The New England Connectivity and Telecommunications Association is the new name for NECTA, the five-state regional trade association for companies in the cable-TV business. This weekend (October 23-25) NECTA brings back its annual conference hosting cable companies, regulators and legislative officials in Newport, Rhode Island. 

The plan is to make the gathering a summertime affair again in 2023, association president Tim Wilkerson said. The last in-person conference in Newport was held in 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We think that making that change, even though it’s one word, it's a lot more than than that,” Wilkerson said of the rebrand. “We think that word, connectivity, really symbolizes and encapsulates what the future is. These world-class broadband networks that exist today, but are going to be powering those 10G networks in the near future, are really going to be driving our innovation economy and those connected emerging technologies like robotics, telemedicine, fintech, ed tech, sports wagering and then world-class entertainment like NESN and NBC Sports and NBCUniversal that they rely on.”

Cable-centric associations such as NCTA–The Internet & Television Association and more recently NCTC for years have been looking to make their names say more than just cable while retaining the same basic letters. NECTA worked with an agency, Seven Letter, on the new name, a new logo and a new website that for the first time spells out a mission statement for the group, Wilkerson said. A new tagline reads, “Connecting New England.”

Topics important to NECTA include how the $14.2 billion in broadband subsidies under the national Affordable Connectivity Program are handed out, and whether or not the states will adopt parallel programs that help subsidize the cost of a residential broadband subscription, Wilkerson said. The biggest cable companies in NECTA's territory of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont are Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Breezeline, Wilkerson said.

“NECTA has always played an important role in shaping public policy, analyzing trends in technology and implementing best practices for these industries,” Mark Reilly, senior VP of government affairs for Comcast, said in a NECTA statement about the rebranding. “With the constantly changing landscape and new technologies emerging on a rapid scale, NECTA’s role will be even more important to help policymakers grapple with advancements of technology and how it can help expand economic growth and improve the lives of all New Englanders. Their refreshed brand and focus reflect where these industries are going, and I am excited to see what comes next.”

NECTA formed in 1961 as the Community Television Association of New England, headquartered in Tilton, New Hampshire. In 1982, the association rebranded and became the New England Cable Television Association. In 2004, NECTA updated the name to New England Cable & Telecommunications Association.

The first, small NECTA conference in Newport was held in 1972 and grew to be a popular destination, peaking in size around the year 2000, the former NECTA CEO Paul Cianelli recalled in a 2012 interview. “We’d literally get every room in Newport and beyond,” he said then. Wilkerson said the decision was made over this past summer to restart the in-person convention, but by then it was difficult to find open dates, hence the October scheduling. This weekend’s conference will be held at the Newport Harbor Island and Resort. ■

Newport, R.I. – The set-top box competition proposal at the FCC weighed heavily on the opening of the New England Cable Telecommunications Association convention here, with one speaker calling it “an existential threat to the cable industry” and another saying “the loser in this [FCC] approach is the American consumer.”

The speaker seeing the existential threat, Charles River Associates senior consultant Stanley Besen, called the plan by Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler “bad economics” that could “sever” the business relationships between programmers and video distributors. 

He said the FCC should embrace the cable industry’s proposal to let programmers get integrated into pay-TV systems via apps and then “declare victory and go home.” But the agency seems intent on changing the way programming is delivered, he said.

The second speaker, Comcast senior executive vice president David Cohen, agreed with Besen that Wheeler’s proposal – to enable over-the-top providers to gain access to set-top data – could “blow up the cable content ecosystem.” If so, he said, that “could easily result in lesser quality of programming, higher prices and a significantly worse consumer experience.”

The Comcast top policy executive (who said this was his 14th year in the NECTA opening panel) cited encouragement cable has received from Verizon and Google to the apps-based “ditch the box” proposal. He also said “consumers don’t view this as a burning issue,” having not weighed in heavily with comments and with more comments opposing Wheeler’s plan than supporting it.

Beyond the set-top proceeding there also are big policy concerns for non-video parts of the business, which are growing faster than video, he said: the broadband data privacy and special-access proceedings under way at the FCC that target high-speed data and business services.

Cohen said the proposals were “ideologically based attacks” by the Obama administration that pose “grave risks” to the cable industry and “something we need to pay attention to for the next six months.” 

Atlantic Broadband CEO Richard Shea agreed the pending FCC actions – which might get bogged down in an election year – was worrisome because of the threat to the important business services segment for the first time. “For either one of those to come into full force would have a very chilling effect for us,” he said.

Later, Cohen said with the election of a new president, administration and FCC in 2016, it "needs to be a huge priority for our entire industry, to press the re-start button and begin to rebuild a constructive relationship between our federal government and our industry." 

Asked by the moderator, CNBC anchor Ron Insana, about the surprise Pokemon Go phenomenon, Cohen said it was a good reminder that millennials are key to driving the business and of “the importance of innovation.” To the latter point, Comcast is working hard on immersive virtual reality applications for viewing the Olympics, he said. That won’t attract a significant audience in 2016 but will grow to becom an important application at the 2020 Games, he said. 

“We have to be innovating the next things that will make people love and want our products and services, even though we have no idea what they are today.”

The New England Cable & Telecommunications Association convention in Newport, R.I., this week (July 13-15) “is looking great in its 45th year,” longtime NECTA CEO Paul Cianelli told The Wire.

“We’ve come a long way from, ‘One of the main questions is, can we support 12 channels of programming?’ to where we are today, focusing on innovation, integration, motivation, which is the theme of our show this year.”

He said the outlook was for 521 attendees: 362 registrants, 103 spouses and 56 children among them. Sixty-six companies are registered. “It’s important that this New England show has developed into a family show” since around the mid-1970s, Cianelli said. He’s in his 41st year with the association, which represents cable interests on policy matters in the six states.

Get complete coverage of the NECTA convention.

Various traditions will be observed: CNBC’s Ron Insana, as he has for about the past two decades, leads an opening panel session that includes regular attendee Comcast  senior executive vice president David Cohen, along with Atlantic Broadband CEO Richard Shea and Stanley M. Besen of Charles River Associates. Comcast-owned NBCUniversal is the convention’s biggest sponsor, another key to its longevity. Disney & ESPN Media Networks is No. 2 and MAV TV is No. 3, followed by some 20 other entities, mostly programmers.

The opening night party will be hosted by NESN as it has since 1989 and since 1990 at the same location, the Gas Lamp Grille (or whatever else it’s been called over the years). NESN is also bringing Red Sox announcers Dave O’Brien and Jerry Remy to the network’s booth on Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

At its peak, in the early 2000s, Cianelli has said previously, the NECTA show drew upward of 1,200 people. It was one of several strong regional cable conventions, which have dwindled with industry consolidation.

“We are the last of the Mohegans, so to speak, the last significant convention that’s not the national INTX show,” Cianelli said. “And I think that has to do with a number of things. One is the model that we use, the substance that’s there for all members. And New England being New England, which is a pretty tight, unique area, we’re able to bring in many of the legislators, policymakers to participate and to learn, and we in turn learn from them. Many of our significant panels are taped and then subsequently put on New England Cable News.

“Obviously, every year we take a hard look at [the show], but it’s been such a significant tool both for the operators and for the policymakers that I think we have a bright future.”

The New England Cable and Telecommunications Association has appointed Timothy O. Wilkerson (pictured) as vice president and policy counsel, following the retirement of EVP and chief counsel William Durand after 31 years with the group. Wilkerson, of Swampscott, Mass., currently serves as the commonwealth’s regulatory and permitting ombudsman in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. He will lead efforts by NECTA to help its member companies work effectively with government leaders at the state and municipal level, throughout New England, on behalf of consumers, the association said.

Wilkerson also has served as the director of economic policy development in Massachusetts and as chair designee of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and the Massachusetts Broadband Institute. Earlier, he was general counsel and legislative director for the Massachusetts State 9-1-1 Department, assistant counsel to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, chief counsel to the House Committee on Bills, special assistant attorney general and assistant district attorney in Plymouth County, NECTA said.

“I am pleased to be joining NECTA at this critical moment in the history of broadband development in New England," Wilkerson said in a statement from NECTA. "The communications sector has the potential to radically improve the economic climate in our region and I look forward to working with NECTA’s member companies, and their government counterparts throughout the region, to help make that happen.” 

John Wolfe, who has served nearly 30 years in Cox Communications's New England operations, has been named senior vice president and region manager in the Southwest, Cox's largest regional operation. Effective immediately, he succeeds Steve Rizley, another longtime Cox executive who ran the southwest region since 2001. Cox is looking for a replacement for Wolfe as Northeast regional manager and senior vice president.

Cox's Southwest region includes the Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas. Phoenix is expected to be the first market where Cox will introduce Gigabit Internet speeds, and Las Vegas metro area neighborhoods also are being aggressively upgraded, the company said. For an update on those developments, read this interview with Cox chief technology officer Kevin Hart published today at Multichannel.com.

"With his tremendous leadership abilities, combined with a strong sense for what it takes to compete in our industry, I am confident that John will ensure the Southwest region remains a focal point for aggressive investment, growth and innovation, starting with Cox's Gigabit Internet deployments this year," Paul Cronin, senior vice president of customer experience for Cox, said in a release. "Under John's direction, Cox will continue to lead Arizona and Nevada as a significant employer, community contributor and technology enabler."

Wolfe joined Cox in 1995 in connection with the company's Times Mirror acquisition. He led Cox's government-affairs, communications and corporate philanthropy in New England before being promoted to general manager in 2012, when he succeeded Cronin after he was promoted to his current corporate post.

Cox said Wolfe led the Northeast region to company-leading customer satisfaction scores in 2012 and 2013. Earlier in his career he was a public-information director at the then-National Cable Television Association and an editor at Cablevision magazine. He is also chairman of the New England Cable & Telecommunications Association (NECTA). He will relocate to Phoenix, the Cox southwest region's headquarters.

Newport, R.I. – Against a backdrop of merger action and talk among the biggest pay-TV distributors and content companies, cable executives at a regional cable-TV convention here said their companies are more valuable than ever – despite pressure from competition and uncertainty about federal regulation.

David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, a day after testifying at a Senate hearing on open-Internet policies, said the pile-up of merger reviews and big policy concerns at the Federal Communications Commission was a bit nerve-racking. Comcast’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable should be examined on its own merits, and not in the context of AT&T’s plan to buy DirecTV or whatever happens with 21st Century Fox’s effort to buy Time Warner Inc., he said.

But the FCC is dealing with the Comcast and AT&T merger plans at the same time it’s framing open-Internet policies, all in the next six to nine months, he said. The blowback against FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s first attempt to act on federal court direction to set open-Internet rules under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act prompted Wheeler to inject talk about Title II regulation of broadband “in a way that is much more front and center than I am comfortable with,” he said.

“You end up with a SOPA-PIPA moment, which the press is desperately trying to create," he said, alluding to proposed Internet privacy legislation the Congress was forced to abandon under enormous consumer backlash.

Cohen said he didn’t think the FCC would go for Title II regulation ultimately. Speaking on a panel with Cohen, Cox Communications EVP and chief operating officer Jill Campbell said she agreed the FCC wouldn’t opt for Title II but said she hoped the FCC would not become too “intrusive” on open-Internet and bandwidth-management policies. “Our position as an industry is we believe in an open Internet,” she said at the opening session of the New England Cable & Telecommunications Association’s annual convention. But if policies end up targeting Internet providers and making it hard for them to innovate and offer growing speed that customers want "that's not going to benefit anyone."

Jim Bruder, chairman and CEO of cable company Harron Communications, also on the panel, said broadband providers would like to be able to make judgments such as giving 911-emergency calls priority over Web searches as "an extreme example." Bandwidth-management restrictions are clearly an outcome that cable operators worry about coming out of the FCC’s open-Internet rulemaking.

Overall, the panelists were optimistic about the cable business, while being mindful that pay-TV offerings have to adapt to attract younger consumers who expect content to come for free and to serve multicultural audiences with programming they want and can afford.

Bruder said his family is in its 50th year in the cable-TV business and likes the growth prospects, still, largely because of other business lines than just multichannel video. “We see a good future, even as a small operator,” he said in answer to a question from moderator Ron Insana, the CNBC senior analyst.

Campbell spoke about “polarization” of the U.S. economy into wealthier and older consumers on one hand and younger, multiethnic populations, with the growth coming from the younger and less-affluent segments. Cable needs to offered different products to appeal to diverse audience segments, she said.

Cohen and Campbell both said cable needed to do a better job marketing the value of the product and not just either explaining why programmers have driven up the price of cable. "Every consumer piece of research that we do, the number one complaint is pricing. It just is," Campbell said. "And I think that's going to be something the industry is going to have to deal with. When you think about companies like Google, they come in and they say, here's a $70 price point on broadband and $15 on video, that's problematic for us. So we've got to rewrite the value equation and figure out a different angle than always trying to go after pricing."  

This longtime regional cable convention – the association CEO Paul Cianelli is attending his 39th NECTA conference – concludes tomorrow at the Newport Marriott. The opening panel is slated to be televised Sunday on New England Cable News, convention officials said.