Related:Comcast Leans Into Wireless

Some big, perhaps surprising, changes are occurring in Comcast’s technology and engineering ranks, led by the coming transition of company executive vice president and chief network officer John Schanz.

He’s taking an advisory role at Atairos, the investment vehicle set up by former Comcast vice chairman and CFO Michael Angelakis last year, which has invested $250 million in e-commerce company GroupOn.

Schanz, a former AOL networking executive who joined Comcast in 2006, has been helming the largest video and broadband network in the pay TV industry, serving 22 million cable customers, 23 million high-speed Internet customers and 11 million voice customers. Under his leadership, Comcast has developed a major content delivery network that underpins a multiscreen video platform for smartphones, tablets and PCs, as well as traditional set-top boxes.

Former Comcast CTO Tony Werner, recently promoted to president, technology and product, will assume Schanz’s responsibilities on the network side. MSO veteran Sree Kotay has succeeded Werner as CTO.

Marcien Jenckes, EVP of consumer services, is taking on Schanz’s duties in ad-technology operations, which includes the recently acquired programmatic ad systems vendor Visible World and online ad specialist FreeWheel.

Comcast reinforced its commitment to a wireless product last week after naming longtime executive Greg Butz to head up its new Comcast Mobile division, a unit that could be the next step in the cable company’s journey toward offering customers full mobility.

The move, part of broader changes including the departure of chief network officer John Schanz and cable division chief financial officer Cathy Avgiris (see sidebar), comes about eight months after Comcast notified Verizon Communications last October of its intention to activate its Mobile Virtual Network Operator agreement with the carrier.

The MVNO agreement, part of the deal by SpectrumCo (a consortium of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks) to sell its wireless licenses to Verizon for $3.9 billion in 2012, would essentially allow Comcast to resell Verizon wireless service under its own brand name, a dramatic change from its past endeavors in the wireless business.

Comcast has been part of wireless partnerships that all went bust: Sprint PCS and Pivot with Sprint; and one with WiMax pioneer Clear-wire. An MVNO would allow Comcast to resell a reliable service with lower upfront costs.

Selecting Butz to head up the group was no accident. As executive VP of sales and marketing, Butz has been a key part of Comcast’s sales success, and past wireless endeavors have lacked a strong marketing component, according to some people familiar with the company.

“Selling to the base is going to be critical, and Greg [Butz] knows how to sell into Comcast’s customer base,” one source said.

Butz helped create Comcast’s broadband business in the early days of high-speed data, responsible for product strategy, business strategy and marketing. He also has a cellular business background, serving stints at Comcast Cellular and Bell Atlantic Mobile.

Comcast declined to comment on the Comcast Mobile unit, but sources familiar with the company said its formation is a logical next step in what may be a slow and steady process. Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit has said publicly that the cable operator was in “test and learn” mode concerning its wireless plans, and that still appears to be the case.

“I expect Comcast to go about this pretty slow,” Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said, adding that it could be one to two years before Comcast unveils a product.

While Comcast isn’t letting on what that could be, most analysts believe a hybrid WiFi-cellular phone could be first out of the gate — a mainly WiFifirst phone that hands off to the cellular network when the customer leaves a hotspot. It could give Comcast the ever-elusive quad play of video, wireline voice, data and wireless that operators have chased for decades.

The timing is better now than in the past, Wlodarczak said, for two reasons: Wireless pricing is high and wireless usage is off the charts.

Wlodarczak said offering a service over an already reliable wireless network at a cheaper price could gain traction. However, operators would have to be careful as to how low they go.

“If you really only need the MVNO as a fill-in — the tech is not quite there yet — you could seriously squeeze the telcos using their own network,” he said. “But this is the flaw with MVNOs; at some point the deal ends.”

John Schanz, the executive vice president and chief network officer of  Comcast, will serve as program committee chair for SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2016, when the annual event returns to the MSO’s hometown of Philadelphia.

In that role, Schanz will spearhead the event’s agenda, ive the content for the event, which will focus on advanced network technologies improved customer experience and energy management. Next year’s show is set for Sept. 26-29 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Schanz succeeds this year’s Cable-Tec Expo program committee chair, Balan Nair, the EVP and chief technology officer of Liberty Global. They both serve as co-chairs of SCTE’s Energy 2020 program.

“John Schanz’s vision of the future and his commitment to innovation have been key factors in shaping the roadmap to cable telecommunications’ future,” said Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE and ISBE, in a statement.  “His understanding of the opportunities that lie ahead for the industry will help us create a compelling Expo 2016 program that will benefit all of the stakeholders—operators, vendors and individual members—in cable technology.”

“Through programs such as Energy 2020 and DOCSIS 3.1 training, SCTE has been a catalyst of the transformation taking place in today’s cable industry,” Schanz added. “In the months ahead, the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo® 2016 Program Committee will be developing an agenda that will help operators and technology partners harness the technologies and products that are on the horizon.”

Schanz joined Comcast in 2006, and previously served as EVP of network and data center operations for AOL. 

A concentration on new cutting-edge cable technologies, an increased focus on education and the debut of several cable new exhibitors helped drive attendance at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers 2014 Cable-Tec Expo in Denver.

The annual technology fest, held from Sept.22-25, attracted about 9,100 attendees, the SCTE said in a statement. While that was below the 9,800 attendees to the 2013 gathering in Atlanta, a 22% increase in new exhibitors helped drive total booth takers to 376 and a pre-conference symposium on DOCSIS 3.1 and wireless technologies drew more than 500 attendees for the first time. Both the exhibitor and attendance totals represent increases over those registered in 2009, when Denver last played host to the event.

This year’s get-together also had a new focus on learning and education – the conference agenda included more than 100 hours of workshops and symposiums on three distinct tracks: Next-Generation Customer Experience; Next-Generation Video; and Next-Generation Networks.  A standing-room only crowd heard Comcast executive vice president and chief network officer John Schanz keynote the Energy 2020 session that unveiled cable’s plan to reduce energy consumption and assure energy availability by the end of the decade. The event also saw strong attendance at back-to-back sessions on DevOps, Agile Software Development and RDK.

Cable executives provided insights at the general sessions into how the industry is adapting to continue to improve the customer experience and maintain its competitive edge worldwide, and how engineering and operations professional can align their careers.  The sessions included opening remarks by Tony Werner, executive vice president and CTO of Comcast Cable Communications and the 2014 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Program Chair; a keynote presentation by Rob Lloyd, president, development and sales for Cisco Systems, Inc.; a panel on cloud technologies; a Werner conversation with Mike Fries, president and CEO of Liberty Global; and views on career growth from Yvette Kanouff, senior vice president and general manager, Service Provider Video Software and Solutions Group, Cisco, and Mike LaJoie, executive vice president and CTO and chief network operations officer for Time Warner Cable.

“Despite unavoidable proximity to IBC and other industry events, the cable engineering community turned out in force to learn more about harnessing the new technologies that increase and ensure service availability,” said SCTE president and CEO Mark Dzuban in a statement.  “We’re grateful for the leadership of Tony Werner; the insights of Mike Fries, Rob Lloyd and our other speakers; the support of CableLabs at our DOCSIS 3.1 and Wireless symposium; and the technical resources of Comcast’s Denver Central operations. All of them—and many others—contributed to making SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2014 the most successful educational event in our history.”

SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2015 will be conducted Tuesday through Friday, Oct. 13-16 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Liberty Global executive vice president and CTO Balan Nair will serve as Program Committee chairman for the 2015 event.