is not enough to carry the load. The shift is toward smart, mesh-based, multi-AP setups that provide a quality wireless connection to all corners of the customer’s home.

About 47 million connected home devices shipped globally in 2015, a number that will explode to 477 million in 2020, according to a forecast from IHS..

“The idea of having a single volcano, a single WiFi access point, is starting to reach its end,” Charles Cheevers, chief technology of consumer premises equipment at Arris, said.  

“We’ve been preaching the fact that multiple, coordinated access points is an effective way to tackle this problem,” Philippe Alcaras, CEO of AirTies, added. “Coordinated access points and mesh [architectures] solve this problem. We’ve been preaching in the dark for a while now and see some other companies doing that quite successfully, in retail mostly.”

Indeed, companies like eero, which cut its teeth on a retail model for its whole-home WiFi products, are now pushing forward with product strategies focused on the service provider market. 

“Our key premise is that if you are going to have great coverage in your home, you have to have multiple access points. There's just no way around that,” Nick Weaver, eero’s CEO, said, noting that his company is making some “pretty big investments” in its new ISP-focused business strategy.  Of recent note, eero has hired Matt Packard, late of TiVo and SeaChange International, as head of operator sales and business development, with a focus on cable, satellite and telco providers.

“The ISP vertical and the MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] vertical are critical because they drive a lot of unit volume,” Weaver said. “For us, it’s important that we tap into this market…We've had quite a bit of contact across a whole range of potential partners.”

And operators appear to be getting the message that they need to be doing more.

Midco, Frontier Communications and Sky in the U.K. (for its next-gen SkyQ whole-home video offering) are examples of partners that are using AirTies’s WiFi APs and associated software to deliver whole-home WiFi service and product options.

In addition to filling gaps and applying a halo effect on their cable modem service, these offerings can also carve out a new revenue stream.

Midco, for example, is using AirTies gear for a whole-home offering that runs $7.95 per month, a price that includes up to three devices, with extras running an additional $2 per month.

Making that kind of offering available on top of the MSO’s broadband service is now a differentiator for some ISPs, but it’s rapidly becoming table stakes as consumers demand more from their providers than a quality high-speed connection.

“We realized that the customer’s perception of their home network is very important, because that reflects on our network,” Jon Pederson, chief technology officer of Midco, said. “We decided to take that extra step over the threshold and really help them [our customers] out in that regard.”

RELATED: Frontier, AirTies Make Home WiFi Connection

Midco launched that offering initially in Sioux Falls, S.D., and has been ratcheting up the marketing behind it ever since. The results have been “more positive than we expected,” Brian Oyen, Midco’s senior manager of operations support, said.

“It’s not just a matter of numbers that’s been positive,” Pederson added. “It’s also been about customer perception among those that have it.”

And whole-home WiFi is not just about the strategic placement of access points. Vendors are also pairing that with smart, software-based systems.

In the case of AirTies, it’s mesh platform and APs work together to steer signals and the mobile devices on the home network to the nearest access point, and collects anonymous data that helps its system understand, measure – and fix --the behavior of the devices in the home.

“It needs to be managed and it needs to be monitored all the time,” Alcaras said, citing data showing that 20% to 30% of calls into operators about broadband are WiFi-related.

In addition to selling products directly to MVPDs and ISPs, AirTies also has a licensing program that gives those partners the ability to sub-license AirTies technology to their broadband gateway vendors.

RELATED: Sky Meshes With Whole-Home Video

“For any operator that is serious about whole home WiFi…needs to have the technology embedded in the gateway,” he said.

Eero, meanwhile, pairs its in-home devices with a cloud controller that monitors how the network is performing and sends out occasional software updates to its devices in the field.

“It’s kind of like your admin in the sky,” Weaver said. “But at no point are we looking at where people are going on the Internet. It’s about gathering anonymous diagnostic data that can be used to improve the product.”

Cheevers agrees that managed systems, such as those that could operate on the company’s own Arris Home Network Controller  and ECO management system, offer a better solution than so-called WiFi “repeaters” that some consumers use today.

“They’re loved, but they’re also hated,” Cheevers said of those WiFi repeaters. While they can provide some extra signal strength to the bedroom, they are woefully inefficient because they chew up valuable bandwidth to send and receive.

And that becomes an issue as more video travels the home network, and as consumers continue to gravitate to heavy duty 4K video.

Arris has been expanding its whole-home systems for MSO partners, but has also been focused on it at retail with the recent launch of a line of ‘SURFboard’-branded routers and extenders that uses WiFi in tandem with a wired backbone that relies on powerline-based G.hn technology.

Cheevers also views new 2.5 version of the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) platform, which enables up to 2.5 Gbps over in-home coaxial networks, as a platform that is well-suited as a wired, in-home backbone to enable whole-home coverage.

And those solid whole-home wireless/wired hybrids will also become increasingly important as MSOs start to focus more heavily on wireless set-tops.

“The last thing you want as an operator is a WiFi set-top with marginal performance,” Cheevers said. “That has to be pretty bulletproof.” 

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

SCTE/ISBE said attendance at this week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia surged past that 10,000 mark, noting that the rise was up roughly 21% from the 8,600 who joined the 2015 confab in New Orleans.

The organization said international attendance hit more than 1,300, a 14% increase over 2015., and had a show floor with nearly 400 exhibitors, including 62 that were new to the event. SCTE/ISBE said the event attracted nearly 130 first-time exhibitors over the past two years.

Notably, Cable-Tec Expo announced the rise in attendance the day after NCTA announced that it was “sunsetting” its annual show, INTX.

“Our experience this week underscores a primary reason for the robustness and relevance of Expo: the telecommunications community requires a crossroads that connects technology partners, operators and the cable workforce with the innovations and the educational resources that are powering the future of the industry,” said Chris Bastian, senior vice president and CTO of SCTE/ISBE, in a statement.

SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2017 is set for Oct. 17-20 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.  Terry Cordova, executive vice president and CTO of Altice USA, and Charter’s Blackley will serve as Program Committee co-chairs for the 2017 event.

DOCSIS 3.1 is already gunning for multi-gigabit speeds over HFC networks but a new project that will bring data symmetry to that platform and likely prolong the need to pull fiber all the way to the home, appears to be making swift progress.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

CableLabs announced that project, called “Full Duplex” (FDX) DOCSIS, in February 2016, and it’s going to be a hot topic at this week’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo 2016: The Hot List

Rather than requiring a cable system to separate spectrum dedicated to the downstream and the upstream with a traditional “split,” FDX will enable “dual-use” bands for traffic that runs in both directions. FDX will also require an N+0, passive network, which fits in with the plans of some operators to pull fiber deeper and remove the active amplifiers present between the node and the home.

Following an initial feasibility/evaluation phase, the FDX project has since transitioned to the R&D and spec-writing phase. In August, CableLabs kicked off face-to-face meetings for the working groups and, if all goes to plan, is poised to become an extension to the DOCSIS 3.1 specs sometime in 2017, according to Belal Hamzeh, vice president of wireless technology at CableLabs.

FDX is an “evolution” of the current D3.1 specification, he said, noting that there will need to be some hardware modifications to existing gear. Whether that’s at the silicon or board level will be up to the specific implementations of the vendors.  

There’s an expectation that existing DOCSIS 3.0 bands will not overlap with the FDX band, but those implementations will vary from one operator to another and perhaps even within the same operator, Hamzeh said.

Tom Cloonan, chief technology of network solutions at Arris, said spectrum allocation for an eventual migration to FDX is still an active discussion among MSOs and vendors.

However, a possible deployment scenario could see an MSO set aside a band for the legacy DOCSIS upstream (at 5-85 MHz or 5-100 MHz), another band for the legacy downstream (perhaps at 700 MHz to 1.2 GHz), with a band sandwiched in the middle (say, 100 MHz to 700 MHz) that’s dedicated to the FDX operation.

“There might be some variations there, but at a high level, that's the kind of spectrum some people are talking about,” Cloonan said, noting that FDX could be initially targeted to plant that has already deployed N+0 along with a move to remote/distributed architectures that move the PHY or the MAC and PHY closer to the edge.

Though the specs for FDX are still in flux, Cloonan said there’s some optimism that the technology could be ready by as early as 2018, but sees 2019 as the year when it sees its true heyday.

“There’s a force-function to make it happen quickly,” he said. “A very high level, there's an awful lot of interest in Full Duplex DOCSIS among the MSO community.”

Comcast is among the MSOs that’s shown interest in FDX.

“With Full Duplex, we’re witnessing the emergence of yet another powerful tool for delivering leading-edge speed and performance to Internet customers,” Dr. Robert Howald, vice president, network architectures at Comcast, said in a statement to Multichannel News. “We take an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach when it comes to providing choice to our Internet customers.”

Comcast has already launched D3.1-powered gigabit services in Atlanta, Nashville and Chicago, with Miami and Detroit among those that are already on deck.

“Full duplex is also an impressive reminder of both the flexibility and power of the Hybrid Fiber Coaxial model, and of the tremendous innovation that continues unchecked in HFC technology,” Howald noted. “The toolbox gets bigger and better every year, and our focus is on using those tools to deliver the best possible experiences to customers.”

FDX and a move to distributed architectures “could go hand-in-hand” as MSOs conceive their deployment strategies, Jeffrey Leung, director of product management at Casa Systems, said.

As operators go fiber-deep, “that will be potentially a perfect time to change,” he added. “In order to prepare yourself to go with these technologies, remote PHY will be a key requisite.”

Still, going with FDX or just taking that next step, and pulling fiber all the way to the home, is a point of debate.

"It becomes an interesting business case analysis that each MSO has to do individually, and the answer is likely to be different for each MSO,” Cloonan said, noting that Arris continues to make bets on both options. "We're a firm believer that DOCSIS has a long life ahead of it. We also know that PON has good life coming ahead of it as well.”

Cisco Systems is also placing bets on FDX. Last month, Cisco introduced a silicon reference design for Full Duplex DOCSIS alongside a pledge to contributing the design on a royalty-free basis to the cable industry in order to accelerate the speed of the technology’s development and eventual deployment.

Nokia, meanwhile, has also been keeping its fingers on the pulse of FDX. It demonstrated a prototype of the concept, calling it “XG-CABLE,” in May at the INTX show in Boston.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Philadelphia – The DOCSIS 3.1 era is in its early days, but the results so far indicate that the new multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks is delivering as promised when it comes to producing gigabit-class speeds alongside improved bandwidth-efficiency.

All 3.1-based modems have shown they can support a Gigabit-class service, initially in the downstream path, no matter the modulation profile that the device is using, Jorge Salinger, vice president of access architecture at Comcast, explained, adding that the MSO has plans to support a D3.1-enabled upstream further out.

RELATED: DOCSIS 3.1 In The Wild

As a quick recap, DOCSIS 3.1 is designed to be 50% more bandwidth efficient (from a bits per hertz per second perspective) than DOCSIS 3.0 via the use of blocks of tiny OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) subcarriers in tandem with an improved forward error correction scheme called Low Density Parity Check (LDPC).

Comcast now has “hundreds” of customers online with DOCSIS 3.1 in markets such as Nashville, Chicago and Atlanta, where Comcast is conducting advanced market trials of the technology, he said.

RELATED: Comcast Launches DOCSIS 3.1 Trial in Nashville

That’s important to know, because DOCSIS 3.1 modems and cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) can dynamically tap into multiple “modulation profiles” (up to 4086 QAM) depending on the condition of the spectrum they’re using. The use of tiny OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) subcarriers for DOCSIS 3.1 enables operators to shift to different modulation profiles depending on the signal-to-noise ratio that’s present in the spectrum.

Operators will be set up to set up multiple profiles that can be adjusted “multiple times per day” as new automated tools to manage them enter the market, Salinger said, noting that 3.1 modems are set up for five modulation profiles (four, plus one for testing), while CMTSs can handle 16 modulation profiles per downstream per service group.

The initial trials show that OFDM signals delivered on HFC networks are performing well, Salinger said.

As for the speeds delivered, Comcast’s initial work also showed that it can easily achieve 1 Gbps-plus speeds by aggregating traffic from 24 DOCSIS 3.0 single-carrier QAM channels (about 900 Mbps) with a 96 MHz block of DOCSIS 3.1/OFDM traffic (about 800 Mbps).

Midco has also seen promising results from its early D3.1 trial work in Fargo, N.D., the first top of many as the MSO looks to offer gigabit speeds to all subscribers by the end of 2017.

RELATED: Midco Preps for DOCSIS 3.1, Gigabit Speeds

DOCSIS 3.1 “worked well in the lab, it worked well in the field,” Jason Miller, technical marketing engineer at Cisco Systems, which has been working with Midco on the trial, said.

In the Fargo trial, Midco used a 144 MHz block of OFDM combined with eight DOCSIS 3.0 single carrier QAM channels and produced sustained downstream speeds of about 1.57 Gbps.

Jay Rolls, SVP and CTO at Charter Communications and session moderator, wondered if operators will need a legion of DOCSIS 3.1 gurus to operationalize DOCSIS 3.1.

Salinger stressed that MSOs will need to adjust their operations for DOCSIS 3.1, particularly in areas such as installation and maintenance.

Salinger acknowledged that setting up multiple modulation profiles is a “daunting task,” noting that it takes time -- sometimes a week -- to do that by hand, “and we’re good at it.”

However, he said tools are being created to automate that process on a continual basis, and expects them to be ready for deployment this quarter.

Philadelphia -- The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers/International Society of Broadband Experts honored Bill Spies with its prestigious Member of the Year Award while also ushering three into the Society’s Hall of Fame here during Wednesday's annual awards luncheon.

Spies, currently senior manager of construction with Charter Communications in Cincinnati, is also president of the Buckeye State Capital Chapter, which has demonstrated contagious exuberance in helping to make quality training and professional growth opportunities available to industry professionals,” SCTE/ISBE said.

As is the custom, Spies was unaware he was going to be honored until it was sprung on him at the luncheon. “I was completely stunned,” he said, noting later that he heeded the call when his chapter came calling for help.

Spies also had advice for other SCTE chapters that need a jolt. “Just start. Just start somewhere, and  you’ll just reap the benefits from it.”

The Society also welcomed three industry vets to its Hall of Fame: Former SCTE/ISBE board of directors chairman Bob Foote; Steve Richey and Cathy Wilson.

Foote an AVP of sales, MSO markets with KGP Logistics, has been a Society member since 1989, and a 31-year industry vet. Richey is president and CEO of 4Cable TV in Conway, S.C., and a Society member since 2003 and a 53-year industry veteran. Wilson, founder and publisher of Broadband Library, has been in the industry for 37 years, and a Society member since 1999.

“I’m very humbled and honored to accept this Hall of Fame induction,” Foote said. “I look at the other names that are on this list...and I’m a bit overwhelmed.”

Holding that he “didn’t invent anything,” Foote said he’s “like a lot of people in this room…In their own small way, [they] contributed to the world-class networks that we have today.”

“While I get the honor, much of the honor goes to all of you hardworking people out there in the field,” Richey said.

In recalling her career, Wilson said the only constant has been change. “Once upon a time there was a young, and I mean a young girl, who wanted to sell advertising in the top trade journal of cable TV [Cablevision]. Almost 40 years later, I’m still selling advertising. Not much has changed, except for the entire industry,” she said .

Ron Hranac, technical leader with Cisco Systems and a Society member since 1979, received the Excellence in Standards Award, recognized for his leadership in the ANSI-accredited SCTE/ISBE Standards Program and for his service as chairman of the program’s Network Operations Subcommittee (NOS).

He credited others for his achievement in the area of standards.  “It’s not an individual effort. It's very, very much a team effort,” he said, giving a shout out to the engineering committees and the working groups underneath the subcommittees.

Theresa Hennesy, senior vice president, group technical advisor of Comcast Cable, was formally given the Women in Technology Award, presented by SCTE/ISBE, WICT, and Cablefax. Hennesy, a 30-year vet of the communications industry, has been a driving force behind Comcast’s engagement with the SCTE/ISBE Energy2020 program.

In addition to thanking the organizations behind the award and colleagues at Comcast, she also extended a special word to her family. “They've always been my greatest supporters...without their guidance, love and influence, I would not be who I am today.”  

SCTE/ISBE also bestowed the following awards and recognitions:

-Sam Khola of Liberty Global received the Energy 2020 Award.

-SCTE/ISBE Board of Directors Chairman Tony Werner of Comcast Cable presented his Chairman’s Award to two groups of individuals for their exemplary 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 went to Douglas MacLeod, director of technical services, PCT International, and Franklin Snider, CEO, CATV Training Institute.

- Former SCTE/ISBE Board of Directors Chairman Tom Gorman, president, opXL LLC, and Andrew F. Staniak, vice president and CTO, 4Cable TV, joined the Society’s Senior Member ranks.

-SCTE/ISBE said Juan Ramon Garcia Bish, an engineer with GigaRed S.A., will receive the International Engineering Professional Award at Thursday morning’s International Attendee Breakfast. 

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PHILADELPHIA -- As cable operators go deeper into wireless and WiFi offerings, hackers and cyber criminals pose a constant and growing threat, according to two security experts at Cable-Tec Expo.

By 2020, the average consumer will interact with 26 wireless devices in an average home, said Chris Kocks, director of the Internet of Things practice at Pure Integration, during a Wednesday session. Indeed, many homes, with security, light and doors controlled by WiFi commands, already exceed that number.

And many MSOs are staking out wireless strategies to deploy a WiFi-first network supplemented by a mobile network operator.

The vulnerabilities of a wireless system can be magnified when integrated with the cloud and multiple users. Executives are concerned about insecure interfaces, insufficient authentication and lack of transport encryption just a name a few.

“Wireless security is tough,” said Kocks. “It’s hard because there are a lot of different technologies, a lot of different platforms, a lot of different a lot of different moving parts.”

In WiFi-first applications that integrate with multiple devices, carriers and cells, each of the hand-offs represents a potential threat, said Ram Sridharan, CTO of Applications, Analytics & Cloud for the MSO segment for Nokia.

Sridharan said that security and access management “spans physical and virtual networks,” a reference to the increasing dependence on the cloud for network architecture.

When the Internet of Things arrives over the next decade, among the many threats will be human error: already new WiFi products available at retail are vulnerable, but no one sets a new password suggested by the manufacturer. “Most of us don’t – that’s a reality,” Kocks said.

One example that Kocks gave involved a popular WiFi device: a voice-controlled home automation hub called the Echo that answers to the name “Alexa.” In a demo, a person standing outside a home could unlock the front door by yelling voice commands through the window.

The solutions, while simple, are expensive and difficult to execute as more potent defensive software is evolving: develop an end-to-end, holistic defense for the network. Specifically, Sridharan and Kocks suggested developing a strong vulnerability program and implementing strong access and authentication controls. Simply waiting for software patches isn’t enough of a security plan. 

The various attack vulnerabilities of IoT are the biggest threat for cable operators on the wireless front, said Kock, but “it’s also the biggest opportunity.”

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

PHILADELPHIA -- The Energy2020 community met on Tuesday at Cable-Tec Expo for its third annual progress report, saying that in “show me the money” terms, the initiative is working. But with only three years or so until the “2020” part of Energy2020, there’s still a ton to do.

“What the SCTE has done with Energy2020 is extremely critical,” said Balan Nair, CTO of Liberty Global and a co-founder of the program. “If we can hit the goals stated, it will make a huge difference -- to us, to our management teams, to our customers.”

The initiative’s four stated goals: To reduce power consumption by 20% (on a per unit basis), cut energy costs by 25% (also on a per unit basis), optimize tech facilities and data centers by 20%, and reduce grid dependency by 10%. All of that, by 2020.

“We’re the engineers … and like any good engineer, you don’t build something for waste,” Nair said.

So far, the savings are small, but poised to grow. Dan Cooper, chair of the SCTE’s Sustainability Management Subcommittee, noted $12.5 million in energy savings since last year, ”which, compared to what we all spend on energy, isn’t a big number, but it’s a start.”

Cooper highlighted two new Charter-initiated efforts since the last E2020 update, both solar: A partnership with two utility companies in upstate New York to provide 12 Megawatts of renewable energy, estimated to save $5-plus million over the life of the project, and a new national data center in Charlotte, N.C., where the use of solar energy will offset 10% in annual energy costs.

“The key is that it’s not always capital intensive to move the bar” on energy efficiency, he said.

Sam Khola, senior manager of sustainability for Liberty Global, and the recipient of this year’s Energy2020 award, noted that energy costs are “already colossal, and they’re not staying level -- year over year, they grow.” That’s what prompted Liberty’s work with Phase Changing Materials (PCMs) -- a sort of thermal battery that works by capturing and storing a structure’s heat (in this case, hub sites) during the day, then discharging it at night.

“When we talked here last year, it was a tiny implementation in one of the 14 countries we serve,” Khola said. But after they saw a 33% reduction in TCO, and a 43% improvement in energy efficiency, an expansion plan was evident. “The plan is to expand both geographically (beyond the Netherlands, to Ireland and the U.K.), and technologically,” Khola said.

Comcast, which typically experiences 4% growth in annual energy costs, kicked off an overhaul its utility bill management and energy procurement processes, said Daniel Marut, Director of National Sustainability. “With over 200,000 utility accounts, it can be a little overwhelming for an accounts payable team, whose role is to pay the bill,” he said.

That’s what prompted a systematic way of auditing outside plant, to get an accurate count of power supplies, to start. “The idea is to systemically eliminate costs that are incurred by just basic mistakes in utility bill processing,” Marut said.

Pictured left to right: Dan Marut of Comcast, Sam Khola of Liberty Global and Dan Cooper of SCTE. Photo by John Staley for Multichannel News.

Harmonic has joined a growing group of vendors to ink warrant agreements with Comcast that gives the MSO an opportunity to buy shares in those suppliers based on product sales and deployment milestones. 

Per this Harmonic filing with the SEC, the warrant agreement, announced Tuesday (Sept. 27),  gives Comcast the opportunity to acquire up to 7,816,162 shares of Harmonic common stock for a per share exercise price of $4.76, a figure based on the weighted average trading price of Harmonic’s common stock for the 10 trading days prior to the issue date. Based on those numbers, that’s a value of roughly $37.2 million.

Harmonic shares closed Tuesday up 6 cents (1.30%), to $4.66 each.

“This agreement is a significant validation of our new product investment strategy,” Patrick Harshman, Harmonic’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “We are well positioned to further strengthen our partnership with Comcast, drive new growth and create value for our stockholders.”

Harmonic will offer more detail on the warrants agreement today on a conference call scheduled for 9 a.m. ET.

Harmonic did note in the agreement press release that the warrants agreement is based on specific sales to Comcast and other “deployment milestones” involving the vendor’s just-announced “CableOS” platform and other Harmonic products.

CableOS is a virtualized form of the Converged Cable Access Platform that aims to help cable operators scale up capacity while keeping power and space-requirements in check alongside a strategy to push more electronics toward the edge of the network. Nokia and Casa Systems also introduced virtual CCAP products this week.

During a Tuesday panel session at the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo show in Philadelphia, top engineering execs at Liberty Global, Charter Communications and Shaw Communications shined some light on the economic and capacity drivers that are causing them to consider a shift toward software-based access network platforms and distributed architectures that run on cheaper commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and away from centralized, purpose-built hardware.

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo: CTOs Share Hard Truths With Vendors

Comcast has recently signed similar warrants deals with Arris (focused on products in the supplier's Network and Cloud segment), and with Universal Electronics, a key supplier for Comcast’s voice remote for the X1 platform.

Philadelphia -- If customer experience is indeed the most important product, then it’s probably time to move machine learning up on the priority list. 

That was the gist of Monday’s kickoff workshop on machine learning and network operations, where executives detailed how the techniques can be applied to network optimization and customer care. 

“Right now, we throw away more data than we use,” said Tom Cloonan, CTO for Arris's Cloud & Network Solutions division and the moderator of the session. “We can do better, in terms of the decisions we make about how to modify plant, split a node or not, replace an amplifier, and ultimately, know whether customers are happy or not.”

Jason Schnitzer, founder of Applied Broadband, described his work to optimize DOCSIS 3.1-based networks using the three metrics of optimization: Modulation Error Ratio (MER), Codeword Error Ratio (CER), and downstream receive power -- no small feat, given that DOCSIS 3.1 essentially obviates traditional 6 MHz channel widths, instead spreading 7,680 OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) subcarriers, between 24 MHz and 192 MHz of spectrum. 

“If you’re collecting data from tens of millions of devices, doing 7,680 samples, four or so times a day, you quickly get into very large-scale data,” Schnitzer said. Ultimately, DOCSIS 3.1 will enable operators approach the Shannon Limit by enabling multiple modulation profiles across the entire population of cable modems. “So, in a sense, optimization is necessary, for 3.1 to be successful.” 

Chris Menier, VP of products and marketing for Guavus, said machine learning is growing out of the industry’s early steps into “big data” -- which began in departmental silos. “Network operations, field operations, billing, care, they all had their own tools, reports, and dashboards,” he said. 

Next came data warehousing and federation, then automation use cases, he said. “Now, it’s about enriching and correlating the data -- where did it happen on the network? To what type of device? What was it playing when it failed?”

By detecting anomalies, and correlating them with additional data, operators can identify and address problems before they impact customers. And if care agents are armed with enriched data, in a timely manner, “you can turn someone into a promoter, from a detractor, in NPS [Net Promoter Score] terms,” Menier said.

By applying machine intelligence, anomalies can be detected, correlated and even automatically repaired. Does it work? “It sure does,” Menier said, to the tune of $70 million in savings for an unspecified operator.

While emerging “Full Duplex” DOCSIS technology aims to bring symmetrical, multi-gigabit speeds to hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks, Antronix has developed a new, possibly complementary, hybrid PON/HFC platform that, it says, can also deliver multi-gigabit speeds by taking advantage of high-spectrum frequencies.

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As an overlay approach, Antronix’s “Intercept eHFC” platform is designed to enhance existing DOCSIS capacity and deliver symmetrical data while keeping the cost-per-bit low using spectrum in the 3.4 GHz to 4.7 GHz range – something the vendor likes to call “Ultra Wideband.”

The platform, the company explains, delivers PON signals to the company’s access-class node in conjunction with multi-taps that are optimized to handle ultra-wideband frequencies. The cable headend, meanwhile, would require a network controller that houses the provisioning piece to control the upstream and downstream data rates. In this initial phase of the product, the customer premises would require a media converter to access the additional throughputs supported by the Intercept eHFC  platform.

Antronix said its Intercept platform is compatible with DOCSIS, RF over Glass (RFoG) and MoCA 1.0 and 2.0 architectures. Like Full Duplex DOCSIS, Antronix’s Intercept eHFC platform is a node+0 solution. However, Antronix claims that the bit-per-dollar of its platform will be lower than that of traditional DOCSIS QAMs.

RELATED: CableLabs: DOCSIS 3.1 Upstream Booster on Fast Track

Antronix sees its technology fitting into consumer and business services applications, though it views residential as the more challenged of the two when it comes to delivering gigabit speeds.

“We think it will play well in both markets,” Dave Wachob, Antronix’s director of business development, said of Intercept eHFC. “Consumers baffled us all on their thirst for data so we think that will continue.”

DOCSIS 3.1 represents a good “incremental leap” for cable operators, but this new approach could help MSOs free up spectrum for other services because the platform delivers service at higher frequencies, Juan Bravo, vice president of national sales at Antronix, added.

Antronix expects to have trials underway by the first quarter of 2017, and to have the platform production-ready by Q2 2017. 

Evolution Digital has inked deals with five independent operators, all members of the National Cable Television Cooperative – have committed to deploy the vendor’s eVUE-TV offering on “VU-IT,” the co-op’s managed IP video solution.

Operators that signed on for those commitments include Advanced Cable Communications, Vast Broadband, Click! Cable TV, Schurz Communications and Westman Communications. That group, Evolution Digital said, are the NCTC members to commit to eVUE-TV and are starting to integrate it to deliver IP VOD content to its customers. Evolution said eVUE-TV plans to support additional components, including the delivery of IP linear channels, network DVR and TV Everywhere capabilities.

RELATED: Evolution Digital Notches Another NCTC Deal

The deals come a few months after Evolution Digital cut a deal with NCTC to distribute eVUE-TV as an option for members that operate the co-op’s VU-IT platform, which handles elements such as back office integration, OTT apps, and support for the TiVo interface. The VU-IT solution features TiVo Series 4 set-top boxes, Evolution Digital’s eBOX IP Hybrid Set-Top Box and other third-party hardware.

Introduced by Evolution Digital in February, eVUE-TV supplies “thousands” of hours of movies and TV shows on-demand while also integrating IP linear and VOD across a unified interface. Evolution’s future plans for the platform include cloud-based services, including a cloud DVR.

PHILADELPHIA – A panel of some of the industry’s top engineering executives shed some important light on why distributed architectures and the shift toward the software-driven, virtualization of network functions have rapidly become major priorities for MSOs around the globe.

Boiled down: Old models, driven by purpose-built hardware, simply won’t work anymore.

There’s a huge “disconnect” between the data that people are consuming and what cable operators must spend in order to keep up with that demand, Balan Nair, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Liberty Global said in a wide-ranging panel session that was moderated by Bob Stanzione, executive chairman and board chairman of Arris.

As network capacity planning goes, Liberty Global is already allocating enough capacity to deliver an average of about 1 Mbps per sub. With annual capacity growth in the range of 30% to 40% per year, it won’t be long before that hits 2 Mbps per sub.

STATUS ‘NOT SUSTAINABLE’

That would equate to about 25 8MHz-wide channels at Liberty Global, or “like half of our whole plant,” Nair said, noting that this trend causes MSOs to keep “feeding this beast” with capital just to expand capacity to stay ahead.

“That’s a problem for all of us,” he said. “That’s not sustainable.”

And it doesn’t add up with a business that grows revenue at 4% to 5% per year. “Eventually, it breaks,” Nair said. “The math will never work.”

The historic practice of buying specialized devices from traditional suppliers that cost a lot to build and buy won’t work anymore. “That model has to change,” Nair said.

The shift is toward cheap, commodity hardware running on very specialized software.

“So, we’re going to ask our vendors to think about the software and to run it on some cheap hardware because, at the current rate, it's not sustainable,” he said.

Vendors appear to have gotten that message loud and clear. Just this week, Nokia, Casa Systems and Harmonic all announced virtualized versions of Converged Cable Access Platforms that can work in tandem with distributed architectures that move away from traditional monolithic access devices.

Fellow panelist Jim Blackley, EVP, engineering and IT at Charter Communications, called Nair’s characterization of the situation “spot on and accurate.”

He added that, when it comes to capital, “you can’t spend it everywhere. … You can't spend it in the home and spend it in the network and spend it on content and all of the other things we need to deal with."

He said it’s important to think about virtualizing the functions of the consumer premises equipment (CPE) and move the compute, storage, encryption, and packaging into cloud-based centralized systems.

Charter is moving in that direction with ActiveVideo (a vendor it owns as part of a joint venture with Arris). Virtualizing the CPE means "you can put out devices that will last longer,” Blackley said. “The reality of our business is, the day you [deploy] something, it's legacy."

He said Charter was a “huge fan” of network virtualization and separating out the MAC and PHY elements.

Zoran Static, EVP and CTO of Shaw Communications, said he’s also keying on these trends and listening to partners on “how the future is going to land.”

But when it comes to a move toward virtualization, “the starting point becomes remote PHY,” he said. “The old model is not sustainable. It’s not a choice really, anymore.”

Nair called the shift to software-driven models as one of his top worries. “It requires a skillset change in all of our businesses,” he said. “The change is not just the skillsets in our employee base, but the skillsets of our vendor base as well."

Vendors, meanwhile, prefer to innovate on their own platforms. Interests of the two sides might not match up and could become a source of tension.

Nair thinks it’s best to solve that problem, “or else you're going to see more and more operators building their own stuff, and that won't be very good for the industry."

The early part of the talk centered on the move toward Gigabit-level broadband – something that has become a table stakes option for consumers who need it, or at least think they need it.

But Nair doesn’t see 1-Gig going “mainstream” until 2018 or 2019. By that, it won’t become a “bullseye” product for Liberty Global that is backed heavily by marketing and promotion. Today, that’s relegated to the operator’s 250 Mbps product, he said.

“We’re looking at increasing it,” Nair said, noting that MSOs have the luxury to press two levers with broadband – price and speed – while competitors with less robust networks can only fiddle with price. “Speed wins.”

Blackley said Charter is already getting positioned for the 1-Gig future. Its all-digital migration is freeing up capacity and Charter is also plunging fiber deeper into the network.

He added: “It’s not just about speeds; it's about latency, and it's not just about in-home; it's out of home.”

Blackley hesitated to say when consumers will actually need 1-Gig speeds, but won’t be surprised to see it happen eventually. "Like your garage, if you build it, it will get filled,” he said.

‘IRRATIONAL’ GOOGLE MOVES

Stakic, meanwhile, warned against “irrational behaviors” occurring in the United States, largely “triggered by Google,” that might cause MSOs to rush prematurely to 1-Gig.  He questioned if adoption rates will be high enough to justify the returns, noting that there aren’t many apps now that require three-digit megabit speeds at this point, let along 1-Gig.

Nair said the challenge of getting gigabit to the home pales versus getting gigabit support inside the home with WiFi. “The cost of WiFi now is actually more expensive on a per subscriber basis than DOCSIS,” he said.

The panel dove deeper into wireless and mobility now that Comcast and Charter Communications are both looking to put their MVNO agreements with Verizon in play.

Blackley said having an MVNO deal won’t prevent Charter from having to bulk up its own network with denser WiFi and backhauling capabilities.

“Wireless is just an extension of the wired network, and our consumers want their products where they are..and we have to have a network that will support that with economics that make sense." 

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Philadelphia -- While 2016 is a “foundational year” for the industry, 2017 is poised to be the year of “innovation and collaboration,” Tony Werner, president, technology and product for Comcast Cable, said here Tuesday morning in remarks that opened this year’s Cable-Tec Expo. 

On the foundational side, he noted examples such as the closing of the Charter Communications-Time Warner Cable merger, with Charter now pushing ahead with a cohesive technology and service plan that covers the combined company’s new, broader footprint.

“I think the industry has got a very solid year under [its] belt,” Werner said, pointing to cable’s continued broadband growth, with accelerated rollouts of multi-gigabit DOCSIS 3.1 technology on the horizon.

2017, he said, is “the year that we can seize as an industry,” added Werner, who this week was re-elected as chairman of the SCTE/ISBE board for the 2016-2017 term. “The wind is at our back as we go into 2017, and I think it's the time for us to really capitalize as an industry and as a Society…The industry has gotten knocked a few years back that we couldn't innovate,” he said. “I think we’re showing everyone that’s not true.”

Reiterating next year’s anticipated theme for MSOs, Werner said the industry’s “secret weapon” is its ability to work together.

“We collaborate, we work across,” he said. “We are not competitors, at present…It allows us to punch above our weight, which I think is so absolutely critical.”

He also presented what he said are key ingredients for the industry’s future success.

Chief among them, again, was collaboration, with Werner giving some credit to X1, Comcast’s  cloud-based platform, which relies on agile and DevOps models, attracting top engineering talent, and creating a culture and environment “where people like to show up and work…and build great products on top of powerful platforms.”

And Comcast, Werner reminded the crowd, is collaborating outside of Comcast’s ecosystem, pointing to syndication deals it has with Cox Communications and Shaw Communications.

“The collaboration back and forth [with those partners] is powerful,” Werner said.

More on those opening remarks, including Werner’s follow up conversation with Zoran Stakic, Shaw’s EVP and CTO, will be featured in the Day 2 daily from Multichannel News that will be distributed here Wednesday. 

SCTE/ISBE has tapped Terry Cordova, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Altice USA, and Jim Blackley, EVP, engineering and information technology at Charter Communications, to co-chair the program committee for next year’s Cable-Tec Expo.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Cable-Tec Expo 2017, set to run October 17-20 in Denver, will carry the theme, “The Big Deal,” and focus on new technology approaches that can power next-gen services, SCTE/ISBE said.

Cordova and Blackley will helm the creation of next year’s Expo program.

“Terry Cordova and Jim Blackley are at the epicenter of the trends that are shaping the future of our industry,” Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “Their visions of how to implement transformative customer experiences are pivotal both to the product roadmaps of technology partners and to the development of SCTE/ISBE training that has a material effect on operators’ bottom lines.”

“At Altice USA, we are focused on investing in innovation and technology and commend SCTE/ISBE’s commitment to applied science, which is accelerating the deployment of advanced technologies such as fiber to the home, Wi-Fi 3.0, and customer-focused platforms,” added Cordova.  “I look forward to working with Jim and the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2017 Program Committee to develop an agenda that aligns SCTE/ISBE’s educational strengths with operator needs.”

“The technologies being deployed today by Charter and other operators are greatly improving the video and communications experience our consumers enjoy,” said Blackley.  “By co-chairing the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2017 Program Committee, Terry and I will create a forum for the exchange of ideas that can more quickly and more efficiently bring new services to market and continue the rapid evolution of our industry.”

Keying on a major trend that will impact the future of the cable access network, Harmonic has introduced CableOS, a virtualized, software-based version of the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP).

Harmonic is entering the vCCAP game as cable operators start to consider a shift away from centralized, monolithic CCAPs, which combine the functions of the cable modem termination system and edge QAM, and eye more distributed, scalable architectures that can be controlled and manipulated by software in tandem with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Harmonic said CableOS runs on COTS Intel servers installed in headends, hubs or data centers, and that MSOs can add servers as they need to tack on additional capacity.

Going with a virtualized approach could also help Harmonic gain more traction in a CCAP sector that is dominated today by Arris, Cisco Systems and Casa Systems, which are also working on vCCAP products. Harmonic will also be looking to fend off others that are aggressively pursuing this market, including Huawei and Nokia, which recently acquired a virtual CCAP-focused startup called Gainspeed.

RELATED: Nokia Puts Gainspeed Buy to Work

“We believe that this a great opportunity to address key challenges that current solutions don’t resolve,” particularly when it comes to space and power requirements as well as future capacity growth, Asaf Matatyaou, vice president of solutions and product management for Harmonic’s cable edge business, said. “We’re seeing unprecedented growth, and pain points that are reaching our customers’ operational and financial limits…We feel like we’ve solved the great equation.”

Harmonic’s new offering is a remote PHY platform that works in tandem with a software-based core that that works with the edge devices. That combination can also support centralized deployments as well, Matatyaou said. .  In centralized CCAP situations, Harmonic’s NSG Pro can serve as the video core/PHY shelf. 

RELATED: Casa Systems Intros Virtual CCAP

Harmonic claims that its approach can help MSOs reduce space and power by up to 75% when used in a centralized CCAP deployment or more than 90% in a distributed remote PHY scenario.

Regarding the remote PHY element, Harmonic plans to come out with modules that can fit into existing nodes from other suppliers as well as its own nodes that are tailored for the virtualized approach.

RELATED: Harmonic Seeks Edge With ‘Distributed’ CCAP

Matatyaou said a barrier has been crossed in terms of having access to the right mix of CPU power and software capabilities to bring a vCCAP to bear, and could lead to a day when operators can avoid having to go through upgrade cycles of purpose-built CCAP hardware – from cards to the chassis themselves.

Harmonic sees CableOS playing a role early on in systems where the centralized CCAPs are starting to be tapped out – from a space and power standpoint – and need a sustainable path forward as they add capacity.  That might not be the case across an MSO’s entire footprint, but could enter play where an operator is feeling the heat from a competitor like Google Fiber.

Harmonic said CableOS is in trials with multiple tier 1 cable operators in North America and Europe. Initial deployments of CableOS expected to begin in Q4 2016, Matatyaou said.

Harmonic (booth 1948) is debuting CableOS at this week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia. 

The Multimedia over Coax Alliance has introduced MoCA 2.1, a new firmware feature and extension of MoCA 2.0 that supports throughputs of 500 Mbps and a 1 Gbps “bonded” offering alongside the addition of a handful of new features that set a migration path toward MoCA 2.5. 

RELATED: MoCA Feels The Need For Speed

The Alliance said MoCA 2.1 and MoCA 2.1 Bonded, which can be used with whole-home DVRs and speedy networking setups that use a home's coax as the backbone, also bakes in new features spanning network set-up, management, and enhanced privacy settings:

-MoCA protected setup (MPS):  Easy setup of new nodes with unique password sharing via push-button (similar to Wi-Fi WPS).

-Management proxy: Management of nodes that don’t have upper layer management support by supporting management queries from one node on behalf of other nodes.

-Enhanced privacy: Secure data communications with a longer password using different keys between MoCA 2.1 nodes compared to MoCA 1.1/MoCA 2.0 nodes, along with the ability to control data forwarding of legacy nodes to and from MoCA 2.1 nodes.

-Network-wide beacon power management: Improved control of peak signal power on the coax by configuring the beacon power of nodes to an absolute level (within tolerance of the hardware) and advertise that level to other nodes so that the same value is used after any handoff.

-Bridge detection: Ability to distinguish between nodes belonging to different networks and pass operator specified information between nodes before admission, as well as pass that same information to upper layers to prevent neighbors from forming a common network.

“We now offer a broad suite of specifications inclusive of various performance modes and features providing the versatility to support and compliment IOT,” MoCA president Charles Cerino said, in a statement.

In April, MoCA introduced a 2.5 version of its platform that supports a wide range of profiles, including one that delivers net data rates topping 2.5 Gbps.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Philadelphia -- 4K video and High Dynamic Range (HDR) represent what’s next in video quality, but the technology ecosystem required to support them are still in catch-up mode.

While 4K packs about four times the pixels into a picture than what’s seen with HD, HDR expands the color gamut and the luminance of those pixels by going to 10-bit technology and supporting billions of colors, including blacker blacks and whiter whites.

RELATED: SCTE/ISBE Adds 4K, HDR Focus to Cable-Tec Expo

But both are complex to support with legacy systems, Jeremy Morrison, vice president of solutions engineering at Deluxe OnDemand, said here Monday during a Cable-Tec Expo workshop focused on “Advanced Encoding Meets IP Video Delivery.”

Operators are also faced with competing formats, such as HDR10 and Dolby Vision, he said, labeling this  as the “21st Century Version of VHS vs. Betamax.”

Deluxe OnDemand is helping pay TV providers get around these challenges with a platform that manages those complexities, including elements such as backend scheduling, encoding, content acquisition, ingest, delivery and reporting and management.

In an outline of a case study with an unnamed pay TV operator, Deluxe OnDemand is enabling this with a managed system adapted from the standard- and high-def video world that  delivered 4K content at bit rates ranging from 15 Mbps to 3 Mbps, while also supporting legacy set-top boxes as well as apps running on new OTT platforms.

Arris, meanwhile, is also investigating these issues, with a particularly focus on adaptive bit rate (ABR) technologies in tandem with Big Data and predictive analytics systems.   

ABR isn’t new. Well known in the OTT world, It adapts the video stream in real time with the current network conditions, and switches to a lower or high bit rates based on those conditions. ABR continues to grow in popularity because it’s agile enough to deliver content to mobile devices as well as traditional TV screens, and can support HD and 4K fare as well as lower-resolution video.

However, many of those services run in silos and lack a “unified dashboard,” Sridhar Kunisetty, distinguished engineer at Arris, explained, noting that his company has been working on a platform that can work across devices and show a combined view to the operator that reduces costs and enables them to better manage the network.

Arris is also focused on an approach it calls Cloud-Assisted ABR, which takes the decision from the ABR client on a smartphone, for example, and manages that in the cloud. ABR clients are “greedy” in that they want to consume as much bandwidth as it can.  A cloud-assisted approach, he said, is a fairer way to distribute content and works well with an MSO’s managed network environment.

Arris is also working on Multicast-Assisted ABR approaches that are more bandwidth-efficient than unicast streaming platforms because it allows for more than one person to share a stream. In concert with real-time usage data, it’s possible for an operator to identify the 20 to 30 channels that consumers use most, making them good candidates for which content to deliver in a multicast setting, Kunisetty noted. 

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

The heavy lifters in tech are in Philadelphia this week for the annual Cable-Tec Expo, put on by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers. If you’re not going, or need a quick brush-up on what promises to be a deep vat of technological mumbo-jumbo, here’s the tip sheet:

DOCSIS 3.1 and “FDX”: Let’s level-set with the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification as the blueprint for cable modems, gateways, and the devices that make broadband happen. Its latest version, 3.1, offers a massive bandwidth boost over prior iterations -- to the tune of 50% more capacity flowing to and from homes. Gear based on 3.1 is starting to roll out. That alone will likely be a big source of conversation this week, because it’s a “non-trivial” rollout, as engineers tend to say.

But wait! There’s more, in the next version of DOCSIS, which comes with a prefix -- “Full Duplex” -- sometimes abbreviated “FDX.” (The word “duplex” is a telecom term that’s abbreviated as “DX” -- hence “FDX” for Full Duplex. It means that both ends of a call can talk at the same time. By contrast, walkie-talkies are “half duplex.”)

CableLabs: ‘Full Duplex’ Reaches Specification-Writing Phase

The whole point of Full Duplex DOCSIS is to get to symmetry in both signal directions -- to and from homes. Right now, about 5% of the total carrying capacity of a cable system is carved out for stuff going “upstream,” from homes. The rest is apportioned to stuff going “downstream,” to homes. So, it’s highly asymmetrical, which is fine, because we’re still consuming way more stuff over broadband than we’re transmitting.

But now that so many things come with built-in video cameras, and we spend more and more time communicating with images and video, it’s time to start thinking about a need for multi-Gigabit speeds, in that skinny upstream slice. That’s what FD DOCSIS does. Last week I heard someone call it “Symmetrical DOCSIS.” Probably easier on the frontal lobes.

Diplex Filters /Diplexors: There’s a catch, when it comes to going to symmetrical DOCSIS, and it’s those little, three-port doohickeys called “diplex filters,” or “diplexors” (see related image for an example of one). They exist to “notch out” the upstream and downstream signal directions.

Thing is, going Full Duplex necessitates a completely passive network, meaning that nothing can be powered, after the node. (This is also why you hear the term “n+0,” or “node plus zero,” to mean zero amplifiers after the node.)

A very unofficial Facebook poll of tech-pals indicates that as many as 4.5 million of them exist in U.S. systems. So, part of the strategic thinking about broadband symmetry and how to build for it goes like this: “Geez, if I have to pull out all those diplexors, shouldn’t I look at going deeper with fiber, instead?”

Sticky clients: This one has so many potential and amusing interpretations! But in a tech context, it’s a WiFi term. The “client” is anything trying to connect to a WiFi access point. When it gets “sticky, it’s usually in an environment with lots of access points (“APs”) -- but for whatever reason, it gets “stuck” on one, even though that one AP isn’t doing the best job at connectivity for that client.

NB-IoT and LoRA: Over in the land of machine-to-machine (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT), lots of debate swirls around the use of radios that send small amounts of data over very long distances. One camp is “NB-IoT,” which stands for “Narrowband Internet of Things.” Another is LoRA, which stands for “Long Range Radio.” At issue for service providers and their suppliers is the question of which will “win out” in the marketplace -- and the larger question of just how many radios need to go into in-home gear, like gateways.

That’s the shortlist of tech talk this week at the Expo -- but as you can imagine, it’s a much, much longer list. We’ll keep the descrambler machine on!

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), announced Monday that Tony Werner, who was recently promoted  to president, technology and product for Comcast Cable, has been re-elected as chairman of the board for the 2016-2017 term.

At a meeting in Philadelphia in conjunction with the show, the board also elected a full slate of officers for the coming year. Werner is joined on the 2016-’17 SCTE/ISBE Board’s Executive Committee by:

-Vice Chairman: Bill Warga, vice president, technology, Liberty Global;

-Treasurer: Christine Whitaker, senior vice president, Keystone Region, Comcast; and

-Secretary: Steve Williams, director, DOCSIS® network operations, Charter Communications.

Warga, Whitaker, and Williams, like Werner, were all re-elected to their offices by the board.

SCTE/ISBE also said the board accepted the resignation of Jim Hughes, vice president, North American MSO solution sales for CommScope, and welcomed new member Tom Adams, executive vice president, field operations, Charter Communications.

“Jim Hughes’ longstanding commitment of time, talent and expertise has contributed greatly to the worldwide growth of SCTE and ISBE,”Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “We are grateful for his many years of service on the board and look forward to working with Tom Adams and the entire board of directors as SCTE/ISBE continues to build value for our operator, vendor and individual members.”

Following election of its officers today in Philadelphia, the 2016-2017 SCTE/ISBE Board of Directors conducted its first board meeting

Casa Systems is using this week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia to introduce a virtualized core for the Converged Cable Access Platform as well as for 4G/5G cellular and WiFi capabilities.

Casa, which has previously centered efforts on more centralized forms of the CCAP, will demo a vCCAP that uses the vendor’s Axyom software architecture, which provides a common security framework for the independent scaling of control and data plane functions, the company said.

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo: Nokia Puts Gainspeed Buy to Work

The supplier said its latest product line features virtual MAC layer data processing, control and management functions, and that its family of distributed access nodes for PHY layer processing in cable networks are supported by both the new vCCAP product and its chassis-based CCAPs, such as the C100G and C40G.

Casa Systems joins a group of access network suppliers focused on cable that have launched or are developing virtual CCAPs, including Arris and Nokia, among others.

Casa (booth 665) hasn’t announced any deployment deals for the virtualized approach, but some of its announced partners include Interop Technologies, Jupiter Telecommunications, DNA Ltd, Mediacom Communications, Wave Broadband and Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications).

In addition to the vCCAP demos, Casa will also be showing off its Video over DAA (Distributed Access Architecture), DOCSIS 3.1 gear and Axyom LTE based Wi-Fi calling, and Secure Wi-Fi MDU products. 

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), and Colorado-based tech training specialist opXL Learning Systems have inked a partnership aimed at expanding workforce learning and development opportunities for cable operators.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Under the deal, they’ll make opXL’s Safety and HFC Technician courses available to SCTE/ISBE’s 25,000 members via the Society’s “learning infrastructure.” They’ll begin to offer opXL's courses, which are interactive and distributed online, later this year.

RELATED: NCTI, opXL Make a Course Connection

opXL's Safety Series includes refresher training for Ladder Safety, Driving, Bucket Truck Safety, Electrical Safety (two courses) and Slips, Trips and Falls. Its HFC Technician programs include Cable Math, RF Theory & Troubleshooting and AC Power.  All courses are interactive, are offered online, and include rich animations and graphics.

The partnership will also open the door for opXL and SCTE/ISBE to collaborate on new training content, with opXL positioned as the sales channel for coursework covered by the partnership.

They announced the deal on the eve of Cable-Tec Expo 2016, set to run through Thursday (September 29) in Philadelphia.

“opXL’s strong technical knowledge base, its engaging curricula and its results-oriented methodologies all have established it as a ‘go-to’ resource for training expertise,” Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “By collaborating on both course creation and distribution through both SCTE and ISBE, we can accelerate the global availability of customized, personalized training that can have a direct and meaningful impact on operators’ bottom lines.”

“With its vast membership base, its deep relationships with operators and technology partners and its role as the industry’s only ANSI-accredited standards body, SCTE/ISBE is able to expand both the footprint of opXL training as well as the portfolio of course offerings,” added Tom Gorman, president of opXL and industry vet who is late of several MSOs, including Charter Communications, Prime Cable, Comcast, and Jones Intercable. “We look forward to building a relationship that will achieve the goals of both of our organizations—a better-trained, more valuable workforce for our industry.”

Roughly two months after salting away its acquisition of Gainspeed, Nokia has unveiled a virtualized version of the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) that spans support for HFC- and PON-delivered services and applies a vision for the industry’s all-IP future.

Nokia timed the announcement with this week's SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia. 

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Nokia’s vCCAP, which factors in a shift toward energy- and bandwidth-efficient distributed access architectures that push transport electronics toward the edge of the network, is comprised of a mix of products that incudes elements acquired via Gainspeed and developed previously by Nokia. They include the Gainspeed-branded, software-driven Access Controller, Video Engine, and access nodes that support DOCSIS 3.1 and DOCSIS 3.1 (the SC-2D), and another access node that supports 10G EPON (the SF-4X). Nokia said the new solution will be commercially available later this year, with the SF-4X slated for launch in early 2017.

Currently in a number of customer lab and field trials across North America and Europe, the new unified cable access solution will be available commercially later this year with the SF-4X following in early 2017.

“We’ve been aggressively working together and integrating Gainspeed into the Nokia family, both the people and the products,” Jeff White, head of cable strategy and business development at Nokia, who joined the company from Gainspeed following the acquisition,” said, noting that the system is capable of managing and orchestrating not just CCAPs but other types of media and devices on the network and accelerate the deployment of new services.

While remote PHY architectures are becoming popular among some vendor products, Nokia’s approach is to distribute both the MAC and PHY elements. The platform’s Video Engine will help MSOs adapt their video services to the new Ethernet-powered network while keeping their legacy components intact.

White said Nokia’s angle will help MSOs reduce power and space requirements at headends that are outfitted with centralized, “big iron” CCAP chassis as capacity demands continue to rise. It can also prolong the need for MSOs to pull fiber to the premises, or at least put them in position to do so further down the road.

“As capacity grows at a fast clip, doubling every two years, they [cable operators] are literally running out of space in the headends,” White said.

Nokia will be using the new vCCAP product line to compete with cable access rivals such as Arris, Cisco Systems, Casa Systems, Harmonic and Huawei.

“The virtual CCAP is a legitimate phenomenon,” Jeff Heynen, consulting director and analyst at SNL Kagan, said in an interview for a feature story on this topic that will be featured online and in Cable-Tec Expo dailies that will be distributed this week by Multichannel News (link to preview edition). “I think this is an opportunity with vendors without share to get some traction.” 

White said Nokia is pursuing a wide range of deployment scenarios, including those specific to multiple-dwelling units (MDUs), as operators consider alternative architectures as they split nodes and go “fiber-deep,” and even putting its new platform side-by-side with legacy platforms. Yet another option, he said, is the notion of removing an existing CCAP and converting headends and hubs to virtual and distributed systems.

Nokia has not announced any specific trials or deployments with MSOs, but said it is in multiple customer lab and field trials with “major” operators in North America and Europe.

When the Nokia-Gainspeed deal was announced, Comcast, Liberty Global and WideOpenWest all praised the acquisition, with WOW noting that it was testing Gainspeed’s platform and “preparing for deployment.”

Gainspeed, based in California, was founded in 2012 by Shlomo Rakib, a DOCSIS pioneer and co-founder of Terayon  Communication Systems (sold to Motorola in 2007). Nokiaannounced its agreement to acquire Gainspeed on June 9.

NCTI, the Colorado-based provider of cable and broadband technology training services, has launched eBooks, a new component of its digital learning platform for frontline techs.

NCTI said its new eBooks offering is available in conjunction with its course curriculum, and that it follows the June release of Amp 2.0, its integrated learning system.

RELATED: NCTI Rebrands as It Launches New Training Platform

“Our customers asked for learning solutions that are readily accessible, cost-effective, support current adult learning trends and reduce our collective impact on the environment,” Stacey Slaughter, CEO of NCTI, said in a statement. “ Delivering our course curriculum with eBooks allows us to update content bi-weekly via rapid release methodology, and also supports how MSOs want content delivered to their teams—and the way teams prefer to learn.” 

RELATED: Stacey Slaughter Acquires Jones/NCTI

NCTI also expanded its DOCSIS 3.1 program with Advanced DOCSIS 3.1 Operations, targeted to engineers and headend technicians responsible for configuring and maintaining DOCSIS systems. It follows on last year’s release of DOCSIS 3.1: Customer Premises.

“The Advanced DOCSIS 3.1 Operations course will become the standard by which our courses are designed and delivered,” Paul Eisbrener, NCTI director of learning and development said.

NCTI (booth 661) will demo eBooks and Amp 2.0 at this week’s show in Philadelphia. 

As you might have noticed, our annual CTO roundtable in this week's issue of Multichannel News (subscription required) covered a lot of ground as engineers and execs head to Philadelphia for this week's SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo. We discussed next-gen WiFi strategies, DOCSIS 3.1 rollout initiatives, remote PHY architectures, virtualization and even a bit about what kind of impact MSOs should expect as 4K and High Dynamic Range enter the video picture.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

And, because there was only so much room to work with, some of our discussion didn’t get covered there, so I’m using this space to include a brief passage on an oldie-but-goody question we posed to our esteemed panel: When will your available digital capacity be “all IP?”

That’s a tricky one for even the best crystal balls. After all, there are still millions of QAM/MPEG transport-only boxes choking the network, including a bunch of Digital Transport Adapters (that's a Cisco-made DTA pictured above), and operators are far from united in how they will push ahead with these migrations. Comcast is eyeing an all-IP future as it accelerates the rollout of X1, while Charter Communications shoots for a different strategy in which it can deliver a next-gen UI to IP-capable and QAM-locked boxes using the ActiveVideo’s platform now jointly owned by Charter and Arris.

While it’s probably impossible to know exactly when cable video will go all IP and join its broadband and voice brethren, our esteemed panelists were at least willing to noodle on it a bit.

“From a video standpoint, we're in position to enable that,” Kevin Hart, EVP and CTO of Cox, said. “The conversion from the QAM video distribution to only all-IP is still, I think, many years out into the future for most of us. It's going to take time, just based on CPE and everything else. We're in a good position to deliver all-IP, but it's going to take time, particularly on the QAM video infrastructure.”

Balan Nair, CTO and EVP of Liberty Global, had a more targeted answer, though one with seemingly plenty of runway: “Umm. 2025? Sure – 2025.”

To be continued...

This isn’t your father’s “cable” industry anymore. In fact, the word cable is no longer spelled out in the name of the NCTA, which last week rebranded as NCTA-The Internet & Television Association.

But that also means that what used to be true about “cable” operators is no longer true today. Rather than focusing on one new product or service at a time, these new-class service operators have to juggle twelve balls at once in order to keep up with consumer demands and the competition.

To get a fix on what’s important as many people in the tech- and engineering-facing part of the industry converge on Philadelphia for this week’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo, Multichannel News technology editor Jeff Baumgartner and Leslie Ellis, independent analyst and regular MCN contributor, caught up with some of the top engineering minds in the industry to discuss their priorities and to drill down into hot areas such as DOCSIS 3.1, wireless and mobile broadband, next-generation video, network virtualization and the shift to DevOps models.

What follows is an edited, transcript compiled from separate conversations with Kevin Hart, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Cox Communications; Balan Nair, EVP and CTO of Liberty Global; and Sree Kotay, who was recently promoted to CTO and EVP of Comcast Cable.

Related: The Long Goodbye

TECHNOLOGY PRIORITIES

MCN:Let’s level-set the conversation with your technological priorities. What are the top one or two things on your to-do list for Q4 and the rest of the year?

Sree Kotay: Really? Only one or two? One is, we want to continue to lean in to building elegant, differentiated products. We’ve been focused on building better products and services, and that focus has had a profound positive effect. We’ve done a lot of that for TV, and want to do it for other services, across the board. So you’ll see us putting in foundations and building blocks this year, for some big things we’ll do next year.

Two is the customer experience, with a real focus on simplification and self-service. It’s an intense focus on how we engage with our customers — starting from the acquisition funnel, throughout the engagement — whether it’s self-installs or enabling people to resolve issues themselves. It’s an effort we’re internally calling “All Digital.” It’s about giving our customers a powerful blend of self-service, transparency and visibility.

Balan Nair: Right now, it’s mostly operational. If you really want to be a few steps ahead — and all trends indicate this — you have to change. Change is hard, but it’s mandatory. Mark Twain said that the only person who likes change is a wet baby. He’s right.

We’re in the middle of a company-wide transformation that we call “Liberty Go.” It’s about putting the customer front-of-mind, completely. Customer first, front of mind, sides of mind, back of mind. For real — to the point of making the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric part of performance bonuses.

Kevin Hart: First and foremost is our network transformation plan. We’re putting together a 10-year network transformation plan with the hallmarks being around DOCSIS 3.1, Node+0 architectures — taking fiber deep — and then eventually leveraging Full Duplex [DOCSIS].

No. 2 is our strategy around trying to own the home, better enable the home, better enable the customer experience. Things like our new WiFi offering that we’re launching called Panoramic WiFi. It’s also the work that we’re doing on new Contour, our new video experience, and we’re continuing to make great progress with Cox Homelife, our home security/automation platform.

MCN:Can you elaborate on the foundations and building blocks in the works?

Kotay: On the technology side, it’s obviously all the DOCSIS 3.1 work, looking at broadband and our XB6 [Gigabit gateway], which comes out of a lot of work on RDK-B, where the “B” stands for “broadband.” It’s radically improving visibility as a functionality to move up the value chain. As we think about connected services, that’s one big element. In particular, we’re focused on digital relationships, and evolving to serve the people in the house, not only the household address.

HOT TOPICS IN TECH

MCN:WiFi: The hype machine around “smarter WiFi” and “intelligent WiFi” is pretty loud. What factors go into building a competitively superior WiFi service offering?

Kotay: If you look up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with self-actualization at the top, and air, water, food and shelter at the bottom — there seems to be a new element in that bottom slice, and it’s WiFi. And the thing is, when people say “WiFi,” they usually mean “end-to-end connectivity:” My device is online, it’s working and I can get to the services I want.

A lot of previous approaches have been focused on slivers of that problem. We fell into that category — well, you’re connected with the CMTS, so you should be good! But the reality is, you have to look at the whole chain. It’s not just the access layer, or the in-home things like speed and reach. It’s the data centers, the back-end services, the care and the end-to-end-ness of it.

For instance, if you have a gaming console connected over WiFi to my gateway, I should know it’s a gaming console, what kind of console it is and whether there are any issues impacting its connectivity, whether on our end or somewhere else in the chain. The Internet is inherently a best-effort service. So we have to think about how to make it more than that — more carrier-grade, in a sense. Like broadcast video quality, in that it really, really works, all the time. It’s not just about any sliver of that chain. It’s the whole end to end. Our industry is uniquely positioned to tackle that challenge, but it takes a significant amount of focus and attention.

So the lesson to us was, let’s stop thinking about it as just WiFi. “WiFi” has to mean all of it.

Nair: People say content is king. My boss likes to say that connectivity is king, and content is Kong. WiFi is obviously a big part of “connectivity.” The world is moving away from single-point WiFi access. We’ll have to look at a mesh network in the home, to achieve a very high quality of service. Step 1, we improve quality at the chip level; 2, improve the antenna(s). Next, embed the software that enables us to optimize things like beam-forming. All of that enables us to do a whole-home, holistic WiFi view.

MCN:Kevin, tell us a bit more about this PanoramicWiFi offering.

Hart: Eighty percent to 90% of the devices connected in the home are enabled by WiFi by our customer base. Enabling a better in-home WiFi experience is top of our list. Panoramic WiFi will have a tagline of, “It’s wall-to-wall fast.”

We’ll be implementing some of the best-in-class WiFi gateway routers and will be leveraging over time the RDK-B component within those routers. We’ll be installing extenders, depending on the size of the room and the [performance] of the signal quality, and focus on ease-of-use.

We’re also going to be accompanying that with some additional focus from our techs in terms of the setup, giving them more set-up time to ensure quality of service and signal strength

We’re launching that in the fourth quarter, in our California market, and then we’ll be taking it more broadly in 2017.

WIRELESS AND GIGABITS

MCN:Multiple choice, with LTE-U and its impact on Wi-Fi capacity: 1.) Battle stations!; 2.) If only that were my biggest wireless concern! 3.) Don’t worry, MuLTEFire will fix everything.

Nair: We have to look at this from two sides — as a WiFi provider, and as a mobile business operator. Which means my answer is a little bit of all three. It’s “battle stations,” because if connectivity is king and it goes away, that’s a real problem. It’s certainly not our only wireless concern. That said, I’m confident that our collective work with MuLTEFire and other standards bodies will help. [Liberty Global and CableLabs announced last week they have joined the MuLTEFire Alliance.]

Hart: I think it’s No. 2. I think there has been a lot of good work with the different organizations, including CableLabs and the Wi-Fi Alliance, to sort out some of the interoperability and co-existing requirements of LTE-U. I’m pretty sure that’s going to work itself out over time.

I think trying to drive that in-home WiFi experience and also continue to build out our WiFi footprint where it makes sense are some of the things that are at the top of our list. And we’re also keeping an eye on some of the advances of 5G from a wireless standpoint. It’s both an opportunity for us and also a potential threat.

MCN:Gigs and competition: Two years ago, we asked (some of you, anyway) about Google Fiber’s threat to expand to a bunch more metros. Now, Google Fiber is being dragged through the mud by the Silicon Valley press, suggesting trouble in Google Fiber-ville. How does (or doesn’t) that impact your Gigabit deployment and/or “fiber deeper” strategies?

Hart: We launched our G1GABLAST product a couple of years ago and have had some really great success with that. Obviously, Google’s not the only one building out fiber. There’s AT&T and many, many others. That specifically hasn’t had that big of an impact. We’ve always been committed to investing in our network, building out ubiquitous speeds and making sure we can deliver at peak hours with minimal congestion.

I mentioned the 10-year network transformation plan: Starting right now and into next year, DOCSIS 3.1 is high on our radar, so we’re making great strides with the testing, deployment and trials of 3.1.

We definitely have a fiber-deep strategy and an N+0 architecture that we’re working towards. We’ll be doing that both to keep up with speed and contention and just to deliver a better quality of service. And taking fiber deep is also key to enable Full Duplex, ultimately, which will come after 3.1 to enable more symmetrical Gig speeds.

Yes, we’ll definitely keep our eyes open on the competitive landscape, but we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing for a couple of decades and keep investing in our network.

Nair: We’re big on Gigs. Our bull’s-eye product right now is about 200 Mbps. At a traffic engineering level, though, our peak downstream usage is in the 900 Megabit-per-second range in some markets. 920 Mbps is pretty close to 1 Gig. If you consider a serving area with 2,000 homes, at 50% penetration, times 1 Mbps, guess what? That’s a Gig. Which is pretty much 25 DOCSIS channels. If that goes to 2 Gigs, that’s 50 DOCSIS channels. We have 100. That’s why we spend a lot of time on this.

DEEP DIVE ON DOCSIS

MCN:DOCSIS 3.1: Status report please, for DOCSIS 3.1-based deployments — CPE [customer premises equipment] and CMTS [cable modem termination systems]? Anything notably different from prior DOCSIS upgrades?

Kotay: We’ve launched D3.1 service in Atlanta, Nashville and Chicago, with more coming this year and next. We think our XB6 is the next big vision of connectivity, with DOCSIS 3.1 at the heart of it.

Nair: Short version is, we’re in market and nearly done with CMTS. CPE begins next year.

Hart: We’ve got the 3.1 CMTS platforms up and running. We’ve got probably 50 different types of CPE that are working beautifully with the CMTS. Most of those are 3.0, so we’re testing out the backwards compatibility.

It will be similar in many respects to DOCSIS upgrades in the past, but with the introduction of OFDM [Orthogonal Frequency Division Modulation], there will be a little bit of navigation in terms of the complexity. But we’re feeling pretty good about it and the early results are very solid.

MCN:Advanced Class question: Full-Duplex DOCSIS, or fiber-deeper? Or both?

Hart: It’s both, and from our perspective it’s fiber-deeper first. To enable concurrency on 3.1, we’ll continue to take fiber deeper and then get the full benefit of Full Duplex, depending on the service group size in any given market.

The other component is the remote PHY [initiative] as part of the fiber-deeper strategy and moving those electronics closer to the customer. That provides additional optionality to upgrade to Full Duplex and it also provides more optionality in the future potentially for some wireless [technology] in the remote cabinet if need be.

Kotay: We don’t look at these sorts of technologies as competing with one another as much as we see them as increasingly powerful tools in an increasingly large toolbox. Today, we’re offering Gigabit Pro, a 2-Gig symmetrical fiber-to-the-home service across our footprint, as well as D3.1-powered gigabit service in several markets, with more to come. For green-field development and MDUs [multiple dwelling units], fiber is often the best tool, but DOCSIS 3.1 and the forthcoming Full Duplex provide great flexibility to deliver gigabit speeds using our HFC network.

Nair: It’s not an either-or situation. We like them both. We’ll do fiber — we’re doing fiber — where it makes sense and, as it turns out, it makes sense in lots of places for us. Full Duplex DOCSIS means building for symmetrical bandwidth. Symmetrical DOCSIS is more a question of “when” than “if.” That’s because right now, we’re still delivering much more traffic to homes than from them — it’s asymmetrical. Going to node+0 (amplifiers) aligns us all for Full Duplex DOCSIS. So, whether it’s customer-generated content or the next OTT-like thing, it means we don’t have to swap out that last bit of coax.

MCN:4K, UltraHD, High Dynamic Range/HDR, wide-color gamut, 10-bit interleaving: What of all of this matters to you? How is it best harnessed to improve the life of people watching TV?

Nair: Of that list, HDR is more impactful than just “plain” 4K. However, only 4K televisions have HDR, so they’re kind of inter-linked in that way. We’re launching HDR as something that comes with our 4K service. It came out in an earnings call as “EOS,” but that’s more of an internal project name — it’s cloud-based and will roll out in the U.K. first.

Kotay: We’ve done a lot of testing. You can see our view reflected in our product strategy. Short version is, all those things you listed are good things. There’s just nothing bad about increasing resolution and so on. But the ones we’re most focused on right now from a technical standpoint are HDR and wide color gamut.

We can show you some 1080p HDR video that looks better than 4K non-HDR. Do you remember when you first saw HD, next to a standard definition TV? It was, whoa, that’s much better. HDR is the same. You don’t realize you haven’t seen a blue sky on your TV until you’ve seen it in HDR.

Hart: To me, HEVC [High Efficiency Video Coding], the new video compression, that’s equally important. It’s really being able to move that content around no matter what flavor it is from an efficiency perspective to preserve some of the bandwidth. I think all of those — 4K, HDR, etc. — are going to be important. What the consumers want and what the manufacturers can provide will work itself out based on the content that’s produced. To me, the concern is how to transport all that information in the most efficient way.

BANDWIDTH TRENDS

MCN: It wouldn’t be a CTO conversation without talking bandwidth. What’s the latest in broadband usage trend lines? (E.g., is the growth of the growth still in decline? Are there patterns worth noting?)

Hart: CAGR [compound annual growth rate] on the downstream, in terms of utilization, is about 49% to 50%, and that’s what we continue to model in our investment plan. From an upstream standpoint, we’re probably in the 27%-28% range. We’ll probably see that move into 30% or so. With all of the cloud-hosted solutions and cloud-managed solutions, it puts a lot more pressure on the upstream.

Nair: We’re seeing peak speeds growing — and they’re growing logarithmically. That keeps our attention. The main driver now is still video. With video, we used to have very large bundles, with smaller content libraries. The world is going to smaller bundles, with larger libraries of content.

Kotay: We double our network capacity every 18 to 24 months on average, and that has remained relatively constant. We can realize some efficiencies by doing less over the backbone and driving more regionalization, but as long as consumers’ demand for rich, powerful online and video experiences continues to grow, and the quality of those experiences continues to improve, we know we need to stay one step ahead of what’s next.

MCN:At what point is entertainment video not the bulkiest passenger on broadband? What other bandwidth-insatiable things on the horizon have your full attention?

Hart: We’ve always been a leader with business services; Cox Business is going to hit the $2 billion revenue mark this year. I think there will be some additional applications and managed services, hosted solutions that will start to eat a lot of bandwidth but deliver a lot of value.

Maybe perhaps longer-term, there’s virtual and augmented reality — those could be a huge driver if they take off.

Kotay: I think the Internet is experiencing a lot more social video as a form of communication. This includes things like Facebook Live, Periscope, Vine, quick clips. I think we’re still pretty far from video not being the bulkiest thing we carry, but we are seeing a rise in other forms. The good news is that compression improvements can help offset that.

Other things we’re seeing, with the preponderance of smartphones and devices, are more firmware updates. They’re bursty, but they can be materially significant. When a new game launches, that can be a big, bursty thing. Video is more consistent. It’s bulkier, yes, but more consistent and predictable.

So if you look at downloads, entertainment video will be a huge chunk for the next few years. However, as far as peak demand, we’ll likely see a continued rise in firmware updates and games — things happening in the background.

MCN:What’s the situation around the possibility of widening the spectrum above 1.2 GHz? Is it time to raise the roof around here?

Hart: I think in the near-term we’re in good shape without having to widen. It’s something we’re always evaluating and reviewing. If you’re going to be making some enhancements to the network, it makes good sense to try to future-proof it, but probably not here in the near term on that particular component.

MCN:Widening the upstream path: How do you think through when it’s time to do so? What’s the situation now?

Hart: The good news is that a fiber deep strategy helps to address some of the upstream bandwidth by decreasing the service group size. That’s going to buy us a little more runway than we had thought when considering mid-splits and high-splits options.

For now, we’re in pretty good shape with our strategy. With the mid-split maneuver, you’ve got a massive CPE implication; that’s where a ton of costs could be. I think we’re in pretty good shape today with our N+O strategy.

IN THE HOME

MCN:RDK, the Reference Design Kit, has a new profile: Broadband. What should people know about it?

Nair: The RDK started with video. The RDK is expanding, so it got segmented to “RDK-V.” The next one is focused on broadband, which is why you hear about “RDKB.” It’s a little tricky because the letters “V” and “B” sound very similar when spoken!

Regardless, RDK-V is how we got to a user experience that satisfies, on many levels. Comcast started it with X1. We’re onboard, so is Cox, Shaw [Communications] and a growing global footprint. RDK, no matter the letter behind it, is the for-real open source platform behind the platform.

RDK-B reinforces connectivity being king. Everything we deploy will be RDK.

Hart: I think RDK-B has a lot of the same promise [as RDK’s video profile] in terms of speed to market, good economics in terms of the open source and keeping it open to multiple vendors.

The other piece is the functionality and capability to do remote installation and monitoring and repairs, and some of the tools … will be a differentiator. And with the new tools coming out, ease of use is another big benefit of RDK-B.

Kotay: It’s this — broadband is a two-way network, but as an industry we’ve been relatively blind to the connectivity in the home. The feature sets for routers and broadband devices have been relatively static for 10, 15 years.

It’s analogous to video services, in a way: It used to be all about channels. Channels are still important, but there’s a lot more to it. Same thing for broadband: It used to be all about speed. Speed will continue to be important, but it becomes more than just that.

Things like RDK-B will be central to be able to understanding what’s going on, and responding to that understanding. Whole-home WiFi is a good example: It’s about putting a lot more visibility and tools into the hands of our customers.

MCN:Kevin, give us an update on where Cox is with the RDK video profile [Cox’s new Contour platform uses the RDK and syndicates Comcast’s X1 platform]. Any shareable Net Promoter Score or other metrics or anecdotes? In NPS parlance: Would you recommend it to a friend?

Hart: It’s been a huge success for us. We’re, of course, partnered with Tony [Werner, president, technology and product at Comcast] and his team. But it’s also what we’ve done to enable it for ourselves. We probably did two to three times the amount of integration work on this.

It’s definitely been a home run. In the first couple of months, we’ve already [surpassed] 400,000 subscribers. We’re moving quite rapidly in terms of our deployment relevant to our initial plans and expectations. And the customer feedback has been off the charts. The NPS is multiples in terms of some of the other legacy platforms that we have.

The ease-of-use has had a nice halo effect, much like G1GABLAST had for our Internet service. Within just a few months, we’ve been able to achieve the same overall level of performance of the platform around tuning, etc., that it took Comcast and many others many years to achieve. We get some of the benefits of their learnings, but we’ve been able to do that within our ecosystem.

MCN:What’s your approach to devices — those you provide and those customers bring and attach to you?

Kotay: If you went back four, five years — that’s when we started looking at having to build software and apps as more of an opportunity than a burden. Over the past two or three years, we’ve had the same shift with hardware. In our industry it used to be, oh, we have to provide a box, to do conditional access and some navigation, and we have to provide a cable modem, to do HSD [high-speed data].

It reminds me of [astronaut] Alan Shepard, when he was sitting in the spaceship, ready to take off, and was asked what he was thinking. He said he was thinking about “the fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.”

The funny part was, while we were thinking that way, a lot of innovative companies were devoting a lot of effort to getting devices into the living room where we already had a foothold. I think it made all of us sit up and say: What if it’s not just about having product for an ISP or a cable provider? What if it’s about making the best product, period?

In the last couple of years, we’ve gotten a lot of religion about that and we’re seeing the rewards, in terms of customer satisfaction and retention with products like X1 and our X1 voice remote. Over the next year, you’ll see us continuing along that path with products like our Xi5 wireless set-top box and XB6 home gateway. The goal is simple: make products people love.

OUTSIDE OF THE HOME

MCN:How do you answer this question when your bosses ask it: What does 5G mean to us?

Nair: It means highly distributed, small cells with a mix of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. In some ways, it’s a credible threat. In other ways, it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity because it’s coming out of mobile and all those small cells will need backhaul. We do backhaul. Ultimately, it’s a hype bubble at the moment — we think it’s more of a 2020 thing.

Hart: As you know, the majority of wireless traffic is facilitated by wireline, so there’s a lot of backhaul opportunities for us to partner with our carrier customers. As that becomes more prevalent and that becomes more pervasive, they’re going to need to leverage networks like ours and others in the MSO community.

As it related to leveraging it as a last couple of hundred of feet fixed wireless methodology, we’ll have the same opportunity to take advantage of that, particularly with some of the remote PHY components. We could potentially leverage some of that infrastructure with strand-mounted small cells as well.

There’s definitely a place for 5G and we think it’s both an opportunity that can help with the backhaul but also even potentially leverage ourselves. And we feel that the product that we already deliver is very competitive and will continue to stay ahead of the performance from a throughput and speed and connectivity standpoint.

MCN:Enterprise services: What’s the hot seller to commercial businesses right now? What does it take to go after the large enterprise crowd — to roll up the sleeves against Verizon and AT&T and the like?

Hart: We still have plenty of opportunity within the small-to-medium businesses within our footprint, so we’re continuing to stay focused there. Our IP Centrex hosted voice solutions are selling great right now. We’ve also got great opportunity with schools, government, our hospitality network and convention centers, and we’re looking to go a bit further upmarket over time. In many cases, there are probably opportunities to partner with other MSOs, because many of those larger enterprises span multiple geographies, sometimes not always directly within our footprint.

Kotay: Business services is a major and growing segment for us, and a focus for a lot of really cool innovation on the product side. As just one example that I’m excited about, we’ve been putting a lot of effort behind cloud enablement. Mid-market and enterprise customers, in particular, need bandwidth and solutions engineered to enable their move to cloud services.

Earlier this year, Comcast Business announced that it is providing businesses with direct connectivity to Amazon Web Services, which, as we all know, is one of the leading providers of cloud services in the world. As that group continues to move upstream and serve large, national enterprises with dispersed office locations and data centers, you’ll continue to see them make more news with major cloud providers.

Nair: It depends on the size of the business. In general, small and medium businesses are really interested in a high-quality, dedicated IP interface, in the range of 500 Megabits per second to a Gig. It goes on from there to hosted voice, layer 3 VPN, and eventually to an SDN-type solution.

IN THE CLOUD

MCN:What are the important elements in building a video cloud — dos and don’ts? Where is each of your respective companies, with respect to a cloud-based video offering?

Nair: I’ll go with “do” rather than ”don’t.” Do pick the right vendor. Two, make sure the vendor isn’t bullshitting you. Third, do make sure the vendor delivers.

Our path to cloud-DVR started with putting the navigation in the cloud. Then we put VOD in the cloud. Third is putting DVR in the cloud. That’s the progression that’s worked for us.

MCN:Kevin, you have options for the new Contour. Any plans underway to enable a cloud DVR service?

Hart: It’s on our product roadmap for next year. That being said, there’s been some mixed results in terms of customer uptake on the platform. Some of the things we’re working our way through are the content and the copyright components with some of the content providers. We’re still trying to work some of those models out.

The other piece is the economics. Setting up our own specific cloud DVR solution, the economics would be a little steep. We’re looking at a couple of different partners to provide some flexibility there. Some of the economic models from Cisco [Systems] and some other providers are becoming a little bit more nimble, agile and affordable and more “by the drink,” if you will. I think there will be some advances … that will allow us to make more progress on it. We’re evaluating it.

MCN:Where are you with virtualization, generally or specifically?

Kotay: I think virtualization has gotten fetishized. It’s not an answer to all problems. It’s a critical tool in the toolbox, yes. But, for example, some of the stuff we’re doing around containers isn’t virtualized, because they don’t need to be. There’s no elasticity in that workload, so, the less layers and complexity, the better.

Virtualization is important, and we need it in some areas, but it’s not the only tool. Of course, in some areas, virtualization technologies can deliver powerful benefits in terms of network performance and reliability. We’ve been pushing more programmability into the network for years, and have seen the benefit of that approach.

Hart: We are making a lot of progress on our virtualization plan, virtualizing from a hardware and software perspective and software-as-a-service and becoming much more nimble in terms of the things we do on a cloud-based way in which we leverage technology and leverage our products and services.

Nair: At a core level, we’re looking at SDN [software-defined networking] and NFV [network functions virtualization]. Both have significant and practical benefits. Benefits like providing dynamic bandwidth: clearly important. What comes with that tends to be economic and efficiency gains. That said, we do understand the challenges virtualization poses to our key vendors.

MCN:DevOps — What is it, why does it matter, and to what extent are your companies pursuing it?

Hart: We were working some DevOps opportunities last year, but we kind of went all-in earlier this year. We did a bit of an organizational realignment to create a true DevOps team that combined all of the development and IT operations team, and co-located a lot of our business stakeholders.

The speed-to-market, the learning, the quality, the feedback we’re getting from our stakeholders has exceeded my expectations in terms of the way our teams have embraced it and what they’ve learned from their counterparts that are now part of their same team members, and just the pace and scale and quality of what we’re delivering around multiple platforms. I actually thought there would be a bit more of a resistance, culturally, from the teams, but it’s been embraced.

We’re extending it not just to our traditional technology DevOps model, but we’ve had some major data center moves, so we’re applying DevOps methodologies to physical moves as opposed to just some of the virtual and technology development and making it more of a mindset in how we do business.

Kotay: We’re huge on it. There are two or three reasons why it matters. The biggest is, it creates the right culture of autonomy and accountability. Put another way, the people who cause the pain have to deal with the pain!

The rate of change is only increasing, so the whole idea of sequential handoffs — formally document your requirements, formally hand them off to the design group, which hands off to the engineering group, which does the test cases and hands it off to QA, then to integration and test, then to deployment, then to support — there was a time and a place when that made sense. There are still cases where it makes sense, actually — hardware work is still very much a “waterfall.”

But being there on the DevOps side, supporting the triage elements that come with RDK-B, and being deeply involved all the way through product and process … DevOps still blows my mind. It changes everything, with everything that means. We wouldn’t be where we are without it.

Nair: DevOps matters if you’ve adopted an agile software methodology, and you’re building a lot of your own code. In other words, if you’ve decided to own your stuff. If you choose to do your own build framework and you’re writing code — because you want transparency and control of whatever your situation is — then the model works.

CLOSING QUESTION

MCN:What disruptors or potential disruptors are on your radar right now?

Hart: For the disruptor component, it’s about keeping our eye around 5G in the fixed wireless space and how do we capitalize on that emerging technology, particularly around MDUs and commercial businesses?

It’s not very glamorous, but regarding special projects, it’s about working on process excellence and customer experience and putting the right set of tools and customer self-care and navigational flows within our call center and field services. It’s a lot of process work, but we’ve got to codify that within some of our technology tools. It can help to distinguish ourselves and continue to separate from some competitors.

Kotay: I’ll take “potential disruptors,” in the context of the Internet of Things. I find it interesting that at this point in 2016, IoT [the Internet of things] still has so much headroom to grow. And that growth, when it accelerates, will create interesting dynamics.

If you think about the connectivity axis and look at power consumption, bandwidth and range, there’s an interesting gap. For lack of a better term, call it the narrowband space, for instance. It creates an environment for things with aren’t hard on batteries and very long range, in terms of miles. Their bandwidth requirements are medium at best, like for M2M [machine-to-machine communications]. I don’t know if it’s disruptive, but it feels like there’s something interesting there.

Another I’m still constantly watching are display surfaces. They’re also ripe for disruption, more in the five-to-eight-year horizon. I don’t know if it’s flexible displays or cheaper displays, but it feels like we’ll have a lot more screens in our lives, and not just mobile. Fixed screens too.

Nair: I’ll take disruptors. Primarily, disruptors really are those competitors who aren’t interested in profitability — for five-plus years. That’s a long time.

Espial has introduced “Elevate,” a cloud-based, “turnkey” video platform that is underpinned by the company’s recent acquisition of the Arris Whole Home Solution.

Ottawa-based Espial also identified three new customers: Easton Utilities of Easton, Md.; HBC (Hiawatha Broadband Communications of Minnesota);  and Ritter Communications, an operator that serves more than 45,000 business and residential customers in parts of Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri.

With those additions, Espial said its newly-branded Elevate platform is now deployed to more than 40 operators around the world. Other known partners include Shaw Communications, WideOpenWest, Buckeye CableSystem, EastLink, Comporium, Consolidated Communications and Service Electric Cable TV.

The new product branding and set of new customers come about a month after Espial closed its acquisition of Arris’s Whole Home Solution, a software, apps and video navigation platform for set-top boxes that was spawned by Arris’s $20 million purchase of Digeo in 2009. At the time, Espial estimated that the deal would add $7.7 million in annual revenues amid a plan to push forward with new “video-as-a-service” offerings.

RELATED: Espial Swings Deal for Arris’s Whole Home Solution

Espial is billing Elevate as a turnkey, IP video transition offering backed by a Network Operations Center and “geo-redundant” cloud data centers, multiscreen user interfaces, and associated apps platforms. Arris is now Espial’s preferred partner for gateways, but Espial is free to work with other hardware partners.

RELATED: Espial ‘G4’ STB Client Targets RDK & More

“We felt that the best path to get more scale with that software solution was to combine it with somebody that's just laser focused on that part of the market. It will be the best thing for our customers and ultimately the best thing for employees,” Bruce McClelland, the new CEO of Arris, said in a recent interview with Multichannel News, said of the reasoning behind the deal (Multichannel News will be running that full interview later this week.).

Espial’s acquisition of Arris’s WHS and launch of Elevate pits Espial against others that are pitching IP transition platforms to operators, including Evolution Digital, Adara Technologies, as well as Comcast, which is now licensing/syndicating its X1 platform to other MSOs, with Cox Communications and Shaw Communications already on board. TiVo, freshly merged with Rovi and a partner with Evolution Digital, is also enabling MVPD partners to pursue next-gen video products.

RELATED: Shaw To Start X1 Set-Top Rollout in 2016

Espial said it will be showing off Elevate at the Arris booth (#1074) at this week’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

SCTE/ISBE announced Friday that president and CEO Mark Dzuban underwent an "important heart procedure" this week that will prevent him from attending the organization’s Cable-Tec Expo, set to take place next week in Philadelphia.

SCTE/ISBE said it expects Dzuban to be out of the office through much of October, but also expects him to resume many of his SCTE/ISBE duties remotely well before his return.

In the meantime, Chris Bastian, SCTE/ISBE senior vice president and CTO, and Lindsay Johnston, the organization’s senior vice president, operations, will work with the rest of the SCTE/ISBE senior team “to ensure seamless execution on SCTE/ISBE’s mission – implementation of new capabilities that are delivering value by preparing workforces to anticipate, drive and operationalize new technologies," the organization said. 

Bastian, Johnston and other industry leaders will also assume Dzuban’s duties at next week’s show, SCTE/ISBE said.

“The Expo train is already moving at full speed, so I’m certain that we’ll achieve our goal of delivering a best-ever event for the industry,” Dzuban said, in a statement. “I also have every confidence that the SCTE/ISBE team we have assembled over the past few years will continue to bring value to our corporate and individual members during my absence.  In the meantime, I will be only a few miles – or a phone call – away from SCTE/ISBE headquarters, and will be eagerly anticipating my return to the office.”

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

In the weeks heading into the show, Cable-Tec Expo was in line to draw about 400 exhibitors, including 55 that are new to the confab.

Despite the ongoing consolidation of the industry, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) said attendance this year is “on plan” as registration activity started to accelerate around the Labor Day weekend.  Last year’s event in New Orleans drew more than8,600 attendees, thanks in part to growing international attendance, which surpassed about 1,100, and about 66 exhibitors that were new to Expo.

Multichannel News technology editor recently checked in with Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE and ISBE, its international arm, to discuss what’s new at this year’s show and what he believes will be the hot topics in Philadelphia. An edited transcript follows.

Multichannel News: What's going to be new and different at this year's show? 

Mark Dzuban: Under the premise of "Innovation Meets Here," there's been a lot of thinking by this team. The Innovation Theater is going to kind of twist on some of the things we've done.

We'll also be making an announcement on a next-generation educational system that is very high tech using the most current science of the transfer of knowledge.

We brought on Reni Gorman [as vice president, learning and development]. Her background is from Columbia University on cognitive studies -- how the brain thinks. If you look at military avionics, aerospace and how they develop senior folks that are responsible for not just very expensive but also very critical weapon systems and network reliabilities from a military perspective -- using very similar science in this new program that we're going to be announcing. 

MCN: What is the Innovation Theater going to be about? 

MD: Innovation Theater [at 4,500 square feet] is for industry trends, announcements and new technologies discussion. You're going to see a constant set of presentations around key initiatives in our industry. It's a focal point for new thinking in the Innovation Theater. 

RELATED: New Cable Tec- Expo Exhibits Key on ‘Innovation’

MCN: Topic-wise, what do you see as the big drivers this year? It seems like DOCSIS 3.1 and wireless technologies are two big ones that come to mind. 

MD: There's a load of workshops. Certainly, the early  DOCSIS 3.1 deployments around what was learned...that's a big deal. We have some good presentations by the senior folks deploying it. 

Another is fiber access architecture strategies, which are driving fiber deeper. That's terribly important as we continue to reduce fiber node sizes and improve customer experience. Fiber deployment considerations -- that's driven by the competitive environment and how we have a leadership edge on our science in the field. 

IoT [Internet of Things] and IoT services, that's interesting because you see a lot of new applications. And the power of color – a lot of enhancements to video we're doing to [improve] the experience. 

Maintenance and testing in an SDN world -- think of the software-defined networks and how they evolve with the current physical plant...into a software domain that is going to be much more agile.

And SDN and NFV (network functions virtualization) -- continuing to look at elements within the network and what that looks like from an access perspective. Access is the largest component of our plant, so how software-defined networks virtualize some of the outside facilities will be a big deal.

And there’s also the access technology around energy. There are a lot of benefits about energy that people don't realize. As you manage your energy efficiently, the core temperatures get reduced and you generally improve your network reliability and mean time between failures. There are all kinds of economic benefits and network reliability benefits that come from energy management. 

MCN: If you had to boil it down, what's the biggest challenge that your constituents fact today? Is it about competition or enabling the workforce for the future? 

MD: Every year, it's about: What do we need to tackle? It may not be the same topics as the previous year. But it's about being agile -- how do we support our industry in a dynamic market where the threats change, how do we invest our capital? Five year plans get modified. How do we adopt the way that we do business to constantly compete in a very agile and focused way?

The value of SCTE and what we do, I think, is becoming crisper. We're working hard to show the value [such as] some of the things we're doing around training. Training component has a direct correlation with my CTO and CFO discussions -- how do you correlate all the work you do to get business results. We're driving both workforce and technology from an applied science perspective. 

As the cable industry gears up for another Cable-Tec Expo, there will be plenty to see and do next week in Philadelphia, and offer just about something for everybody in the sector’s engineering ranks.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Since it’s impossible for one to get to all the workshops and to see everything on the floor, here’s a look at some of the sessions and doings that will be on our dance cards (view the  full show schedule here, and a detailed listing of workshops that will be on tap):

The Big Picture

A big can’t miss is Tuesday’s general session at 8:30 a.m. in the Terrace Ballroom. That will kick off with opening remarks from Tony Werner, president, technology and product for Comcast Cable and chairman of the SCTE/ISBE board of directors, and follow with a keynote from Marcus Weldon, CTO of Nokia and president of Nokia Labs.

Stick around for a panel led by Bob Stanzione, executive chairman and chairman of the board at Arris; Jim Blackley, executive VP, engineering and IT at Charter Communications; Balan Nair, EVP and CTO of Liberty Global; and Zoran Stakic, EVP and CTO of Shaw Communications.

Energized for The Future

Energy conservation power reduction have been on cable’s front burner since the industry outlined the goals of the ambitions Energy 2020 program in 2014. This year’s show will offer some opportunities to get caught up on the progress of that initiative.

Don’t miss:

-Access Technology Energy: Changing the Equation: Monday at 2 p.m. (100 level Rooms)

This track will address energy consumption in headends, hubs and access networks, and will feature Charter’s Dan Cooper (moderator), along with John Ulm of Arris; and Samir Parikh, of Gainspeed, the virtual CCAP startup acquired earlier this year by Nokia.

-Energy Saving Strategies: Monday at 3:15 p.m. (100 level rooms)

This session will lay out the energy blueprint for a typical cable system, from the side of the house all the way to the headend. Led by Comcast’s Theresa Hennesy (moderator), and speakers Charles Carroll of Coppervale Enterprises and Gary Mitchinson of Virgin Media.

-SCTE/ISBE Energy 2020 Session:Tuesday at 11 a.m. (Room 121 B-C)

This 90-minute session will offer an expanded update on the initiative, promising fresh insight from Comcast, Liberty Global and suppliers such as Alpha Technologies, Arris, EnerNOC and VMware. Also to be unveiled: a new Energy Chapter Engagement Program for SCTE/ISBE chapters, and present an update on new energy management standards.

Tuned to Next-Gen Video

Though MPEG/QAM video transport will be will us for years to come, the industry’s IP video transition is in full swing, opening up opportunities for richer, more visually-pleasing formats and expansion to new types of devices.

-Advanced Encoding Meets IP Video Delivery: Monday at 2 p.m. (100 level rooms)

This session will take a deep dive on new formats such as 4K/Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range (HDR) and illustrate why distribution of those signals require more than just new encoders and now predictive analysis and adaptive bit rate technologies can get a fix on bandwidth utilization. Features Niem Dang of SCTE/ISBE (moderator), Jeremy Morrison of Deluxe OnDemand Sridhar Kunisetty of Arris.

-Delivering Video Services to Customer-Owned Devices: Monday at 3:15 p.m. (100 level rooms)

The cable industry isn’t wild about the FCC’s proposed set-top box rules, but the industry has already been extending apps to retail devices. This session will explore the feasibility (and business and technology constraints) of a customer owned and managed (COAM) device as the primary screen for video consumption.  Led by Matt Zelesko of Comcast, joined by Matt Kalman, Principal of IBB Consulting, and Raj Nair of Ericsson.

-Immersive Video Experiences:Tuesday at 10:45 a.m. (100 level rooms)

Virtual reality is still in its early days, but it’s not too early to be noodling on the bandwidth and  infrastructure impact of VR games and 360-degree video and apps. Led by Ralph Brown of CableLabs, along with Charles Cheevers, and Thierry Fautier of Harmonic.

-To Multicast or Not to Multicast: It’s No Longer the Question! (Or Is It?): Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. (100 level rooms),

Moderated by Jatin Desai of Cognizant Technology Solutions, along with Tushar Mathur of Arris, and Erica Robinson of IBB Consulting

-The Power of Color: Thursday at 12:45 p.m. (100 level rooms)

This session will delve into HDR and wide color gamut and explain what they mean MSO infrastructure and distribution. Moderated by Bill Warga, and joined by Jaclyn Pytlarz of Dolby Laboratories and Sean McCarthy of Arris.

SCTE/ISBE has also teed up two sessions dedicated to 4K/Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range on Wednesday:

-11:15 a.m. (Expo’s Innovation Theater): This “TV of the Near Future” to be moderated by Mark Francisco of Comcast and joined by Craig Todd of Dolby, Thierry Fautier of Harmonic, Jim Morrison of Rogers Communications, Alan Stein of Technicolor, and Skip Pizzi of the NAB.

-1:45 p.m. (Room 121 BC) :  A two-hour session, “The Ecosystem Landscape for HDR,” will be led by Craig Cuttner of HBO and chair of the SCTE/ISBE standard’s program’s Digital Video Subcommittee HDR Working Group, and feature a “master class” taught by Matthew Goldman of Ericsson. Also on tap: presentations by Fautier, Todd, Pizzi, and Arris’s Sean McCarthy. 

Broadband’s Next Wave

DOCSIS 3.1 is setting the stage for multi-gigabit broadband over HFC. While D3.1 is in the early deployment stages, out on the horizon are advanced wireless platforms, fiber-deeper and distributed architectures, as well as  and  Full Duplex (FDX) DOCSIS, an emerging extension that will enable symmetrical services that are usually the domain of FTTP architectures.

Don’t Miss:

-Beyond DOCSIS 3.1: FDX and More:  Monday at 3:15 p.m. (100 level rooms)

This workshop will explore Remote PHY architectures, FDX, and extended frequency ranges for DOCSIS. Led by Ken Wright of Wright Solutions (moderator), and joined by John Chapman of Cisco Systems; and Tao Ouyang of Huawei Technologies.

-Early DOCSIS 3.1 Deployments: Wednesday at 10: 15 a.m. (100 level rooms),

Led by Jay Rolls of Charter (moderator) along with Jorge Salinger of Comcast, and Jason Miller of Cisco

-Remote Architectures and Performance: Tuesday at 10:45 a.m. (100 level rooms),

Featuring Ayham Al-Banna of Arris (moderator), and Jeff Finkelstein of Cox, and Fernando Villarruel if Cisco.

-Fiber Access Architecture Strategies: Wednesday at 9 a.m.  (100 level rooms),

Featuring Jay Rolls of Charter (moderator), Dr. L. Alberto Campos of CableLabs and John Ulm of Arris.

-Wireless: Going Beyond Wi-Fi: Wednesday at 9 a.m.  (100 level rooms),

This session will examine the evolution of WiFi, concerns about coexistence of licensed and unlicensed technologies and 5G.  Led by Zoran Stakic of Shaw (moderator), and featuring  David Wright of Ruckus Wireless (now part of Brocade) and Chris Richards of Ericsson.

The network goes soft…and virtual

A big focus for cable (and this event) is the move toward software-defined networks and virtualization, a strategy that includes much less emphasis on purpose-built hardware and more cloud-powered network smarts. Here’s a representative view of what’s on tap:

-As a Service with SDN/NFV: Monday at 2 p.m. (100 level rooms),

 Rajat Ghai of Benu Networks (moderator), with Ben Bekele of Cisco, and Scott Robinson of Cox Communications.

-Virtualizing Content Delivery and CPE: Monday at 3:15 p.m. (100 level rooms),

Jeff Finkelstein of Cox (moderator), with Toerless Eckert of Cisco, and Bill Coward of Cox.

-Deploying SDN/NFV : Tuesday at 10:45 a.m. (100 level rooms),

Led by John Dickinson of Charter (moderator), and joined by Karthik Sundaresan of CableLabs and Tom Zanylo of Cisco. 

Arris has followed up its first retail-focused DOCSIS 3.1 product with a set of D3.1-powered gateway products for service providers.

New to the company’s D3.1 family are:

-The TG3442, a gigabit gateway with whole-home WiFi at an “entry-level price point.”

-The TG3452, a “performance-tier” telephony gateway with “carrier-grade video” over WiFi capabilities.

-The TG3462, a premium-tier telephony gateway that tacks on multiple IoT radios and 8x8 WiFi.

Arris did not disclose if the silicon supplier underpinning those products is Broadcom or Intel.  Arris said it plans to submit its new line of D3.1 products for certification testing at CableLabs.

Arris’s first retail-facing D3.1 product, the SB8200, achieved certification earlier this year. Vendors with products that have also been certified for D3.1 include Humax, Sagemcom, Askey, CastleNet, Netgear, Technicolor and Ubee Interactive.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Arris (booth 1074) will show off its new wares at next week’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia

Arris also announced the launch of the Touchstone Development Partner Program, which opens up the platform to software development partners. Initial partners include embedUR Systems and SamKnows. Arris will also provide services for testing, certifying, and deploying applications in service provider networks under that program. 

Cable modem and gateway maker Hitron Americas Technology said it is pitching in for RDK-B, the broadband-focused flavor of the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack for IP-capable video and broadband devices being managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Charter Communications.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Hitron, which will show off an Intel-powered DOCSIS 3.1 device at next week’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo show in Philadelphia, said it’s joining the RDK community as an Advanced Support Program (ASP) partner and its Platinum Media Sponsorship Program (MSP).

“With upcoming DOCSIS 3.1 gateway deployments, we will also see the proliferation of RDK-B powered CPE,” Todd Babic, the vendor’s chief sales and marketing officer, said in a statement.

RDK-B complements RDK-V, which is focused on video devices.

SCTE/ISBE said engineering and operations pros from Cable ONE, Charter Communications and Comcast will head to Philadelphia next week to compete in the “IP Challenge” finals, which will test their knowledge of Internet Protocol technologies, including IPv6.  

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

The final, sponsored by Cisco Systems, is set for Monday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. ET, and will feature three rounds of Jeopardy-style questions, and one found of equipment configuration and troubleshooting.  

Here are this year’s finalists:

-Robert Peiers, Cable ONE (Defending Champion)

-Viktor Bialou, Comcast

-James Guidry, Charter Communications

-Cody Hall, Cable ONE

-John Holt, Charter Communications

-Alexander Morong, Cable ONE

-Zack Stricker, Cable ONE

-Kevin Troub, Cable ONE

-Douglas VanGessel, Cable ONE

Each finalist is getting a full conference pass for the show. The IP Challenge winner will receive one full conference pass to Cisco Live and one full conference pass to next year’s Cable-Tec Expo and a chance to defend the title. 

Following an introduction in February, CableLabs has moved ahead with the specification-writing phase of “Full Duplex” (FDX), an enhancement to DOCSIS 3.1 that will enable symmetrical, mutli-gigabit speeds over HFC networks.

FDX will require a passive (N+0) network, which fits in with the plans of some operators that continue to pull fiber closer to the premises, reduce node sizes, and shift to more distributed access network architectures. FDX will also extend the legs of HFC and could prolong the need to go with FTTP.

RELATED: Cisco Chips In For ‘Full Duplex’ DOCSIS

“In June, CableLabs officially launched the Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 project, transitioning it from the innovation phase to the R&D phase focused on specification development,” Belal Hamzeh, VP of wireless at CableLabs, announced in this blog post. “Our first face-to-face meeting held in Louisville last month featured strong participation from CableLabs members and the vendor community including several new participants. Working group meetings will be held on a regular basis until the specification development is complete.”

During the CableLabs 2016 Winter Conference, CableLabs announced the Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 specification project that will significantly increase upstream speeds on the DOCSIS network. The announcement of the Full Duplex extension of the DOCSIS 3.1 specification, and its potential of offering multi-Gbps symmetric services over the HFC network, created a lot of excitement in the industry. Since then a lot has been going on behind the scenes.

He noted that CableLabs has been collaborating with vendors “to further refine the concept and system architecture of a Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 system.”

In a recent interview with Multichannel News, Hamzeh said that, if all goes to plan, FDX is poised to become an official extension to the DOCSIS 3.1 specs sometime in 2017.

Rather than separating/splitting spectrum for downstream and upstream capacity, FDX will enable a dual-use band for both types of traffic.

How FDX is implemented will likely vary from one operator, though some expect a migration in which MSos set a band for the legacy DOCSIS upstream and downstream on each end of the spectrum, and sandwich an FDX band in the middle.

Multichannel News will have much more on FDX, including its progress and potential rollout scenarios, in a story that will appear next week during the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia. 

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

With an eye on next-gen video formats, the SCTE/ISBE said it will feature two sessions dedicated to 4K/Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range at next week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

Both sessions are set for Wednesday, Sept. 28:

--11:15 a.m. (Expo’s Innovation Theater): This “TV of the Near Future” session will be moderated by Mark Francisco, fellow, Comcast Innovation Labs, alongside panelists Craig Todd, senior vice president and CTO for Dolby; Thierry Fautier, vice president, video strategy for Harmonic and president of the UHD Forum; Jim Morrison, principal engineer for Rogers Communications; Alan Stein, vice president, technology development and standards for Technicolor and Technicolor Fellow; and Skip Pizzi, senior director of new media technologies, National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).

--1:45 p.m. (Room 121 BC) :  A two-hour session, “The Ecosystem Landscape for HDR,” will be led by Craig Cuttner, SVP, technology, development and standards for HBO, and chair of the SCTE/ISBE standard’s program’s Digital Video Subcommittee HDR Working Group. The session will also include a master class taught by Matthew Goldman, senior vice president, technology, television and media strategy for Ericsson; an SCTE/ISBE Standards update from HBO’s Cuttner; and presentations by Ultra HD Forum’s Fautier, Dolby’s Todd, the NAB’s Pizzi, Sean McCarthy, Arris fellow, and Josh Limor, vice president, technology and ecosystem development for Technicolor. 

“Just as television itself revolutionized entertainment 60 years ago, so, too, is 4K HDR driving superior content creation, content delivery and viewer experiences,” said Cuttner, in a statement.

Cable-Tec Expo is set to run Sept. 26-29.

Taking more direct aim at the cable sector, Adtran announced this week it has acquired a set of “active” fiber access products from CommScope.

Products tied to the deal include CommScope’s active EPON and 10G-EPON platforms that support DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON, a CableLabs spec that enables MSOs to tie their provisioning systems to new EPON networks.

Adtran is also getting CommScope’s line of Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) products line, including versions equipped to mitigate optical beat interference (OBI)  that can impair performance when multiple modems attempt to communicate over the same fiber at the same time.

RFoG, now an SCTE standard, allows MSOs to deliver traditional RF-based video and data services over FTTP architectures while preserving their legacy backoffice systems. MSOs have been using RFoG in targeted situations such as low-density greenfields and rural deployments.

The deal gives Adtran, a top supplier of FTTP and DSL gear, including new 1-Gig-capable G.fast technology, a clearer path into the cable sector as MSOs continue update their networks and evolve toward more programmable architectures.

CommScope said the deal will also tighten its business focus.

“The transition of these active product lines to ADTRAN sharpens both companies’ focus to benefit our customers and the cable industry as a whole,” said Jim Hughes, CommScope’s vice president of North American MSO sales, said in a statement, noting that the company will continue to provide passive PON products to MSOs and other service operators.

“Our goal is to help our customers build and offer competitive broadband solutions, and this acquisition demonstrates our commitment to the MSO customer base,” added Robert Conger, Adtran’s associate vice president, cloud and portfolio strategy.

The deal also comes ahead of the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo, set to kick off September 26  in Philadelphia. 

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), have appointed Tom Adams, EVP, field operations at Charter Communications, to its board of directors.

Adams, a 30-year industry vet, will officially be seated on the board at the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo meeting on Monday, Sept. 26.

At Charter, Adams directs Charter’s field operations for 25 million customers across 41 states. Prior to joining Charter in 2012, he spent 17 years with Time Warner Cable, which was acquired by Charter earlier this year, serving in roles such as regional vice president of operations for Wisconsin, and regional VP of operations/division president for a team of about 2,000 employees serving more than 700,000 customers in the Raleigh, Wilmington, and Fayetteville, N.C. Prior to TWC, he was VP of new business at NewChannels Corporation.

He earned a bachelor of science in engineering from Florida International University. 

The Society said Adams will help guide development of new programs aimed at increasing workforce skills, driving adoption of new technologies, and improving operators’ bottom lines. 

“Tom Adams’ background and his commitment to our industry are perfect fits for the SCTE/ISBE Board of Directors,” Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “We’re fortunate to be able to draw on Tom’s rich base of knowledge and look forward to his insights into how we can create new opportunities to benefit SCTE/ISBE members and the industry at large.”

“With the industry’s rapid deployment of advanced services and new technologies, our operational needs are changing and evolving faster than ever,” added Adams. “I look forward to working with the SCTE/ISBE Board to help guide development of the educational and applied science tools that can both assist the skilled cable technicians in the field and improve the quality and efficiency of service delivery as this industry continues to meet the growing needs of its customers.”

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

SCTE/ISBE said it will offer a mix of exhibits, a special session, tours and workshops dedicated to its Energy 2020 initiative at the 2016 Cable-Tec Expo, set to run Sept. 26-29 in Philadelphia.

SCTE and its membership outlined the goals of Energy 2020 in 2014, highlighting a plan to reduce energy costs and energy consumption by the end of the decade using a range of best practices, new technologies, and standards, including the Adaptive Power Systems Interface Specification (APSIS/SCTE 216 2015)), an open-source effort aimed at reducing power consumption in next-gen network equipment.

RELATED: SCTE/ISBE, Villanova Connect on Energy Management

Here’s a sampling of Energy 2020-facing elements on the agenda:

--Two exhibits on the show’s Innovation Avenue area – one by Technetix and another by Liberty Global and Ericsson – showcasing how cable system operators can reduce unnecessary power consumption in the headend and in the network, in conjunction with the principles of SCTE/ISBE’s APSIS standard.

--A 90-minute Energy 2020 special session (Sept. 27, 11-12:30 p.m. ET) featuring  insight from Comcast, Liberty Global and suppliers such as Alpha Technologies, Arris, EnerNOC and VMware. The session will also unveil a new Energy Chapter Engagement Program for SCTE/ISBE chapters, and present an update on new energy management standards.

--An Energy 2020 Lab that will feature hands-on solutions from such vendors as EnerNOC, Villanova University’s NSF Center for Energy-Smart Electronic Systems, QuantaCool Corporation that are designed to change the way facilities or networks consume power.

--Energy 2020-themed workshops that will include presentations Charter, Comcast and Liberty Global, as well as strategies on reducing energy usage, particularly in headends, hubs and networks.

--An Energy 2020 Tour that will showcase energy efficient products and services -- from Alpha Technologies, Arris, Cable Technologies International, CableLabs, Eltek, Nokia, Technetix, Tempest Telecom Solutions and WES. One participant will get an opportunity to win the grand prize from Alpha— an Apple iPad Mini 4 and a $500 Gift Card; and for their company, 10% or up to $10,000 off a 30kW PV System.

“Energy 2020 rapidly is bearing fruit by spawning new approaches to energy management for our industry,” Chris Bastian, senior vice president and CTO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement.  “The exhibits and discussions on the Cable-Tec Expo agenda represent next-generation thinking that will help cable to exert increased control over energy costs and consumption in the future.”

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

SCTE/ISBE will bring a new twist to its annual tech-fest this month with two new features – the Innovation Theater and Innovation Avenue – that will focus on trends such as high dynamic range, DOCSIS 3.1 and energy management.

Both are slated for the show floor at Cable-Tec Expo 2016, set for Sept. 26-29 in Philadelphia.

SCTE said the Innovation area will be opened at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 27, by SCTE/ISBE president and CEO Mark Dzuban and Shaw Communications EVP and CTO Zoran Stakic, who is serving as program chair of Expo 2016.

Per SCTE, here’s what’s on tap:

--A kick-off presentation debuting SCTE/ISBE’s new expert development system, which combines the latest developments in cognitive science with SCTE/ISBE’s technical expertise, unparalleled industry relationships, and deep community of experts to create a learning environment that generates measureable results for the industry;

--A panel of technology experts who will address new developments in video resolution, including ideation around the future of television, the proven value of 4K HDR in the wake of the 2016 Olympic Games, solutions that enable delivery of HDR content, and the ability of operators to operationalize and deploy HDR;

--Exhibits showcasing how cable system operators can reduce unnecessary power consumption in the headend and can reduce networks’ reliance on the traditional power grid, in conjunction with the principles of SCTE/ISBE’s APSIS™ standard (SCTE/ISBE 216);

--Presentations on how programmable silicon, Software Defined Networking (SDN), and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) can open networks, accelerate new service delivery, reduce costs, and increase customer responsiveness and satisfaction; and

--Sessions that will address the challenges cable operators have within the access network, and the opportunities for traditional wireline, wireless, and next-generation solutions.

The deployment of new technologies and how MSOs are dealing with competition from OTT, telcos and satellite rivals will be given a global twist at next month’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and its global division, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), said a session set for the morning of Thursday, Sept. 29  will feature the following panel:

-Steve McCaffery (moderator), managing director, Arris International;

-Chris Bastian, Senior Vice President and CTO, SCTE/ISBE;

-Hernan Benavides, Vice President, Engineering, Liberty Global Latin America and Caribbean (LiLAC); and,

- Mark Yamaguchi, President, Synclayer, and President, Japan Cable TV Engineering Association (JCTEA).

The Arris-sponsored SCTE/ISBE International Attendee Breakfast  is set to start at 7:30 a.m. ET in Room 120-C of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, with the one-hour panel session set to start at 8 a.m. will take place from 8 to 9 a.m. 

The panel is expected to discuss a range of topics, including the deployment of new technologies, competition, WiFi strategies, future network expansion in support of services such as the Internet of Things and virtual reality, how to prioritize capital expenditures for upgrades, and the shift beyond HD video quality.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

Hitron Technologies Americas said it will demo CODA, what it’s billing as the first DOCSIS 3.1-based cable modem gateway to use Intel’s Puma 7 chipset, at the upcoming SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

Perhaps you've already had an opportunity to see it. Hitron showed off CODA at the 2015 Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans.

But to recap, Hitron’s new wares will run the Puma 7, a dual-core Intel Atom processor outfitted with speedy 14nm technology. It also supports third-party 4x4 MIMO WiFi and voice recognition modules, according to the companies.

Hitron’s D3.1 platform will be entering the market amid small, early deployments of the new multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks, and ahead of a ramp up that’s expected to occur in 2017.

And it’ll have plenty of company. Several vendors have already had products certified by CableLabs for DOCSIS 3.1 – Humax, Arris (for a model tagged for retail distribution), Askey, CastleNet, Netgear, Sagemcom, Technicolor, and Ubee Interactive.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global division, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), have set the general session lineup for Cable-Tec Expo 2016, set to take place next month in Philadelphia.

On tap to for opening remarks for a two-hour session scheduled to start September 27 at 8:30 a.m. ET is Tony Werner, president, technology and product for Comcast Cable and chairman of the SCTE/ISBE board of directors, followed by a keynote from Marcus Weldon, CTO of Nokia and president of Nokia Labs.

That will be followed by a panel featuring Bob Stanzione, executive chairman and chairman of the board at Arris; Jim Blackley, executive VP, engineering and IT at Charter Communications; Balan Nair, EVP and CTO of Liberty Global; and Zoran Stakic, EVP and CTO of Shaw Communications.

SCTE/ISBE said topics that will be addressed during the session will span how innovation in workforce education and technology are working together for the industry, the “Future X Network” and its implications for MSOs and their suppliers, and how technological and business developments are shaping the future of the telecommunications industry.

Operating under the theme, “Innovation Meets Here,” Cable-Tec Expo 2016 is slated for September 26-29 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The event will also feature three two-day “Boot Camps” – one on DOCSIS 3.1, one on FTTx, and one on Wireless Broadband – to be held on Sunday, Sept. 25 and Monday, Sept. 26.

“The organizational and technological changes that have swept the industry are creating new opportunities for cable operators and their technology partners,” Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “The opening general session of SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2016 has been designed to enable attendees to hear from—and engage directly with—executives who are driving our industry into the future.”

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global arm, the Intentional Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), has tapped author and educator Syd Finkelstein to keynote the Cable-Tec Expo’s annual awards luncheon, set for Wednesday, Sept. 28 in Philadelphia.

SCTE/ISBE said Finkelstein, whose classes are part of the organizations’ Leadership Institute at Tuck Executive Education at Dartmouth program, will address themes from his 20 books, including Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent.

Finkelstein’s remarks at the noon ET luncheon will follow three awards for SCTE/ISBE leadership: the Member of the Year Award, the Women in Technology Award, and the Hall of Fame induction.

“The expertise shared by our SCTE/ISBE-Tuck faculty at the Awards Luncheon each year speaks to issues that are key to the future of our industry,” Lindsay Johnston, senior vice president, operations for SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “Like Marshall Goldsmith and Ron Adner in recent years, Syd Finkelstein’s insights into the characteristics and thought processes that make business leaders successful will be of value to our entire luncheon audience.”

Cable-Tec Expo 2016 is set for September 26-29 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. 

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE) have teed up more almost three dozen workshops for Cable-Tec Expo 2016, set for Sept. 26-29 in Philadelphia.

Workshop topics will span DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s new multi-gigabit platform for HFC network, 4K/Ultra HD, Big Data, machine learning, software defined Networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV, virtual reality, as well as the SCTE/ISBE Energy 2020 program.

Among the engineering leaders on tap for the sessions include John Ulm of Arris, John Chapman of Cisco Systems, Rob Howald  of Comcast, and Jeff Finkelstein of Cox Communications.

The show’s agenda has been programmed by the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2016 Program Committee, chaired by John Schanz, executive vice president and chief network officer of Comcast Cable.

“John Schanz’s vision has played a key role in bringing transformative experiences to cable subscribers,” Chris Bastian, senior vice president and CTO of SCTE/ISBE, said in a statement. “His leadership and the hard work of the entire program committee have resulted in an agenda that offers real insight into the future of our industry and what it will take for us to achieve success.”

Marcus Weldon, CTO of Nokia and president of Nokia Bell Labs, will keynote Cable-Tec Expo 2016 the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 27, and will be part of the show’s opening general session at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. 

Marcus Weldon, CTO of Nokia and president of Nokia Bell Labs, is on tap to keynote Cable-Tec Expo 2016 when the annual event returns to Philadelphia, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), announced Tuesday.

Weldon’s keynote is set for Tuesday, Sept. 27, and will be part of the show’s opening general session at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which is scheduled to get underway at 8:30 a.m. ET.

SCTE said Weldon will share insights into the future of communications networks, including observations from his recent book The Future X Network: A Bell Labs Perspective.

“Marcus Weldon is a visionary whose unique perspective on the power and evolution of networks transcends any specific company or technology,” John Schanz, executive vice president and chief network officer of Comcast Cable and chairman of the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2016 Program Committee, said in a statement. “His views on IP migration, services, the opportunities for wireless networks and the impact of virtualization and the cloud are fascinating and will have broad application for the SCTE/ISBE Expo audience.”

“Telecommunications providers worldwide face a new technological revolution defined by the digitization and ubiquitous connectivity,” added Weldon. “Our challenge is to create ‘cloud integrated networks’ that will help us achieve the 100-fold or more improvement in network scale, flexibility, programmability and cost per bit that the revolution will require.”

Weldon holds a B.S in Chemistry and Computer Science from King’s College, London, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Harvard University. In 1995, he joined the Physics Division at AT&T Bell Labs as a post-doctoral researcher, before becoming a Member of Technical Staff in the Optical Materials Division.

Cable-Tec Expo week begins with three two-day Boot Camps -- on DOCSIS 3.1, FTTx and Wireless -- on Sunday, Sept. 25 and Monday, Sept. 26. The show’s conference sessions, exhibits and other activities are set for September 27-29.

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and its global brand, the International Society of Broadband Experts, have launched a call for papers for this year’s Cable-Tec Expo 2016, set for September 26-29 in Philadelphia.

The organization has set a deadline for abstract proposals of March 1.  More information about the call for papers is available here.

This year, SCTE/ISBE said it’s looking for papers in areas spanning the deployment of DOCSIS 3.1; fiber-to-the-premises and fiber-deep architectures; intelligent energy management/energy innovations; home networking technology (including WiFi, Internet of Things and MoCA); infrastructure as a service IAAS; and proactive maintenance/advanced predictive alarming.

Other topics that will be given priority, including network virtualization (SDN/NFV); delivering video to consumer-owned and managed devices, commercial business services, all-IP service delivery, virtualized CPE for business and residential customers, and Ultra HD bandwidth and quality tradeoffs.

The Expo 2016 Program Committee, chaired by John Schanz, executive vice president and chief network officer of Comcast, will review all technical proposals, SCTE said.