While the telecom industry has spent the past few decades touting the ever increasing bandwidth of their various broadband products, a panel of top cable experts said that consumers are increasingly looking to how those services perform as they continue to pile devices and applications onto their networks.

As cable has evolved from one-way video to two-way DOCSIS, users are becoming more concerned with how their different applications and services interact with their broadband network, Charter VP, connectivity technology Justin Colwell said on a panel session during Tuesday’s Opening General Session at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo moderated by Comcast senior technology adviser Tony Werner.

Also Read: Talent Gap Depends on What You're Doing, Cable Chiefs Tell Expo 

“We’re getting to the point, actually, where we’re going to have excess capacity, and customers’ applications are going to care less about the peak bandwidth, which will be important at times, but actually more about how latency and jitter and then the home network performs,” Colwell said. “A lot of what we’re focused on from a development perspective is how we create a better in-home or in-small business network, how we then use that end-to-end network to include where hosts are out on the internet in order to establish for applications that need it or customers that need it, the right experience.”

Home networks are getting more sophisticated as they increasingly have to handle more and more devices per home. Charter averages about 15 devices connected to its Wi-Fi network per customer, Colwell said. 

“The network has never been more complicated,” Colwell said. “And our jobs are to turn that around and make it very easy for customers. Things should just work.”

Werner asked if that transformation has made the home Local Area Network (LAN) more important.

“If you don’t have a good home LAN, it’s like putting bicycle tires on the back of a dragster,” Colwell said. 

No conversation about the internet can bypass the Metaverse, the amalgamation of the various technologies and applications possible as data speeds and capacities rise exponentially. While Facebook even changed its name to Meta in deference to the expected impact of the technology, it hasn’t materialized quite as quickly as some might have expected. Werner asked if the panel thought the Metaverse was hype or reality, and Cox Communications chief technology officer Len Barlik came down hard on the latter. 

“It is going to be a reality,” Barlik said. “I think the capabilities that we’re helping developers come forward with, and the expectations of customers, we’ll continue to see an evolution associated with it. We’re living in it today. … We’ll start to see a lot more.”

Also: Comcast Successfully Tests ‘Final’ Piece of ‘10G’ FDX DOCSIS 4.0 Network

Werner also asked about the future of video for the cable business. While traditional pay TV has lost millions of subscribers over the past decade and streaming video services have started to dominate, there have been some who have questioned if video service should even be part of the equation for cable operators.

Liberty Global EVP and CTO Enrique Rodriguez said that video will continue to remain an important part of Liberty Global’s product offerings, adding that it too will evolve like the rest of the business.

“We don’t see a future in which we stop innovating in video,” Rodriguez said, adding that although technology and needs have changed over the years — consumers are mostly concerned with the ability to onboard apps and integrating services — he still sees it having a place in the product mix. 

“Video, at least in our markets, will continue to be extremely important for a long, long time,” he said. ■

TiVo shares fell more than 4% on Thursday after CEO Enrique Rodriguez abruptly left the DVR pioneer to become chief technology officer of Liberty Global. 

TiVo board member Raghu Rau has stepped in as interim CEO as the company searches for a permanent replacement.

Related: Liberty Global Names Former TiVo Chief New CTO 

TiVo has been transitioning from an equipment manufacturer to focusing on software, services, advertising and licensing. Rodriguez joined TiVo in November after serving stints at AT&T, Microsoft and Cisco, and was supposed to lead that charge. 

TiVo shares dipped as low as $13.20 each in early trading (down 65 cents each or 4.7%). The stock closed at $13.30 each (down 55 cents, or 4%) on Thursday. 

Related: Tivo Has 'Moved Well Beyond a Hardware Company' CEO Says

In a statement, TiVo said Rodriguez’ decision to leave was a personal one.

“On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Enrique for his leadership and we wish him the best in his next chapter,” TiVo chairman James Meyer said in a statement. “We are fortunate to have a world-class leadership team in place and are pleased to have someone of Raghu’s caliber step in to lead the Company. He has been a member of the TiVo Board of Directors since 2015 and is a proven leader with extensive experience in the video industry and in the management of intellectual property. I am confident that Raghu, alongside the rest of the leadership team, will continue to drive the value that TiVo’s innovative technology portfolio brings to the fast-growing and hyper-competitive entertainment industry.”

Related: TiVo 'Exploring All alternatives' to Drive Shareholder Value 

Back in February, TiVo said it was exploring all of its options, including transformative acquisitions, combining with other companies or going private. 

Rodriguez said the decision to leave was a tough one.

“My personal decision to pursue another opportunity was not easy,” Rodriguez said. “I couldn’t be more excited about what lies ahead for TiVo as I expect our performance through the second quarter of 2018, including our announced profit improvement actions, to be ahead of our internal plan. I am looking forward to continue my relationship with TiVo in my new role as a customer and partner. Until then, I am committed to working with the TiVo team to ensure a seamless transition.”

Rau, who served as CEO of SeaChange International from 2011 to 2014, has been a TiVo director since 2015. Prior to his work at SeaChange, Rau held a number of senior leadership positions with Motorola from 1992 to 2008.

Liberty Global said it has named former TiVo CEO Enrique Rodriguez executive vice president and chief technology officer, taking the spot left vacant after former CTO Balan Nair was promoted to head up Liberty Global’s Latin American operation in January. 

Rodriguez will start his new position in late July. Since January, Baptiest Coopmans has filled in as interim CTO. He will remain with the company as senior vice president, operations.

“Enrique is a seasoned executive who will hit the ground running on day one,” Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said in a statement. “In today's technology environment the best CTOs have worked across sectors, platforms and geographies. Enrique has C-level experience as an engineer, software developer and operator. …I'm particularly excited to tap into Enrique's knowledge of video products and platforms as we ramp up innovation in our TV business. He’s the right leader at the right time for Liberty Global.”

Rodriguez will lead Liberty Global’s Technology & Innovation (T&I) team of more than 7,500 employees, with an annual operating and capital budget of more than $5 billion.

Rodriguez was named CEO of TiVo in 2017. Prior to that, he has managed multi-billion dollar businesses for companies like AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco and Thomson, and has a long history in digital television as well as the European broadband sector.

As head of Microsoft's Connected TV business, he launched IPTV solutions for telecommunication companies around the world. At AT&T Rodriguez was responsible for the teams that developed and launched its OTT service, DirecTV Now.

Rodriguez will lead Liberty Global’s Technology & Innovation (T&I) team of more than 7,500 employees, with an annual operating and capital budget of more than $5 billion. The centralized technology function powers the IT, supply chain, product development and delivery and network platforms across Liberty's operating companies, working across countries and brands to help them succeed. Liberty Global’s standardized approach to its portfolio of software and hardware, which includes the Horizon TV platform and state-of-the-art Connect WiFi routers, plays a critical role in optimizing operational efficiency and delivering a consistently superior experience to Liberty's 22 million customers in Europe.

“This is an exciting time to join Liberty Global,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “It is one of the few companies in our sector with international scale, a long-term commitment to technology leadership, and a track record of consistent growth and value creation. Mike and his team are first class operators and I look forward to accelerating product innovation and building the network capacity that European consumers want and demand.”

TiVo said its board has unanimously elected Enrique Rodriguez to president and CEO.

Rodriguez, who assumes that role effective today (November 13), succeeds Tom Carson, who announced his intention to retire in May. Carson, who led Rovi through its merger with TiVo last fall, is also stepping down from the TiVo board, but will stay with the company as an advisor through the beginning of Q2 2018 to assist with the CEO transition.

RELATED: TiVo President and CEO Thomas Carson to Retire

Rodriguez takes the helm of TiVo more than a year after the merger with Rovi, and just weeks after TiVo introduced a new lineup of retail products that support voice-powered navigation. Earlier this month on TiVo's earnings call, Carson stressed that the company had “moved well beyond a hardware company,” as the bulk of its revenues are now coming way of software, services, advertising and licensing.

RELATED: TiVo Revamps Retail Lineup With Voice-Powered Devices

Rodriguez most recently was EVP and CTO of AT&T’s Entertainment Group unit, coming on board there in 2015 to oversee U-verse and DirecTV and to head up the technical integration of those services.

Prior to that, Rodriguez was group VP of Sirius XM, and was SVP and GM of Cisco Systems’s Service Provider Video Group. At Cisco, he was one of the leads on Videoscape, a multi-screen video initiative that Cisco introduced in 2011 at CES that is now offered through a suite of products under the “Infinite” brand.

Rodriguez is also late of Microsoft, where he served in positions that included corporate vice president for the TV Division and as VP of Xbox partnerships. Before his time at Microsoft, Rodriguez spent more than 20 years at Thomson/RCA.

“Enrique is an exceptional leader and strategist who has the energy and passion that will position

TiVo for success,” Jim Meyer, TiVo’s chairman of the board of directors, said in a statement. “He knows the company and our industry inside and out, and will be able to move quickly with implementing initiatives that we believe will position the company for future success and add value for our stockholders.”

“I am honored to be selected by the Board for this opportunity to lead TiVo and its employees, and I look forward to the company’s next phase of growth,” added Rodriguez. “The opportunity for TiVo is enormous, and my focus will be on accelerating the innovation that our customers demand to help usher in a new era of entertainment, while adding value for our stockholders.”

Enrique Rodriguez, a former Cisco Systems and Microsoft exec who most recently was with Sirius XM, has been named executive vice president and chief technical officer for AT&T, the company confirmed.

In that role, he’ll oversee both U-verse and DirecTV and help to lead up the technical integration of those services,Variety first reported, noting that former DirecTV CTO Rômulo Pontual left after AT&T closed its merger with DirecTV in July. AT&T also confirmed Pontual's departure. 

Regarding integration, AT&T has tapped Ericsson to help out, selecting the vendor to “enhance” the telco’s TV platform and work with AT&T to evolve its satellite and wireline TV platform. Last month, AT&Tannounced (subscription required) that it would use a derivative of DirecTV’s gateway-client architecture to establish a more uniform, cloud-based video platform for the combined company. AT&T's U-verse platform is currently powered by Ericsson Mediaroom (Ericsson acquired Mediaroom from Microsoft in September 2013). 

Rodriiguez, formerly the EVP of operations, products and connected vehicle at Sirius XM, left in July, and was replaced by James A. Cady.

Before that, Rodriguez ran Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group as SVP and GM, but left in August 2011, about year after taking on that post. He joined Cisco in June 2010 after running Microsoft’s TV, video and music business. Before joining Microsoft in 2003, Rodriguez spent more  than 20 years at Thomson/RCA.