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Arris, Seawell combo on multi-screen ad delivery

CableLabs: DOCSIS 3.1 specs good to go

Continued on page 27

Last year when Cable-Labs announced DOCSIS 3.1, it vowed to have the specifications published by the end of this year. Through a Herculean ef-fort by vendors, cable op-erators and other interest-ed partners, the 3.1 specifi-cations will be published at the end of this month.

CableLabs’ Matt Schmitt, director, DOCSIS, made the announcement in front of more than 200 attendees Monday morning during the “DOCSIS 3.1 engineering pre-conference sym-posium” in Atlanta.

“We made a fairly bold assertion in October of

last year that we would have them substantially complete and publically issued by the end of 2013,” Schmitt said. “This is quite a bit faster than we have ever pulled off before. It’s not a small proj-ect to do a new DOCSIS with a new physical layer underneath. It was an indus-try-wide effort, and I tell you

what, they’ve been busting their tails.”CableLabs and its host of vendors also met the

four objectives that were laid at last year’s Expo. The first was making sure that DOCSIS 3.1 could scale to 10 Gbps on the downstream, and up to 1

SCTE, CableLabs cozy up on technology initiatives, see page 3

2 0 1 3 S H O W D A I L Y

® 1CABLE-TEC EXPO 2013

TUESDAY, October 22, 2013

C A B L E - T E C E X P O

DAY

Arris Group and Sea-Well Networks have collaborated on an adver-tising solution for multi-screen that integrates the former’s SkyVision ad insertion platform and the latter’s IP session delivery controller.

The solution enables the delivery of localized, session-oriented ads and programming at the home network level. The two companies said the system provides “unprecedented

Continued on page 25

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CableLabs and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) announced this morning that they would work in tandem to accelerate the world-wide development and deployment of new cable network technologies.

The cable industry’s support organiza-tions, which also include the NCTA, have become more aligned during the past few years at the behest of the cable operators that they serve.

The deeper relationship between Cable-Labs and the SCTE was designed to enable the innovation of CableLabs and the ap-plied science, engineering and training ca-pabilities of SCTE to be brought together in a clearly defined, collaborative way.

“As greater demands are placed on cable networks, it’s important that the in-dustry’s two leading technical organizations work together in the most efficient manner possible,” said Phil McKinney, president and CEO of CableLabs. “By working more closely with SCTE, we believe we can help the industry to accelerate deployment of solutions that universally will benefit operators, programmers, advertisers and, most importantly, consumers.”

It also created a framework that will enable parallel development of new tech-nologies and supporting training resources by SCTE and CableLabs, including DOC-SIS training and certification that begins this month, as well as educational activi-ties at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo this week.

“The good working relationship between SCTE and CableLabs has helped to foster the development of a wide variety of tech-nologies,” said Mark Dzuban, president and CEO of SCTE. “With the natural synergies between our areas of focus, the leadership of both organizations felt that an approach that maximizes communication and sharing of information would expedite the ubiquitous availability of new technologies, products and solutions for the industry.”

Among the key components of the en-hanced relationship will be alignment on standards and training programs that were designed to drive workforce readiness as new innovations come to market. Exam-ples of the collaboration between the two organizations include partnerships on such projects as:

• A DOCSIS Engineering Profession-al (DEP) Certification that certifies the

knowledge of the interface requirements and operation for the deployment of DOCSIS devices over cable networks;

• A training course that is designed to address such areas as Architecture, DOCSIS Layering, DOCSIS Network Operations and DOCSIS Technology Enablement in preparation for the DEP certification examination; and

• Today’s joint symposium on DOCSIS 3.1 Engineering at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta.

The SCTE and CableLabs have worked together with the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) to develop the educational pro-gram for the Spring Technical Forum at The Cable Show in May. They also are scheduling quarterly strategic meetings and other activities that are supposed to improve communications.

“CableLabs and SCTE each play import-ant and complementary roles,” said Tony Werner, executive vice president and CTO of Comcast. “By increasing integration of their core competencies, both organizations can enable the industry to capitalize on in-novation faster and more efficiently.”

SCTE, CableLabs cozy up on technology initiatives

Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.com CABLE-TEC EXPO Show Daily Day One October 22, 2013 3

Video Analytics & Service Assurance for Traditional Linear Broadcast, Multiscreen, and OTT Video Services www.ineoquest.com

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With today’s advancements in video, subscribers are consuming

more video services than ever before, when and where they want

to watch on a diverse set of devices. Delivering vast amounts of

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networks can be a daunting task if you don’t have qualified metrics

to oversee the video delivery network to ensure a quality subscrib-

er experience.

From the analysis of the video source, through distribution network

and edge delivery point, all the way to the end viewing point, the

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Time Warner Cable has started to deploy the cable indus-try’s converged cable access platform (CCAP) with Casa Systems and Arris.

Time Warner Cable has CCAP up and running in several markets to provide more bandwidth for the delivery of its data services.

“CCAP will provide the increased density and cor-responding capacity needed to meet the growth of our data services,” said Howard Pfeffer, Time Warner Cable’s senior vice president, broadband engineering and technol-ogy. “The deployments have been extremely successful. We look forward to continued network growth, enabling the development of new and advanced services for our customers.”

The end game for CCAP is to eventually combine edge QAMs and cable modem termination systems into one ultra-dense platform. Time Warner Cable is taking a two-pronged approach by deploying Casa’s C100G cable mo-dem termination system (CMTS) and the E6000 Converged Edge Router from Arris.

Casa took the wraps of its C100G CMTS earlier this year. Casa’s integrated C100G can support up to 8,000

downstreams when fully loaded.

Arris announced the E6000 last fall, and it became widely avail-able earlier this year. The E6000 supports 56 downstream service groups per chassis (16 RU), each with up to 32 downstream channels with integrated RF spar-ing. It can also support a maximum of 72 down-stream service groups per chassis each with up to 32 downstream channels. After previously trialing Arris’ E6000 cable modem termination system (CMTS), Comcast now has it in commercial deployments.

Comcast has conducted field deployments of CCAP while Cox Communications teamed up with Cisco on mod-ular trials earlier this year.

Time Warner Cable gets its CCAP on

Casa Systems’ C100G CMTS

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Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.com CABLE-TEC EXPO Show Daily Day One October 22, 20134

Here’s a different way to welcome in SCTE Cable-Tec Expo: Let’s talk about some of the things that could go wrong.

No, I’m not trying to take a “glass half-empty” approach to Expo. I can assure you that our staff has taken every precau-tion to ensure that this year’s event here in Atlanta – as always, our industry’s pre-eminent showcase for technology products and learning – goes off without a hitch.

Nevertheless, here’s the reality: As an industry that delivers important telecommunications services to our customers, we need to anticipate and be prepared to respond to the natural and manmade events that can jeopardize our ability to meet our customers’ needs.

As we’ve witnessed time and again in recent years, even when we expect the unexpected, the effects on our networks can be extreme. Hurricanes, blackouts and the latest nomen-clature – the “superstorm” – are only the tip of the iceberg (hopefully we won’t have to deal with those) when it comes to events that can impact our ability to deliver the services that keep our customers connected.

While Expo will be home to countless discussions and product demonstrations designed to improve service delivery now and in the future, a focus of this year’s show also will be on how cable can increase its ability to cope with disrup-tive events.

The reason is simple: With each new step in cable’s evolution from a video service to a provider of diverse com-munications products, there has been a concurrent increase in reliance on our networks by customers. This goes beyond cable’s emergence as a primary source for residential voice and data connectivity. Today’s cable system operators are expanding their market presence with high-quality, highly-reliable business services, as well as with Wi-Fi hotspots that are being counted on by consumers to provide “anytime, anywhere” access within the operator’s market footprint.

Let’s be clear that when it comes to the vast majority of operational circumstances, the industry has done an outstanding job of increasing quality of service and network reliability. When networks are impacted by cataclysmic events, however, the effects are more keenly felt because it is at these moments – when the networks are at their most vulnerable – that the consumers’ need for communication and information is greatest.

With Superstorm Sandy less than a year behind us, we’re taking steps at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo to sharpen the industry’s focus on how to prepare for the worst. Thought leaders from the operator and vendor communities – including Alpha Technologies, Time Warner Cable and others – will be showcasing mobile units that are designed to expedite repairs and accel-erate the recovery of damaged networks.

In addition, we’ll be fortunate to have with us Brian Allen, Chief of Security for Time Warner Cable and the person responsible for TWC’s crisis management and business con-

tinuity programs. At our luncheon today, Brian will be talking about the experiences of TWC and its employees before, during and after the ravages of Sandy last fall.

Sandy’s landfall across New Jersey, New York and Connecticut was a defining moment for emergency preparedness for our industry. The industry quickly brought criti-cal services such as free Wi-Fi to the hardest hit areas, while expediting the repairs and the delivery of critical resources that would be needed to restore network operations.

Time Warner Cable, for example, began tracking and planning for the storm a week before its arrival, and responded in a highly efficient, well coordinated manner. Among the key elements of the plan: the establish-ment of fueling stations for crews; deploy-ment of mobile charging and Wi-Fi access vehicles and other voice and data communi-cation tools; creation of neighborhood street teams to ensure optimal customer care; and sponsorship of a fleet of food trucks for those displaced by the storm.

Brian Allen will talk about how planning and execution were crucial to Time Warner Cable’s responsiveness, but he’ll also take the forward-looking view of the industry’s needs. He’ll share lessons learned from the company’s post-mortem and steps that are being taken to prepare for future crises, but he’ll talk about the need for new approach-es to business continuity and crisis man-agement, and about how cable engineering and operations professionals can increase the ability of the industry to be prepared for emergencies.

Like the expectations for cable service, the bar for emergency preparedness keeps getting higher. By sharing and incorporating the lessons of Sandy, our industry can improve preparation and response for the next crisis.

We will indeed talk about what can go wrong. But more importantly, we’ll talk about the steps that are being taken to ensure that if disaster strikes, cable is ready to take the steps that are needed to minimize inconvenience and maximize availability for its customers.

This item originally appeared in the September issue of CED.

Unknown unknowns

By Mark Dzuban

President and CEO

of the Society of Cable

Telecommunications

Engineers

Let’s talk

about

some of the

things that

could go

wrong.

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In the last two years, we’ve spent a significant amount of time to break down traditional organization silos and to create an environment where a steady cadence of infrastructure and product enhancements and innovative, collaborate thinking are prevalent. We’ve dramatically slashed development cycles, shifting timelines that included years to rapid processes measured in days and weeks. We’ve established quarterly software upgrades that enable us to dynamically address the shifting needs of customers and improve our prod-ucts. This same shift is occurring in the broader cable industry, and we will all benefit from it. CableLabs, SCTE and the engi-neers within our businesses continue to push the limits of cable’s broadband assets to support existing and future products.

I’m extremely proud of the work happening on my team at Cox and in the industry at large. While it is easy for us to get excited about the technical milestones we are surpassing to keep pace with the exponential change, we must remember the one constant that guides and sustains us: understanding and exceeding the needs of our customers.

Customers are engaging via multiplatform viewing when it is convenient for them, marching towards the promise of a TV Everywhere experience. Personal recommendations, sophisti-cated and intuitive tablet interfaces and integrated third-party content across multiple screens are no longer future state.

In 2012, cable operators spent $13 billion in infrastruc-ture upgrades and joint efforts such as Cable Wi-Fi and Connect2Compete which are helping more customers connect to the powerful network in new ways. While we have plenty to be proud of, we work in a highly competitive space, and our customers are what drive the business. Alternative providers are fighting hard each day to attract the same new subscribers we seek and to lure existing ones away. We must continue to anticipate the needs of the market and remain committed to investment and innovation.

That investment includes recruiting, equipping and training the brightest minds to opti-mize existing assets and build new ones to meet the needs of the customers of tomorrow. We must embrace programs internally and at organizations such as SCTE that help prepare the amazing talent within our ranks to become the technology leaders of the future. As we rally around a comprehensive view of the customer experience, we have to break away from thinking in voice, video, and data silos and move towards a unified view of the converged network and the services we offer. As we equip our workforce to deliver these services, we must create the holistic cable expert, familiar with all transported media.

While new technologies are coming to the market faster than ever, we are remaining not only relevant, but vital, by anticipating trends with forward-looking applications, services,

Customer experience drives future innovation

By Kevin Hart

EVP and CTO,

Cox Communications,

and Cable-Tec

2013 Conference

All of this

innovation

essentially

amounts to a

redefinition of

who we are as

cable providers.

and in-home and mobile technologies that engage and delight them. Here at Cox, for example, we recently unveiled Contour, our new personalized TV experience that lever-ages our latest interactive guide, iPad app, VOD, DVR and personalized recommen-dations to reshape video for our customers. We are seeing this type of innovation among our peers, who are also using leading-edge technologies to enable next-generation video and IP services – all designed to enhance the customer experience.

All of this innovation essentially amounts to a redefinition of who we are as cable providers, one of the reasons Cox has devel-oped a new sub brand for its personal video experience: Contour, indicative of how the service can be shaped to individual needs.

Of course, delighting our customers with a personalized experience requires our products to be simple, user friendly, and easy to install and configure – and that entails progressive approaches to applications and protocols such as Ethernet, MoCA, Wi-Fi and DOCSIS. It involves new innovations with IP video and more personalized second screens, recom-mendation engines and next-generation user interfaces. And it includes pushing Wi-Fi fast-er and deeper into our networks both in the home and throughout the community.

To remain vital to our customers into the next generation, we must leverage our net-work and extend it into the future with tech-nologies such as DOCSIS 3.1, the exciting new platform that will enable us to deliver the data speeds our customers want, the band-width to sustain new products and services and the ability to transition to IP video.

It’s important that we not lose sight of what’s brought us here: the HFC plant. It’s our lifeblood, and there’s plenty of life left in it. Our challenge is to continue to push the limits and extend our HFC technologies as our bandwidth needs continue to rapidly increase. Customers are embracing new applications and consuming content at a rapid pace, and together we can led the way and deliver the communications experience they desire.

This item originally appeared in the October issue of CED.


Imagine upgrades video processor, transcoderImagine Communications has upgrad-

ed both its ICE Broadcast System and its Next transcoder. The ICE Broadcast System (IBS) had been capable of HD 3:1; it is now capable of HD 4:1 – four 1080 HD services in a 256 QAM channel. The Next upgrade integrates the existing transcoding, packaging and streaming capability with an origin server and stor-age interoperability for Catch-Up TV and network-PVR.

The IBS v4.5 upgrade incorporates compression techniques with enhanced treatment of text and tickers, where com-pression artifacts can be most visible, the company said. The move to 4:1 HD com-pression can translate to a 33 percent gain in network bandwidth.

“By focusing both on the entire picture, as well as the parts of the image most prone to noticeable distortion, we found the key to unlocking 4:1 HD quality,” said Ron

Gutman, Imagine CTO and founder.“Our goal for 4:1 is that any com-

pressed content is equal or better quality than the received source 99 percent of the time. You can’t compress to 4:1 without allocating more bits to special features, and we’ve determined the features that matter to the human visual system, includ-ing faces, face edges, text and scrolling tickers,” Gutman said.

The Next Dense Transcoder still sup-ports 320 HD or 640 SD multiscreen profiles per server, less than 2 watts per stream and 100 percent system redundan-cy. With the next: v1.1 SW upgrade, ser-vice providers can now deploy a single 2U server that not only transcodes, packages

and encrypts hundreds of multiscreen ser-vices, but also stores those programs for 7 days of Catch-Up TV and also acts as an origin server.

“We continue to leverage our unique hybrid hardware/software architecture to extend the capability of our dense transcoding system, and time-shifted view-ing is both the logical and most often-re-quested capability,” said Chris Gordon, Imagine VP of product marketing. “What really makes this solution work for our operator customers is the marriage of our advanced platform engineering with our network of mature ecosystem partners. We realize that creating truly differen-tiated solutions requires not only great systems technology but great partner-ships, and are excited about the ecosys-tem developing around our next: Dense Transcoding platform.”

Imagine is in booth #718.

Elemental Technologies has a full slate of products to help enable the multi-screen content delivery on display in Atlanta this week, including live HEVC 4K video processing and low bitrate MPEG-2 encoding.

Elemental’s HEVC/H.265 implementation enables delivery of 4K content at reduced bitrates. Elemental’s architecture will be on display with recent advances in HEVC video compression, including an end-to-end, 10-bit

video processing pipeline and real-time 4K HEVC encoding. Other demonstrations will include 4Kp60 10-bit Ultra HD HEVC processing using Elemental Server and real-time 4K HEVC encoding using Elemental Live.

“Video processing technology from Elemental makes HEVC full frame rate 4K a reality today,” said Aslam Khader, chief product officer for Elemental. “HEVC will dramatically reduce the bitrates required for terrestrial and over-the-top delivery of 4K content, giving pay TV operators a viable path to deliver immersive content to subscribers on any device.”

On the low bitrate MPEG-encoding front, Elemental

said that pay TV operators could reduce traditional MPEG-2 bitrates by up to 50 percent with its video processing solutions. Support for multiple codecs running simultaneously on a single platform can also provide a migration path from existing video delivery standards to future compression technologies.

Elemental is also showing its video processing in the cloud capabilities at Expo via live and file-based workflows running on its cloud platform.

In addition, the company is demonstrating technologies that help customers protect and monetize content in a multi-screen ecosystem, such as forensic watermarking, encryption, CAS/DRM, ESAM, targeted ad insertion, ad removal, ad blanking and audio normalization.

Lastly, Elemental’s unified workflow management solution, which is called Conductor, centralizes management of all of its video processing deployments and will be shown controlling end-to-end workflows, including encoding and packaging across ground and cloud-based resources.

Elemental Technologies is located in booth 735.

Elemental Technologies showing multi-screen video products

HEVC will dramatically reduce the bitrates required for terrestrial and

over-the-top delivery of 4K content...– Aslam Khader,

chief product officer for Elemental

Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.comTHE CABLE-TEC EXPO Show Daily Day One October 22, 20138

Aurora return path expands to 85 MHz with button-pushAurora Networks is debuting a fully

upgradeable 5-85 MHz return path solu-tion here at Cable-Tec Expo.

The company claims its Universal Digital Return Technology coupled with its 102-1002 MHz downstream-capable nodes is the only solution on the market now available that can be seamlessly upgraded from 5-42 MHz to 5-85 MHz in the return path.

The cable industry is generally agreed that its common roadmap includes carving out more upstream bandwidth, to handle increasing upstream data traffic and services such as video conferencing that rely on near-symmetrical bandwidth availability.

Different MSOs will find themselves requiring the additional upstream band-width at different times, however, based on competitive circumstances.

Aurora’s solution is to offer a system that will function in the current 5-42 MHz allocation, but then can be upgraded to 5-85 MHz at the network operator’s convenience.

Aurora Networks NC4000 and NC2000 nodes already support a 5–85 MHz return path. Now, with the company’s DT4250N, an operator can purchase 5-42 MHz tech-nology today and then upgrade an entire node to 5-85 MHz when convenient or necessary, with the upgrade requiring only the push of a button.

“With new standards quickly ap-

proaching, the time is now for operators to seamlessly evolve their networks to support existing and future capacity demands,” said John Dahlquist, vice president, marketing, Aurora Networks. “This new solution is a demonstration of Aurora Networks’ dedica-tion to drive innovation for cable operators and provide them with the right solution for their targeted problem serving areas.”

Other products Aurora will have on display include: • Smart Node Solutions: Featuring Auro-

ra Networks’ entire line of nodes, now including the PWRBlazer series. The depth and breadth of the smart node solutions lead the industry, emphasizing Aurora Networks’ multiple platforms to support multiple applications.

• High-density Transmitter Solutions: Re-sulting in reduced power consumption and rack space requirements for customers.

• OBI-free RFoG Solutions: The indus-try’s only standards-based solution that solves the acknowledged issue of optical beat interference. This is the only solu-tion today which supports the seamless transition to a PON deployment by complying with the SCTE RFoG stan-dards; ensuring the longevity of the architecture and maximizing a cable operator’s return-on-investment.

• Distributed Broadband Access Architec-

ture: Aurora’s Node QAM architecture extends the digital headend domain out to the fiber node. It is capable of deliv-ering any mix of services – broadcast, narrowcast, cable IPTV, and DOCSIS – even in the same QAM channel. This capability enables operators to tailor ser-vice migration and growth to local needs and specifications.

• Advanced DPoE Solution: Showcasing Aurora Networks’ DPoE solution, seam-less and cost-effective PON provisioning.

• Unified PON Access Technology: Com-bining Aurora Networks’ EPON, GPON and Node PON solutions; the complete package, from headend to subscriber including EMS live to show operators the value of this comprehensive platform.In addition, Shridhar Kulkarni, product

manager, access network solutions, Aurora Networks, will present a paper, “SDN (Soft-ware Defined Networking) for Cable Access Networks,” in the IP Networking track on Thursday, October 24 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. This session is an encore of the program session held on Monday.

Aurora Networks is in booth 1944.

Envivio is showcasing HEVC compression code at Expo, as well as its encoders and encoding platform. Demonstrations include a comparison of real-time encoding in HEVC (H.265), AVC (H.264) and MPEG-2 using the Envivio Muse Live encoding platform as well as bandwidth-efficient 5:1 MPEG-2 HD multiplexing using Envivio’s integrated statistical rate control with Envivio Muse encoders.

Also on tap this week in Atlanta is a demo of HEVC video in an MPEG-DASH format, which is ideal for high-quality video distribution to multi-screen devices, and targeted ad insertion.

TV Everywhere capabilities,

including network DVR, catch-up and start over services, to various devices are also featured in Envivio’s booth and on-demand video encoding and processing, including dynamic just-in-time packaging.

“Cable operators need to deliver the highest possible quality while serving a broad range of devices,” said Marios Stylianou, director of marketing solutions at Envivio. “Our latest generation video processing software supports the full range of codecs from

MPEG-2 to HEVC either using Intel-based appliances or blade servers in a private cloud approach. This converged headend also incorporates capabilities for targeted ad insertion and content personalization that offer MSOs the ability to enhance their offerings using a cost-effective and upgradeable architecture.”

Envivio said multiple large cable operators in the United States were conducting field trials of its HEVC compression codec, which offers up to 50 percent bandwidth reduction, through the Envivio HEVC Early Access Program.

Envivio is located in booth 335.

Envivio demos HEVC, encoders

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Every time I open CED, I’m reminded of just how rapidly our industry is changing. Whether it’s deployment of new advanced video technology, the continued rollout of busi-ness services or new applications for broadband, it’s clear that our industry is quickening its pace of innovation.

We’ve come a long way from cable’s days as an analog video delivery platform. The past 20 years have seen a parade of technologies and business changes that have revo-lutionized our service offerings in ways that would have been unimaginable to many of the industry’s founders.

With the new technology has come new opportunity for the cable engineering community. The creation of truly converged IP networks that can meet the needs of an increas-ingly diverse, increasingly mobile customer base is requiring new skill sets for field and network operations personnel.

The guiding factor in putting together our “Creating the Cable Generalist” pre-conference symposium at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo next month was simply this: a recognition that the need for increased expertise is driving demand for a new type of cable engineer who can move easily and knowledgably among the many services that our industry has to offer.

As the industry is dismantling its video, voice and data silos, it is creating new opportuni-ties for current and future cable professionals to increase their value to their employers, their industry and themselves. By mastering the entire landscape of the network, service offerings and customers, the next-generation professional is able to drive deployment of high-quality, highly reliable services that are helping cable maintain its competitive edge.

As we make this transition, a key problem that needs to be solved is the significant portion of network issues that continues to derive from human error. Broadband telecom and network operations center staff may make configuration changes that solve an issue for the aspect of the network they understand fully, but create issues for other services and network elements. Sometimes it’s as simple as IP engineers needing a basic RF and DOCSIS background, or vice versa. Or it may be subtle interoperability issues between different access network types like HFC and metro Ethernet that arise in troubleshooting IP connectivity issues.

Another aspect of this problem relates to the continued efforts to centralize and consolidate back offices by cable operators to create ‘one network’ and 360-degree views of the customer. As more of the cable technical workforce gets increased visibility into more data about our networks and customer issues, it is critical that this workforce understand the data they are seeing and not misinterpret and make poor decisions on how best to use that data.

Cable generalists also make better managers and strategists because they understand all aspects of the networks, not just the ones in the silos through which they rose. Imagine an RF engineer or technician who rises up through the ranks and suddenly needs to make decisions on upgrades to the now majority-IP portion of the network. They need to understand basic net-working, digital fiber networking, and network interoperability issues to make these decisions.

At “Creating the Cable Generalist,” recognized experts from our industry will conduct the

Generalists

also make

better

managers

following sessions:Competitive Access Networks, explor-

ing many of the existing competing access network architectures such as, but not lim-ited to LTE, GPON, Google Fiber, RFoG, MEF and Community Wi-Fi;

Connecting Technology to Business Success, an overview of the frameworks used to analyze competition in technology industries, as well as how to develop a technology strategy;

Digital Video, a close look at MPEG compression techniques used to optimize bandwidth efficiency while maintaining competitive video quality;

BSS/OSS Fundamentals, which will dis-cuss the various management areas, key net-work elements and the role of customer care;

Wi-Fi Connectivity, exploring enhanced capa-bilities at the physical layer, improved RF propa-gation and AAA, WPA and WPS security;

Internet Foundations such as CE, DOCSIS, SDN, IPv6, SONET, QoS, virtu-alization and others;

Network Interoperability, a discussion of the interoperability challenges and rout-ing alternatives used by MSOs and traffic found in the digital network; and

Optical Networks, which will focus on theory and real-world applications that will aide in the understanding of fiber physics, optical detectors and transmitters.

As we developed the agenda for “Creating the Cable Generalist,” we thought long and hard about the issues above and the other challenges facing the industry. The symposium is designed to provide attendees with a 360-degree view of the opportunities ahead and lay a foun-dation for future learning.

The remarkable growth that cable has experienced over the past several decades has been due in part to the eagerness of the industry’s engineering workforce to embrace technological change and expedite delivery of new products and services. With the era of the cable generalist upon us, the industry is setting the stage for the creation and avail-ability of new products that can drive cable success well into the future.

This article originally appeared in the October issue of CED.

Creating the cable generalist

By Steve Harris

Senior Director, Advanced

Network Technologies

11Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.com CABLE-TEC EXPO Show Daily Day One October 22, 2013 11

Every time I open CED, I’m reminded of just how rapidly our industry is changing. Whether it’s deployment of new advanced video technology, the continued rollout of busi-ness services or new applications for broadband, it’s clear that our industry is quickening its pace of innovation.

We’ve come a long way from cable’s days as an analog video delivery platform. The past 20 years have seen a parade of technologies and business changes that have revo-lutionized our service offerings in ways that would have been unimaginable to many of the industry’s founders.

With the new technology has come new opportunity for the cable engineering community. The creation of truly converged IP networks that can meet the needs of an increas-ingly diverse, increasingly mobile customer base is requiring new skill sets for field and network operations personnel.

The guiding factor in putting together our “Creating the Cable Generalist” pre-conference symposium at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo next month was simply this: a recognition that the need for increased expertise is driving demand for a new type of cable engineer who can move easily and knowledgably among the many services that our industry has to offer.

As the industry is dismantling its video, voice and data silos, it is creating new opportuni-ties for current and future cable professionals to increase their value to their employers, their industry and themselves. By mastering the entire landscape of the network, service offerings and customers, the next-generation professional is able to drive deployment of high-quality, highly reliable services that are helping cable maintain its competitive edge.

As we make this transition, a key problem that needs to be solved is the significant portion of network issues that continues to derive from human error. Broadband telecom and network operations center staff may make configuration changes that solve an issue for the aspect of the network they understand fully, but create issues for other services and network elements. Sometimes it’s as simple as IP engineers needing a basic RF and DOCSIS background, or vice versa. Or it may be subtle interoperability issues between different access network types like HFC and metro Ethernet that arise in troubleshooting IP connectivity issues.

Another aspect of this problem relates to the continued efforts to centralize and consolidate back offices by cable operators to create ‘one network’ and 360-degree views of the customer. As more of the cable technical workforce gets increased visibility into more data about our networks and customer issues, it is critical that this workforce understand the data they are seeing and not misinterpret and make poor decisions on how best to use that data.

Cable generalists also make better managers and strategists because they understand all aspects of the networks, not just the ones in the silos through which they rose. Imagine an RF engineer or technician who rises up through the ranks and suddenly needs to make decisions on upgrades to the now majority-IP portion of the network. They need to understand basic net-working, digital fiber networking, and network interoperability issues to make these decisions.

At “Creating the Cable Generalist,” recognized experts from our industry will conduct the

Generalists

also make

better

managers

following sessions:Competitive Access Networks, explor-

ing many of the existing competing access network architectures such as, but not lim-ited to LTE, GPON, Google Fiber, RFoG, MEF and Community Wi-Fi;

Connecting Technology to Business Success, an overview of the frameworks used to analyze competition in technology industries, as well as how to develop a technology strategy;

Digital Video, a close look at MPEG compression techniques used to optimize bandwidth efficiency while maintaining competitive video quality;

BSS/OSS Fundamentals, which will dis-cuss the various management areas, key net-work elements and the role of customer care;

Wi-Fi Connectivity, exploring enhanced capa-bilities at the physical layer, improved RF propa-gation and AAA, WPA and WPS security;

Internet Foundations such as CE, DOCSIS, SDN, IPv6, SONET, QoS, virtu-alization and others;

Network Interoperability, a discussion of the interoperability challenges and rout-ing alternatives used by MSOs and traffic found in the digital network; and

Optical Networks, which will focus on theory and real-world applications that will aide in the understanding of fiber physics, optical detectors and transmitters.

As we developed the agenda for “Creating the Cable Generalist,” we thought long and hard about the issues above and the other challenges facing the industry. The symposium is designed to provide attendees with a 360-degree view of the opportunities ahead and lay a foun-dation for future learning.

The remarkable growth that cable has experienced over the past several decades has been due in part to the eagerness of the industry’s engineering workforce to embrace technological change and expedite delivery of new products and services. With the era of the cable generalist upon us, the industry is setting the stage for the creation and avail-ability of new products that can drive cable success well into the future.

This article originally appeared in the October issue of CED.

Creating the cable generalist

By Steve Harris

Senior Director, Advanced

Network Technologies

RGB Networks unveils cloud-based nDVR serviceRGB Networks is introducing a turn-

key, cloud-based network DVR (nDVR) service. The company is working with Se-quencia Technologies, which has expertise in cloud automation systems.

CloudXtream DVR gives cable operators and other video service providers the option of deploying an end-to-end nDVR solution from their own datacenters, or hosted from either a private cloud or public cloud.

“Sequencia is actively providing architec-ture and engineering services to major video service providers who are transitioning to virtualized infrastructure for service delivery,” said James Kelso, vice president of products and product marketing at Sequencia.

RGB said that many service providers are interested in deploying nDVR, but fre-quently find the storage requirements es-pecially daunting, particularly when used in multiscreen TV Everywhere services.

In the U.S., service providers are legally ob-ligated to keep a copy of each nDVR program

a subscriber views. The number of copies gets multiplied by the number of profiles necessary to support multiple viewing devices (smart-phones, tablets, PCs, TVs, etc.) along with the number of adaptive bit rate streaming proto-cols (e.g., Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming and MPEG-DASH).

CloudXtream DVR overcomes this with RGB’s Just-in-Time-Packaging (JITP) technology, which packages pro-grams into the appropriate streaming pro-tocol only when requested by a subscriber. This approach requires only a single copy of each program in an operator’s library needs to be stored in a “mezzanine” for-mat, which dramatically reduces storage requirements and yields substantial capital and operational cost savings.

The cloud-based nature of CloudXtream DVR also allows it to scale instantly and only when needed to meet growing subscriber demand or spikes in usage, RGB said.

RGB CloudXtream DVR implementation

will be demonstrated at the show in collab-oration with LiveDefinition, a cloud-based publishing and delivery solution, which oper-ates through AWS (Amazon Web Service).

“Our CloudXtream DVR solution enables cable operators and other VSPs to marry our proven software-based transcoding and packaging solutions with the advantages of Cloud architectures to quickly and cost-effectively deploy nDVR services that can easily scale to meet sub-scriber demand,” said Simone Sassoli, vice president of marketing and business development at RGB Networks.

The company said CloudXtream DVR will be the first offering in a series of CloudXtream products and services.

Here at Cable-Tec Expo, RGB Net-works is also showing its recently launched, carrier-class Video Multiprocessing Gate-way (VMG) Gen 2 – the heart of RGB’s ‘Multiscreen 2.0’ live streaming solution.

RGB Networks is in Booth 346.

www.arrisi.com

Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.comCABLE-TEC EXPO Show Daily Day One October 22, 201312

Concurrent serves up cloud-hosted video softwareConcurrent has taken the wraps off

of a new software platform that helps service providers stream content from cloud-hosted video libraries.

The company said its unified origin server simplifies content distribution and reduces content preparation costs.

Concurrent’s unified origin server allows multi-channel video service providers to access premium content hosted on cloud storage services such as Amazon S3, pull it into their own content delivery networks, and deliver it to their customers on-demand. Content is dynamically adjusted as it is accessed from cloud storage to ensure the format, video quality, digital rights protection, and business requirements are satisfied in accordance with contractual agreements.

By leveraging cloud storage, Concurrent’s technology streamlines the on-boarding process for new multi-screen video content. Concurrent’s unified origin server supports live and on-demand video delivery to smart TVs,

tablets, smartphones, PCs, and game consoles, as well as to traditional set-top boxes. The unified origin server includes eFactor, Concurrent’s dynamic content workflow offering that enables content to be converted on-the-fly to meet the format, protection, and quality requirements of the specific application and target screen.

“Video content is increasingly being hosted outside of the service provider’s own operations center using cloud based storage services,” said Bob Chism, Concurrent’s chief technology officer. “By enabling service providers to pull content on-demand over the Internet from third party sources, Concurrent makes it easier and more cost effective to expand their multi-screen video offering to consumers, while providing content owners a way to maintain better control over their content library.”

Concurrent’s CDN Assisted VOD, CDN Analytics and Remote Storage DVR will also be demoed at the show.

Concurrent is located in booth 338.

Electroline bows Wi-Fi over DOCSIS modems, new transponder

Electroline announced the release of its third-generation Wi-Fi over DOCSIS 3.0 platform, which can support fixed, nomad, or mobile data transfer. Electroline’s AeroQAMIII (AQIII ) helps migrate capital ex-penses to revenue generating Wi-Fi

hotspots while simultaneously adding DOC-SIS 3.0 network monitoring elements that can provide RF metrics. AQIII enables a wider

coverage range, higher reliability and improved data rates.

Electroline an-nounced a new power supply status monitor transponder built on a DOCSIS 3.0 platform. It can be used to mon-itor all major brands of stand-by power supplies

and is available as an embedded, power supply specific or universal sidecar model.

The DOCSIS 3.0 platform not only monitors the power supply, but also can be used as a remote network test point. The spectrum analyzer functionality is accessible from a standard Web browser facilitating remote trouble shooting of net-work issues and not just the power supply. The entire HFC bandwidth can be dis-played using this tool. Field service engi-neers can control the analyzer’s attributes

similar to any traditional field analyzer.Electroline also announced the availabil-

ity of its new RFoG optical node, which is called the Electroline Deep Fiber Optical Node (EDN). The RFoG receiver features with burst return transmitter allows service providers to continue to use traditional HFC equipment and back-office applica-tions with the new FTTC deployments.

Electroline’s next generation RF port selection switch, TPS-32, is also on display at Cable-Tec Expo. The TPS-32 is a re-motely controlled switch with a full band-width of 5 to 1002 MHz.

With an available command code SDK, and high performance specifications, it can be used as a component in OEM return path monitoring systems for identi-fication of noise ingress, intermodulation and common path distortion. It’s back-ward compatible with Electroline’s Clear-path return path monitoring products.

Electroline is located in booth 1332.

Effigis adds digital leakage receiver

Effigis is adding to its digital leakage re-ceiver product line with the CPAT DRV3, designed specifically to identify leakage events in an all-digital cable system.

The system can be set to look for leak-age while cable technicians perform their normal daily routine, without any inter-vention on their part.

The portable CPAT DRV3 is a dual tun-er unit, capable of looking for impairments in the aeronautical (FAA) 700 MHz and upcoming 600 MHz LTE cellular bands.

The new tester works with the company’s CPAT Flex platform, used for downstream leakage and upstream ingress monitoring. The Flex system continuously monitors for leakage/ingress events. With continuous monitoring, impairments can be detected faster and repair teams can be dispatched immediately, preventing costly service calls.

“Effigis Geo-Solutions is proud to launch the DRV3 at Cable-Tec” said Dan-iel Babeux, Effigis vice president, business development, broadband networks.

Effigis is in booth 1222.

Volicon has taken the wraps off of its Observer TS Scout, which is a low-cost, single-input version of the company’s Observer TS (transport stream) monitoring and logging system. Observer Scout TS simplifies remote troubleshooting and resolution of chronic issues by recording, monitoring, and remotely streaming ASI, IP, or QAM streams. The Observer TS Scout also provides up to seven days of recording.

Volicon has increased the density of its Observer TS systems, enabling users to record, monitor, and stream all transport streams 24/7. In addition, Volicon’s expanded offering of software modules for the Observer TS further adds to the system’s capabilities by supplying cable operators with specific monitoring tools and functions as needed. New software modules make it possible for the system to support the SCTE-35 standard and monitor loudness levels.

Also at Expo, Volicon is showing the latest additions to its Observer Remote Program Monitor (RPM) family. The RPM product line enables customers to evaluate the quality of their linear, on-demand, and interactive content and advertising automatically at the point of the customer experience. The products use individual set-top boxes to scan through a channel lineup and automatically test services, perform scheduled or triggered recording of advertising or other high-value content, or provide an interactive tool for real-time troubleshooting.

The RPM-600 and RPM-1000 feature more density to

further enable functions such as ad monitoring and interactive application testing. With the Observer RPM-600 and RPM-1000, respectively, users can now manage up to six or 10 set-top boxes simultaneously and independently.

Also in Atlanta, Volicon is showing its Observer OTT, which provides networks, video service providers, and broadcasters with a product for logging and monitoring the over-the-top (OTT) A/V services that stream content to computers, tablets, and smartphones. Observer OTT offers service providers insight on how consumers experience streamed content, as well as data about the quality of that content. The new system also facilitates remote streaming and review, as well as the ability to analyze both unencrypted and encrypted content.

Volicon is located in booth 1535.


Volicon debuts Observer TS Scout monitoring system

CommScope announced its first products designed to help customers migrate toward cable’s new CCAP standards.

CommScope Converged Services Platform (CSP) will be available in two versions. The CSP 640 is a nine-rack-unit model with support for a maximum of 9,600 downstream QAMs. It will have an aggregate throughput of 640 Gbps.

The CSP 1280 is 14-rack unit model with up to 19,200 downstream QAMs. Maximum aggregate throughput is 1.28 Tbps.

Similar to many of its rivals in the QAM market, CommScope has focused first on creating ultra-dense system. With this many QAMs, the ability to re-

motely manage and "pay as you grow," coupled with redundancy, is crucial and standard on every chassis, said CommScope’s Sunil Frida.

In the future, CommScope will add support for other elements of the CCAP specification, including upstream DOC-SIS and MAC (media access control), native IP processing, Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) and EPON over coax (EPOC) interfaces.

“Our final phase will have the up-stream DOCSIS CMTS component. It is our belief that cable operators will deploy a CCAP chassis as mega QAMs. Either way, CommScope is well positioned to work with operators in this converged market,” Frida said.

CCAP promises cable operators

a solution that saves space and power, has full redun-dancy and the ability to move to an all IP world when the time comes, CommScope explained. In terms of building blocks, CCAP is really a com-position of three boxes – Edge QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), ca-ble modem termination system (CMTS) and passive optical network (PON).

CommScope is in booth 1363.

CommScope moves toward CCAP with ultradense QAMs

MOTOROLA

AMT Booth #1146


Triveni Digital will be showing its StreamScope Portal, which is a portable, tablet-based MPEG analysis and monitoring tool, as well as its GuideBuilder 5 metadata generation platform for the first time in North American this week.

The StreamScope Portal tablet-based analyzer helps engineers cost-effectively perform real-time, file-based MPEG-2/MPEG-4 analysis and monitoring of DTV transport streams on Gigabit Ethernet networks and other key interfaces. StreamScope Portal helps engineers working in complex DTV distribution plants troubleshoot MPEG transport streams from anywhere in the plant.

The fifth-generation GuideBuilder PSIP, SI, and mobile ESG generator offers usability and performance improvements to Triveni Digital’s metadata generation system that enable broadcasters and cable operators to comply with important FCC PSIP requirements. It also generates consistent metadata, and prevents errors to ensure a superior quality of experience for viewers.

It’s available in a variety of configurations, including: integrated servers, software intended for use on customer-supplied servers, virtual machine (VM)-compatible software, and as a cloud-based managed service.

Triveni Digital is located in booth 1729.

Triveni Digital’s StreamScope makes North American debut

RFMD sampling 1.2 GHzpower doubler amplifier

RFMD announced its first power doubler amplifier in a multi-chip module, designed specifically to support DOCSIS 3.1 specifications.

The new module, the RFCM3316, is a drop-in replacement to its predecessor, the RFCM2680. The device, built using a gallium nitride (GaN) substrate, can operate at 20 percent less current than gallium arsenide-based (GaAs) products at a comparable distortion level.

MSOs can use the module to upgrade existing infrastructure to meet the power amplifier requirements of the new DOCSIS 3.1 standard, increasing effective downstream data rates from 160 Mbps to 10 Gbps, and upstream data rates from 120 Mbps to 1 Gbps when compared to DOCSIS 3.0.

The RFCM3316 operates from 40 MHz to 1.2 GHz and provides an output level of 60 dBmV under a 1.2GHz channel loading with 10 BER and 42dB MER and -80dB CTB and -80dB CSO, the company said.

The RFCM3316 is now sampling with key customers. Volume production is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2014.

RFMD is in booth 1362.

www.amt.com

www.broadbandinternational.com

Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.com18

ne year after the Com-cast Reference Design Kit (RDK) made its public debut at The

Cable Show, the platform has more than lived up to its “service velocity” goal.

In short, the RDK went from being a PowerPoint presentation at last year’s Cable Show, to a viable platform that is cutting down on the development cycle for not only set-top boxes and gateways, but also applications.

“The most impressive progress has been made in the number of participants in the program,” said Steve Reynolds, Comcast’s senior vice president of CPE and home networking. “We now have more than 100 companies involved, distributed across the entire ecosystem (silicon vendors, hardware OEMs, integrators, application developers, and service providers).

“This broad adoption has moved us significantly towards a goal of cutting set-top box development and integration cycles. We’re already closing in on our goal of being able to go from concept to launch of a new set-top box in under 12 months.”

The Comcast RDK was developed internally using open-source components and by working with various vendors. The RDK is a community-based ecosys-tem that allows developers, vendors and cable operators to use a defined stack of software on one layer to provision set-top boxes and gateways.

The RDK allows all of the interested parties to develop once and then scale across multiple environments – in the CableCard/QAM/MPEG-2 environment of today, as well as in the IP environment of tomorrow.

The RDK includes CableLabs’ “Ref-erence Implementation” for AP and tru2way, as well as the Java Virtual Ma-chine (JVM.) Open-source components

of the RDK include GStreamer, QT and WebKit, which are execution envi-ronments that can be tailored to each MSO. There are also optional plug-ins, such as Adobe Flash and Smooth HD.

The RDK is all about service velocity, which was illustrat-ed during demos

at Imagine Park on the last day of The Cable Show in June. Demonstrations by vendors at Imagine Park showed that the RDK enabled them to develop products and applications in a matter of weeks in-stead of months.

Formation of RDK ManagementJust last month, Comcast and Time Warner Cable announced the creation of RDK Management, which is a joint venture be-tween the two cable operators that handles

licensing, training, community support and code manage-ment for the RDK.

Comcast will chip in its RDK compo-nents into the new entity, including the RDK code and specifications, related intellectual property rights and associated contracts, including all of the current

RDK licenses, which will be transitioned to RDK Management. Time Warner Ca-ble said that it would provide technical guidance, contribute code and offer fi-nancial support to the new entity.

By turning over the all of the RDK as-sets, Time Warner Cable and, particularly, Comcast, have signaled that the RDK now belongs to its membership community.

“Anyone can license the RDK for free, and we expect more MSOs to do that particularly now that it’s an independent

While vendors develop apps, Comcast, Time Warner Cable form RDK Management

By Mike Robuck, Senior Editor

RDK is moving at lightning speed

O

ReynoldsZelesko

Symphony Teleca’s TweeTV app allows viewers to interact with Twitter streams on their TVs.

CABLE-TEC EXPO Show DailyDay One October 22, 2013


RDK is moving at lightning speedentity,” said Time Warner Cable’s Matt Zelesko, senior vice president, converged technology group. “I think many of the MSOs will be more comfortable with that sort of structure. We’re still in the early stages of the entity, but I will say that both companies are extremely excited about it.

“The question I would get from other MSOs was not just about TWC’s commit-ment to the RDK prior to this, but also what was our comfort level in taking effectively a big part of our strategic plat-form moving forward and having it in a Comcast-run entity? I think in this case we’ve both demonstrated TWC’s commit-ment to the RDK as our strategic platform for the future, and we’ve also addressed some industry concerns about the future of the RDK and its direction. I think this en-tity is going to be a great shepherd for this moving forward.”

Other cable operators that have ex-pressed an interest in the RDK include Charter Communications, Rogers Com-munications, J:Com and Liberty Global.

Zelesko said the new entity would have its own dedicated office space and staff,

which would most likely be located in one of Comcast’s Philadelphia offices.

“There will be a small full-time staff for the RDK entity,” Zelesko said. “For some of it we will hire on new people, and in cer-tain cases and for certain functions, we may leverage staff from Comcast and may even leverage some staff from TWC. A lot of this hasn’t been hammered out completely, but the notion is that certainly there will be some amount of dedicated staff.

“We’re going to leverage partners to do a lot of the work. Certainly from a code management perspective, the support of the licenses, et cetera, will be through partners, but of course someone has to manage those partners.”

Comcast and Time Warner Cable have been at the forefront of the RDK to date, but Zelesko said the new joint venture would hopefully lead to other cable opera-tors licensing it.

“At this stage we wanted to start with the two founding members,” Zelesko said when asked why other MSOs weren’t in-cluded in the joint venture. “I would say directionally we’re not opposed to having

more people join, but we also understand that as more people join the ability to get things done goes down. I think Comcast has done a great job of stewarding and shepherding the RDK to this point. Step-ping outside of that and creating a sepa-rate entity I think is a great message to the industry that this is really a community project and not just a Comcast project. I think that will be positively received.”

The RDK Central web site, which was launched in February of this year, will be the hub of the new joint venture. Com-cast’s Reynolds said that general informa-tion about the RDK is shared through the web site and via the RDK Report, which is an online magazine. More detailed information is available to community members through an RDK Wiki Web directory and community meetings.

Near the end of last year Time Warner Cable and Comcast hosted a closed RDK conference for licensees, and Zelesko said he expected a similar event to take place this year, but this time it would be held under the auspices of the RDK Management staff and its resources.

www.electroline.com




Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.com

Using the RDK, Symphony Teleca came up with the TweeTV app in two weeks. The hashtags grow or shrink based on their popularity on Twitter

RDK in action Comcast has deployed RDK-based soft-ware in its X1 platform, which is the only deployment of RDK-based devices to date. At The Cable Show, Comcast announced its X2 software update, which will include the new RDK-based Xi3 box that is made by Pace and Humax.

Time Warner Cable is trialing IP hybrid boxes and a cloud-based guide in Syracuse, New York, with the goal of expanding the trials to Los Angeles and New York City this fall, but the RDK won’t come into play until the first half of 2014, according to Zelesko.

“For a time to market reason we’re going out with proprietary stacks, which is the model we operate in today across the board,” he said. “We have propri-etary stacks, and the challenge is when we have several different vendors of a box today they each bring in their own version of that platform stack. One of the big promises of the RDK is to run a consistent, uniform, software stack and one that we have full visibility into across those different devices.

“For time to market reasons we’re go-ing with a single vendor, and we’re going out with their proprietary stack on Day One, but as we scale both the number of boxes and the number of vendors that we’re using for this cloud-based platform, then we are going to shift to the RDK.”

The RDK allows Time Warner Cable to streamline the three different OCAP stacks it had previously deployed in the past, while also improving the pace of in-novation and the quality of the products.

“OCAP was really a set of APIs, and every vendor came with their software that implemented those APIs,” Zelesko said. “With the RDK it’s not just APIs, it’s really all of the code and platform support. On the video platform alone we take over 300 software drops across all of our vendors per year so you can imagine there’s a tre-mendous amount of change, and in many cases we suffer by both the pace at which those come out and with our need to vali-date those. Even though it’s all OCAP, it’s all different software under the hood. That diversity is a challenge in terms of how quickly we can roll things out, and it’s a challenge to make sure we’re delivering a high-quality product.

“So with the RDK we have one

piece of software that we run across all of those devices regardless of which OEM we get those devices from, and we have full visibility into that software stack. We know what is changing. We know if there’s an issue where we can find it.”

The end game for Time Warner Cable will be converged gateways that manage all of the triple play services. Time Warner Cable cur-rently has RDK-based products in its labs.

“We’re actively developing for the RDK,” Zelesko said. “Right now its focused primar-ily on our IP-based products. So we’re look-ing at it for our IP set-top box product and the next generation of our gateways where we’re looking to converge voice functional-ity, high-speed data functionality and video functionality into one device.

“For the IP set-top box we didn’t have an existing solution so we’re driving towards the RDK on that. In the case of some of these converged gateways, we have a plat-form stack for our high-speed data devices, and we have a platform stack for our video devices, and neither of those was necessarily the perfect one to go forward with. We’re looking at the RDK as a great way to drive the convergence of that gateway device.”

While the RDK provides a platform to enable cable operators to develop products quickly across a defined set of parameters, it also gives them flexibility. Comcast is using an XRE (cross-plat-form runtime environment) receiver built in QT, which is a Nokia-developed platform that lets it do portable apps in essentially a native layer.

By contrast, Time Warner Cable is employing a WebKit implementation of HTML5 to build its user interface on top of.

“Whether it’s in XRE infrastructure or whether it’s a navigation paradigm that is based on HTML5, those all sit on top of the RDK,” Zelesko said. “Comcast and TWC could use the same version XRE-based inter-face of the RDK running on each of our de-vices and then run either an XRE-based-in-terface or run an HTML5-based interface on those devices.

“We think more and more consumer devices are going toward HTML5, and it will be sort of a common infrastructure that we can write applications once, in HTML5, and run them on many devices. We see value in the RDK purely from our own device perspective, but certainly there’s a much bigger opportunity if we can drive it to not just the devices we lease but also to consumer-owned devices as well.”

The RDK could, in theory, lead to some sort of app store environment for cable operators, but don’t hold your breath.

“It’s a big step towards the technical feasibility of that approach,” Reynolds said. “One of the key components in RDK is the HTML5 browser. We made the decision when the project started that we wanted to move towards HTML5 as the model for application development. By standardizing around a single source code implementation of HTML5, for example Webkit on QT, we’ve been able to focus on building apps and services that work well in this environment.”

Both Reynolds and Zelesko also said the RDK ecosystem would benefit Tier 2 and Tier 3 cable operators.

“Smaller operators can get exactly the same benefits as large operators,” Reyn-olds said. “Faster time to market, shorter

CABLE-TEC EXPO Show DailyDay One October 22, 2013

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Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.comCABLE-TEC EXPO Show DailyDay One October 22, 201322

integration and test cycles, broad avail-ability of hardware and applications, and a dramatically increased pace of innovation are all made possible by RDK.

“It’s also important to note that these benefits are available without directly joining the community. While we certainly encourage everyone to join, we do understand that some operators may simply want to buy solutions based on RDK. That is possible through the terms of the license arrangement where an RDK community member has the ability to sell products based on the RDK.”

What’s next for the RDKReynolds said Comcast would focus its

efforts on scaling RDK-based products over the next year, and that he expected other cable operators to join the fray over that same time period.

“We continue to add new features to the RDK and work on new profiles,” he said. “RDK 1.3 added support for IP-only cli-ents. RDK 2.0 will introduce a new media framework that is more flexible and more efficient. A new profile for headless gate-ways is also in development.

“We certainly expect to see more devices being introduced that support RDK. All of Comcast’s new video devices use RDK as their software platform and all of our hardware OEMs are working on supporting the RDK. We also expect to increase the number of ap-plications that run on top of RDK, including the personalization, social media, and lifestyle applications that were announced at NCTA.”

At The Cable Show, Humax’s Robert McNabb said that the RDK allowed it to cut the development cycle for a new user interface from “months to days.” After signing the RDK license in February, Hu-max had a demonstration of its IP client device ready three weeks later at the Cable-Labs Winter Conference.

In a similar vein, Scott Yoneyma, direc-tor of business development at Symphony Telica, said it took his company two weeks to develop its “TweeTV” app that puts a Twitter stream on a TV screen. The Twitter hashtag-based guide to social TV watching and interactive Twitter and TV mashup uses HTML5. Tweets containing an event’s hashtag are displayed as an overlay or crawl, accessed by browsing an alternative user in-

terface that tag-clouds TV content based on trending hashtags. The hashtags can grow or shrink based on how a topic is trending.

Hillcrest Labs’ Bill Rouady, director of planning for TV software and services, showed how the company’s “Scoop” mo-tion-controlled remote worked in tandem with an RDK-based browser from Espial. The Scoop control incorporated the RDK in two weeks to enable Internet browsing and navigation on a TV screen.

“I think what we’ll see over the course of the next 12 months is more and more boxes that are supporting this and more of the oper-ator apps that are supporting this,” Reynolds said during The Cable Show RDK session. “You can see that a lot of the developers that worked on this panel are using the reference platform boxes. Obviously, what we would love to see is real set-top boxes that operators are actually deploying running RDK, and cer-tainly to add some of these great applications into these operator environments.

“I think that’s what we’ll see over the next 12 months, that scaling of the RDK platform.”

This article originally appeared in the September issue of CED.

Comcast/CableLabs- owned/licensable - Shared SourceLicensed - Non-Shared SourceOpen SourceSTB OEM - Shared SourceSilicon Vendor - Shared SourceSTB OEM - Source code access arranged B2BSilicon Vendor - Source code access arranged B2B

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Complete conference coverage atwww.CEDmagazine.com The CABLE-TEC EXPO Show DailyDay One October 22, 2013 23

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InnoTrans Communications is featuring its new ChromaFlex modular chassis at Cable-Tec Expo this week. The ChromaFlex modular chassis platform features high packaging density and integration of optical passives for maximum flexibility, allowing operators to minimize rack space requirements in existing headends and hubs.

The two-rack unit chassis accommodates up to eight single slot or four dual width modules, along with modular and redundant AC or DC power supplies. The chassis houses a complete line of integrated forward and return path modules including InnoTrans’ patented Chromadigm transmitter.

The ChromaFlex chassis supports 16 Chromadigm ITU wavelengths. DWDM optical passives are integrated into modules obviating the need for external fiber management platforms. Other features include built in express ports for the addition of future wavelengths without disrupting existing subscribers. All slots are identical, so any combination of modules can be installed in any slot, allowing for ease of installation and future growth.

Lastly, integrated processing and software in each chassis enables local and remote monitoring of the chassis and all modules via front panel display and SNMP.

InnoTrans is located in booth 535.

InnoTrans introduces Chroma-Flex modular chassis

Evolution launches next generation of hybrid set-top boxes

In order to ease cable operators’ migration to IP, Evolution has launched a new line of hybrid set-top boxes.

Evolution will be demonstrating a variety of form factors of the new boxes at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, including MoCA, DOCSIS and Wi-Fi.

Evolution said its new line of products was focused on merging the best of consumer electronics and cable into a low-cost platform that was specifically designed for cable operator deployments.

“We are challenging the way cable views set-top boxes,” said Brent Smith, president of Evolution Digital. “Evolution’s focus has been on efficiency and cost-reduction. Building an alliance of best-of-breed ser-vices from around the world from middleware to downloadable security partners, we are able to offer extremely light hardware to support inter-active technology such as intuitive UIs, VOD, SVOD, network PVR, multi-screen, Wi-Fi, DRM and ABR in a sub-$100 device.”

The new boxes will support third-party IP video services and give operators increased revenue opportunities with advanced services, such as operator branded VOD and SVOD. In addition, the boxes will come with model options including a removable hard drive and network PVR.

Evolution’s partners include Conax and Cubiware.Evolution is located in booth 1766.

www.vecima.com


Tektronix is intro-ducing a version of its Sentry monitoring system designed for ABR (adaptive bit rate), enabling any video service pro-vider to ensure the quality of TV Every-where and over-the-top (OTT) services.

Sentry ABR validates all assets, bitrate profiles and

manifest files based on a highly parallel HTTP frag-

ment fetching engine. It supports up to 250 top manifests, which the company said translates into a much higher monitoring capaci-ty as each manifest can support up to 12 profiles of each program.

Manifest files and fragments can be fetched from any place on the network – such as origin servers and content distribution network (CDN) caching servers – to simulate a subscriber’s re-quest for content.

Tektronix proposes that the new Sentry ABR be used in con-junction with its classic Sentry system, which the company said is already being used by nine of the top 10 MSOs in the U.S.

The classic Sentry is typically used to validate the quality of video both as it is ingested and then again after incoming video has been transcoded.

Sentry ABR would be installed later in the actual content delivery process, checking the quality of video being delivered by the origin server (wherever that happens to be) and/or when it is streamed.

Eben Jenkins, Tek’s general manager, video product line, said, “The combination of using Sentry to catch video and audio QoE errors pre-fragmentation, plus Sentry ABR to monitor QoS post-fragmentation enables VSPs to deliver the best possible TV Everywhere experience.”

Steve Liu, Tek’s vice president of video networking, said “Sentry ABR makes sure that content is available throughout the network, and assures that the network is up to par. If any of those elements is off, quality of experience will be impacted; you’ll get freeze frames, clipping, audio issues,” and any of a number of other quality problems.

Tektronix is also demonstrating its latest video and audio monitoring solutions for ensuring the quality of TV Everywhere services and for complying with the Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act.

Tektronix is in booth 529.

Tek debuts monitoring system for ABR streaming

Active Broadband Networks is demonstrating a software-defined networking (SDN) broadband service switch here at the conference.

Based on Intel technology, this is a fully programmable, high-performance switching element, running Active Broadband’s Linux-based switching software. When deployed in conjunction with Active Broadband’s SDN controller – the Dynamic Broadband Service Manager (DBSM) – network operators will be able to deploy an intelligent service layer at the broadband edge for delivering dynamically managed broadband applications and services monetized by connection speed, bandwidth consumption, time of day and application type.

The DBSM-controlled broadband service switch exploits the capabilities of software-defined networking to gain full visibility into, and direct control over, subscriber traffic flows at the broadband edge, allowing operators to grow revenue with highly dynamic, on-demand services, protect revenue by aligning pricing with bandwidth consumption and improve subscriber quality of experience by managing network utilization, the company said.

“Software-defined networking is having widespread

impact on service provider network architectures, from large-scale data centers in the cloud right out to the subscriber edge,” said Jeff Finkelstein, executive director of strategic architecture at Cox Communications. “Active Broadband’s service switch demonstration is further validation that SDN is spawning a wave of technology innovation in broadband provider networks.”

The broadband service switch is controlled using the OpenFlow protocol and generates network stream telemetry data using IPFIX, an IETF protocol for IP network telemetry, including data about bandwidth consumption and network conditions.

Active Broadband’s DBSM uses OpenFlow to dynamically activate services and directly implement service management policies to control subscriber traffic flows.

“Programmability is at the core of software-defined networking,” said Adam Dunstan, CEO of Active Broadband. “We are leveraging SDN software and Intel platform technology to simplify the deployment of the dynamic services necessary for operators to continue to expand their product portfolios and cost-effectively drive revenue expansion.”

Active Broadband is in booth 505.

Active Broadband demos SDN for cable networks


Gbps on the upstream, while also support-ing larger spectrum bands.

The second was lowering the cost per bit, while also increasing network efficiency. Overall, DOCSIS 3.1 has 50 percent more data capacity over the same spectrum than its predecessor.

The third goal was making sure that 3.1 was backwards compatible with the previous versions of DOCSIS so that cable operators didn’t have to run two different systems or replace existing equipment.

Finally, the DOCSIS 3.1 specifications had to work on the existing HFC plant while supporting more capacity on the upstream and downstream. When there are market drivers, 3.1 can grow with the MSOs, Schmitt said.

“We believe we have achieved each of our high-level objectives,” Schmitt said.

One of the reasons that the cable oper-ator industry was able to pull off the fifth iteration of DOCSIS so quickly was the choice to use existing technologies from

other fields. DOCSIS 3.1 features a new modulation

scheme, along with a more sophisticated for-ward error correction (FEC). DOCSIS 3.1

will rely on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), used in DSL, LTE, Wi-Fi and MoCA, among other technolo-gies. It will also replace the commonly used Reed-Solomon FEC with far more efficient low-density parity check (LDPC) codes.

Following Schmitt, Terry Cordova, Sud-denlink’s CTO and senior vice president, moderated the “MSO plans and perspec-tives” panel. Now that the specs are almost in hand, Cordova asked the panel when cable operators planned on deploying 3.1.

Cox Communications’ Jeff Finkelstein, executive director of strategic architecture said the deployment schedule would be dic-tated by the silicon and system vendors.

“As soon as we can get to anything we can expedite it, whether its CPE or head-end equipment, we would gladly give up the lab time,” Finkelstein said.

Comcast’s Jorge Salinger, vice president, access architecture, said 3.1 trials would start next year with the hope of having ac-tual 3.1 products available 2015.

“This has been the fastest DOCSIS development ever,” Salinger said. “I think from the development of the spec, or devel-opment of the idea in 2008, to the availabil-ity of the product will be about half as long as 2.0. The reason is we all want to develop this product quickly.”

Time Warner Cable’s Howard Pfeffer, senior vice president, broadband group tech-nology, said 3.1 capabilities would emerge on the customer premise side first, but would be pushed along by converged cable access plat-form (CCAP) developments.

This has been the fastest DOCSIS

development ever.– Jorge Salinger, VP, Access

Architecture, Comcast

Continued from page 1

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Product ShowcaseCABLE-TEC EXPO

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The Only Business Class Grade

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For a demo, visit us at Booth 1373.

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Antronix Expanded Bandwidth Multi-taps 1.2GHz

All current and future Milenium MGT2000-SE series video multi-taps and faceplates incorporate this enhanced technology and will extend the available fre-quency range by 200 MHz, surpassing the current industry standard of 1.0 GHz currently available from other multi-tap suppliers.

Antronix, is the market leader in providing active and pas-sive devices to the broadband CATV Industry. Antronix product portfolio includes line and subscriber passives, amplifiers, grounding hardware, and optical nodes.

See us at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Booth 1132www.antronix.com

TE-2000 Spectrum Analyzer HDATCi’s TE-2000 HD is the ultimate test field instrument for both terrestrial and satellite covering

North America and world standards.

This high-performance light-weight instrument features superior

performance, advanced Color TV/SAT Meter, durable construction that is compatible with

analog, digital (DVB) satellite standard.Holiday Special - we are now offering $1,000

off orders before January 1.

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Complete SIMULSAT RF Transport SolutionSatellite

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Simulsat Multibeam Antenna, 4.5m Steerable Antenna, L-Band Fiberoptic Links, Splitters,

L-Band Router Rack Mount Spectrum Analyzer, and VistaLINK M & C Software ATCi

See us at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Booth 1135www.acti.com

Budco’s Temporary Cable Guard

Accommodates cable up to .75” dia. Withstands heavy traffic without damaging cable. Temporary Ca-ble Guard lets you restore services quickly by running a temp drop over any surface. Reduce truck rolls and eliminate customer downtime due to outages. It’s a “must have” for storm restoration crews. Available from stock in 5’ sections. Larger version accommo-dates cable/bundle up to 2.25”.

See us at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Booth # 900www.budco.com

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Reach over 18,000 specifiers and purchasers including:

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CPAT FLEX Ingress Monitoring Solution

The only GPS-based ingress monitoring system on the market, CPAT FLEX automatically detects, records and dis-patches ingress events. It features a tight integration of advanced hardware, in-novative software and a powerful web application. As a result, your service vehicles detect ingress impairments without interrupting your technician’s daily work routine. With CPAT FLEX, technicians find and fix within minutes.

See us at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Booth 1222www.effigis.com

Sentry Introducing ABR for Multiscreen

Video Quality AssuranceSentry ABR provides an effec-

tive video quality monitoring

solution for service providers

using ABR technology to

deliver TV Everywhere services.

Sentry ABR proactively

monitors ABR content on origin

servers or CDN caching servers, calculates availabil-

ity and performance metrics for all of the fragments

for each profile and generates alerts in real-time.

Learn more at: http://www.tek.com/video-quality-monitors/sentry-abr

See us at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo Booth 529www.tektronix.com

www.veexinc.com

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www.acti.com

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CED’s Live From The Show

• All Systems Broadband• Ciena• RGB• SeaChange International• VeEX, Inc.• SCTE

Check out the Live From Cable-Tec Expo Videos after the show at:www.CEDmagazine.com

LIVE FROMCABlE-TEC EXpo

Being filmed at Cable-Tec Expo 2013

Video Interviews, Product Demonstrations, Booth Tours, and more from:


control and customization.”The combined systems together

perform efficient and dynamic format repackaging; per-session content man-agement and analytics; zone-based, localized and targeted ad insertion; and blackout management and program substitution.

The approach supports all major adaptive bit rate (ABR) protocols, the two companies said.

Spectrum dynamically creates and manages each ABR video session, enabling delivery to any device or protocol and giving pay TV providers network-side control over targeted ad insertion, policy management, blackout, QoE, and encryption.

Arris said its SkyVision ad insertion management platform will soon be available with SeaWell’s Spectrum software, enabling control, manage-ment, and monetization of multi-screen

services.“SeaWell is a clear market leader for

targeted ad insertion on multi-screen devices, with global deployments among tier-one operators,” said Neerav Shah, Arris vice president and general manager, multi-screen video infrastruc-ture, cloud business solutions. “This makes SeaWell a perfect complement to our leading portfolio of end-to-end multi-screen and advertising solutions. By integrating Spectrum into our SkyVi-sion platform, Arris is not only enabling operators’ multi-screen shift to IP, but also offering the most powerful adver-tising solutions for this next-generation of TV.”

“The proliferation of connected devices has tremendous potential to generate new revenue for operators, but only if they have the right tools to address this multi-screen ecosystem,” said Brian Collie, CEO of SeaWell Net-works.

Continued from page 1

Netcracker Technology is exhib-iting its digital business platform for cable operators this week at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo.

The platform helps cable opera-tors maximize customer engagement in B2C and B2B markets, reduce cost per transaction, monetize content and service delivery, and manage partners and channels effectively.

Using a flexible delivery model, NetCracker said its digital business platform creates the foundation for reducing costs and delivering a more powerful and immersive customer experience.

Netcracker is located in booth 675.

Netcracker demos digital business platform


ATX is showcasing a number of prod-ucts at Cable-Tec Expo, including its encod-ing/transcoding products, its multi-channel encoding and transmission platform, and its optical transmission systems,

The company’s VersAtive is a broadcast quality multi-channel MPEG-2/H.264 encoder/transcoder that can be used for a number of purposes, including PEG and local content encoding, traditional transcoding, IPTV networks and OTT video delivery applications.

The VersAtive line is designed to deliver quality video at low bit rates. It supports a wide range of baseband input options (HD/SD-SDI, composite, component, and HDMI) and is aggressively priced on the number of SD and HD channels.

ATX’s DigiVu products are optimized for headend applications such as PEG or community channel encoding. The plat-form supports MPEG-2/H.264, SD/HD encoding of up to 10SD/5HD programs, QAM demodulation and transmission via QAM or IP. The DigiVu CD version accommodates an integrated channel deletion filter for program “add/drop” applications.

The company’s DVIS line of products are similar to the DigiVu, but all feature an MDU-hardened form factor and are optimized for local digital video content insertions to MDUs as well as local con-tent backhaul to the hub/headend.

The DVISf (fiber) is ATX’s newest op-

tical DVIS version, which incorporates an optical transmitter and optional EDFAs for insertion of local video content direct-ly into an FTTx-based architecture.

All DigiVu and DVIS products feature an HTTP-based management interface and SNMP support allowing them to be configured and monitored from either local or remote locations.

ATX has brought its MAXNET II RF and optical transmission platform, which features integration of narrowcast com-biners for rack space density, as well as ultra-low narrowcast input level require-ments. This is critical as QAM sources continually increase the number of QAMs per port, while simultaneously decreasing power per QAM (based on DRFI specs).

The MAXNET II RF amplifiers and switches work together in redundant am-plifier scenarios. As rare as a failure may be, losing a single RF amplifier can drop entire channel loads from thousands of customers. Constant monitoring of RF power, temperature, voltage and many other parameters will alert the operator

to any failures, without the end customer ever losing signal. Repair is as easy as slid-ing in a new card module. All MAXNET II actives support web and SNMP man-agement based on the SCTE HMS Stan-dards for RF and optical products.

ATX is also showing its DigiStream EPG, live and stored content streaming platform for hospitality and bulk account environments.

The DigiStream platform provides oper-ators with an opportunity to enhance their hospitality/commercial video offering by enabling the HD delivery of an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and pre-generated or live local content to the overall lineup. The EPG can be customized to any chan-nel lineup and configured to display cur-rent programming information.

ATX is also featuring a QAM to QAM (Q2Q) SD version of its UCrypt line of products. This UCrypt product aims at saving operators costs while implementing analog reclamation in MDUs and hotel properties with digital TVs.

Instead of spending money on MD-TAs with a limited lifespan or installing a large quantity of DTAs, ATX said, using a UCrypt Q2Q SD version chassis can save costs and future-proof operator systems in these locations. New features of the UCrypt line include support for MPEG-4/H.264, a guide channel, and PSIP func-tionality.

ATX is in booth 1162.

ATX demonstrating encoders/transcoders

Witbe is showing its latest testing, monitoring and analytics tools in Atlanta this week.

For automated testing of new set-top boxes, iOS and Android devices and smart TV apps, there’s Witbe’s new 4402 Video Robot, which has the ability to replicate real-user actions on devices to help accelerate time to market.

Real-time monitoring of services and content delivery networks can be accomplished with Witbe’s new S200 CDN Monitoring Robot. The monitoring robot gives service providers visibility into the quality customers are experiencing to help them identify trends to proactively

solve issues and control service level agreements. For end-user analytics, Witbe has its Big Data Portal,

which provides insight on the viewing audience to improve services and optimize delivery.

According to analyst firm Dataxis, service providers representing 43 percent of cable, satellite, DSL and fiber TV subscribers in the United States and Canada are using some, or all, of Witbe’s video test and monitoring products. These include three of the four largest cable operators in the United States and two of the four largest cable operators in Canada.

Witbe is located in booth 925.

Witbe has multi-screen testing, monitoring on tap

Webcast Series

Presenting the…

Contact your CED representative if you would like to sponsor one of these upcoming webcasts or develop your own customized topic.

Rhonda Rhodes, Publisher/Western Accounts, 303-408-3267, [email protected];Chris Marston, Eastern Accounts, 973-920-7192, [email protected].

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New CED Webcast coming soon:

November 5 – DOCSIS 3.1: Plans and Strategies Sponsored by ARRIS and Cisco

Recent webcasts now available on-demand:

Troubleshooting Cable Networks: Understanding Ingress Impairments Sponsored by VeEX and effigis

Gearing Up for CCAP Rollouts Sponsored by ARRIS and CASA Systems

Headend in the Clouds: Multi-screen as a managed service Sponsored by Deluxe Digital Distribution and ARRIS

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Werner Cordova

The Society of Cable Telecom-munications Engineers (SCTE) announced that Terry Cordova, executive vice president and CTO of Suddenlink Communications, was elected as the chairman of its board for the upcoming 2013-2014 term.

During a meeting in Atlanta the day before SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, the board accepted the resignation of Dr. Pat Crull, Ph.D., group vice president and CLO for Time Warner Cable. The board also appointed Chris Whitaker, area vice president of operations for Time Warner Cable, as a board member and elected a full slate of officers for the coming year.

Cordova is joined on the 2013-14 SCTE board’s executive committee by:

• Vice Chairman: Tony Werner, executive vice president and CTO, Comcast Cable;

• Treasurer: Chris Whitaker, vice president of learning deliv-

ery, human resources, Time Warner Cable; and

• Secretary: Jim Hughes, senior vice president, global broadband sales, CommScope.

“The SCTE Board of Directors has played a key role in aligning the society’s objectives with the needs of the operators, vendors and cable workforce that it serves,” said Mark Dzuban, SCTE president and CEO. “I’d like to thank our outgoing chair and treasurer, Mike LaJoie and Ed Marchetti, for their support over the

past year. I’d also like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Pat Crull for her service and to welcome Chris Whitaker to the board. I look forward to working with Terry Cordova, the rest of the Execu-tive Committee and the entire Board of Directors to continue to drive value for the industry in the year ahead.”

Following election of its officers, the 2013-2014 SCTE Board of Directors conducted its first board meeting.

Suddenlink’s Cordova elected chair of SCTE board

Arris is introducing an HEVC encoder designed to support live HEVC streaming over the MPEG2 TS standard.

The SE-7000, a fourth-generation video compression system based on the widely deployed SE-6000 encoder, can simulcast both HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) and AVC (Advanced Video Coding) streams along with integrated low-resolution picture-in-picture (PIP). It also supports IP and baseband SDI inputs.

“Service and content providers are focused on delivering HEVC this coming year, as bandwidth demands continue and UltraHD content services become more widely available,” said Bruce McClelland, Arris president, network & cloud, global services.

By using the HEVC standard, the SE-7000 enables video service providers to extend high-quality IPTV video reach over existing wireless, DSL or DOCSIS networks. HEVC has shown the ability to use 50 percent less bandwidth compared to the H.264 compression standard.

Arris is also launching two new solutions in its Assurance portfolio for monitoring and managing customer service and subscriber experiences.

ServAssure Wi-Fi Solutions and WorkAssure Mobile are both available as separate modules in the Assurance platform, but can also be integrated in a full-service

approach to field service management. ServeAssure Wi-Fi Solutions conducts performance

testing of Wi-Fi throughput; facilitates process-driven installations; and captures a snapshot of the installation for baselining and future troubleshooting needs to reduce mean-time-to-restore (MTTR) rates.

WorkAssure Mobile, meanwhile, was designed to solve complexity and access challenges for technicians by offering a unified mobile app that helps them manage installation, scheduling, and more from their device of choice, wherever they are.

WorkAssure Mobile centralizes and streamlines workflow management, from scheduling to notifications, navigation, and more. Based on HTML5, it can be quickly deployed on a variety of devices.

Arris is in booth 868.

Arris debuts HEVC encoder, new features for Assurance portfolio

www.tulsat.com

Are you ready for DOCSIS 3.1? Antronix MGT Series

Milenium Multi-Taps offer an industry leading 1.2GHz of spectrum in a

backwards compatible design.

Our patented E-Option network conditioning plug-ins deliver optimum signal levels for enhanced

data rates, and our faceplate swappable housings make increasing your bandwidth to enable DOCSIS

3.1 a breeze. And we’ve achieved all this without increasing cost to make the transition both seamless

and painless.

So relax and enjoy the ride.

Let It Flow

440 Forsgate Drive, Cranbury, NJ 08512 • 609-860-0160 • www.antronix.com

CONNECTING THE WORLD OF COMMUNICATIONS

Booth1132

www.antronix.com

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