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SCTEShowDaily Day 2
SCTEShowDaily Day 2
DAILY
Trial Shows Promise
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PIONEERS PARADE
Cable TV Pioneers honors DOCSIS
NEW ORLEANS • SEPT 30-OCT 3 trailblazers along with Class of 2019.
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OCTOBER 2 CABLEFAX SCTE • ISBE CABLE-TEC EXPO DAILY
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One year ago at Cable-Tec Expo, 10G FCC from 2001-2005. at what will come next after 10G. “We need
was hinted at as the next step forward for Thus far, 10G’s reception has been large- to be the ones that are innovating what these
cable, but chatter surrounding the platform ly positive, according to Powell. When the new technologies and products and services
and its potential was still largely exclusive 10G initiative was formally announced back we can carry on the 10G platform,” Liberty
to industry circles. Now, it’s becoming a in January at CES, some raised concerns Global vp, technology and program co-chair
conversation starter in Washington about surrounding its chosen name. Would it be Bill Warga said. “But I want to say that it’s
cable as a whole, proving that the industry is confused with 5G, and would it hurt the not all about capacity and speed. It’s about
anything but old school. technology’s momentum? “What we did on what the consumer wants. I want to challenge
“In many ways, it really is our battle flag. purpose by calling it 10G was to invite the you to always think about what we can be
It is the stake we put in the ground to rally comparison to 5G,” Powell said. In fact, the doing to be on the forefront. We need to play
around and to demonstrate our rightful place goal was to get into conversations where 10G more offense than defense.”
on the cutting edge of the future of this coun- could be shown to be a companion to 5G It’s important that the industry doesn’t
try’s information ambitions,” NCTA pres/ and the advancements in wireless networks. get too lost in the future though, with Powell
CEO Michael Powell told attendees at Expo’s Now, it’s seen as a pathway to the future with reminding the crowd that rural broadband
Tuesday general session. milestones along the way, such as the spread is just as important a topic in DC as that of
Bringing attention to 10G has remind- of 1 gig service. 10G. It will only gain momentum as we inch
ed policymakers of the continued critical A question that still pops up during every closer to the 2020 presidential elections. “We
importance of fixed networks, despite all the 10G talk surrounds the use cases for the tech- are the leading provider of fixed broadband
buzz around wireless networks and 5G, he nology. Do cable operators and their custom- services and we want to be a good partner
said. “It’s important to understand that this ers really need 10 gigabits/second symmetri- and a leader in continuing to find a way to
country needs both of those infrastructures to cal? The truth is that with growing customer reach everyone no matter where they live,”
be making quantum leaps… for our economy demands and the continued proliferation of Powell said.
and our nation,” said Powell, who chaired the devices, cable players need to begin looking
The news that the DC Circuit mostly any rule or requirement that’s more strin- increased investment that ultimately benefits
upheld the FCC’s 2017 Restoring Inter- gent than the FCC rules. FCC officials said consumers. That being said, the uncertainty
net Freedom order hit as NCTA pres/CEO Tuesday morning that they are studying that continues to plague this issue needs
Michael Powell was on the stage at SCTE-IS- the preemption order, calling it a “nuanced to come to an end. Congress should pass
BE’s Cable-Tec Expo Tuesday. Despite what decision” that they don’t believe prevents bipartisan legislation that protects a free and
was mostly a win, the former FCC chmn said the agency from preempting conflicting state open Internet while providing regulatory sta-
cable’s not cheering and celebrating. laws. If the decision stands, FCC officials bility to providers,” House Communications
“We are exhausted by what has been a said their early interpretation is that the agen- Republican Leader Bob Latta (OH) said in a
decade-long struggle on net neutrality; we cy can examine state statutes on a case-by- statement.
are frustrated that the United States Con- case basis to see if the order is undermined. Tuesday’s DC Circuit opinion also
gress, which is the only institution that has Net neutrality may seem like more of a remanded portions of the order back to the
the authority to finally stop this, continues to Washington issue, but it has cropped up a FCC, declaring that it failed to examine the
be stuck in doing so,” Powell said from the few times during this week’s tech conference, implications of its decisions for public safety,
show stage. “We remain anxious to remain with technologists wrestling with issues such didn’t sufficiently explain what reclassifica-
a good partner and try to get legislation that as whether prioritization for gaming and tion will mean for regulation of pole attach-
will solve this issue, but the world is going other features could get them smacked by ments and didn’t adequately address petition-
to move on, and it is moving on. 10G proves the government. Tuesday’s ruling may have ers’ concerns about the effects of broadband
that the world is moving on.” provided some cover, but some are concerned reclassification on the Lifeline program. FCC
While the court upheld the FCC’s repeal that it could all change again depending officials seemed confident on addressing the
of a Title II classification of broadband ser- which party is in power. issues on remand.
vices, it vacated the preemption provision “Reversing the Obama-era FCC’s top-
that would have barred states from imposing down utility-style approach has led to
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With all the pieces of 10G starting to infrastructure is ubiquitous and runs down
fall into place, it was only a matter of time every back alley into every house and busi-
until operators and technology innovators ness—almost an ideal solution for small-cell
looked at latency and jitter—the lag time and deployments,” he continued, adding that
out-of-sync signal problems that plague any coax also has ample capacity to support LTE even under high background traffic load with
high-volume production network. and 5G. high contention,” he told the audience on the
And on Tuesday at Cable-Tec Expo, an “Most importantly, coax can transmit exhibit hall show floor. “At the 95th percen-
operator, a vendor and a couple CableLabs power to accelerate deployments” of mobile tile, LLX reduced upstream latency 10 times
engineers deconstructed Low Latency Xhaul infrastructure, Plotz added. “Coax eliminates from 21ms to 2.5ms.”
(LLX), a key element of 10G for cost-effec- construction and permitting for small cells,” The LLX spec as issued by CableLabs in
tive mobile deployments to handle backhaul, a competitive and fiscal boon for coax-rich June requires no change to modem hardware,
midhaul and fronthaul—aka Xhaul. operators. and implementations are already available on
LLX will help operators realize sub-5 But he called on other operators to step some commercial CMTS and RAN equip-
millisecond latency for DOCSIS upstream, up and start testing LLX. “We need to build ment, according to Jennifer Andreoli-Fang,
an important threshold for parity with the industry awareness so people know the value. distinguished technologist from CableLabs.
imminent rollout of 5G mobile services, We also need to drive MSO/MNO interest,” “LLX using the BWR protocols is
according to Shahed Mazumder, principal Plotz said. Operator and vendor trials can designed to work for nearly everything that
strategist, technology strategy, for CableLabs. help showcase the power of 10G, he added. MSOs need—backhaul, midhaul and fron-
“LLX enables DOCSIS for most mobile Another panelist, Cisco’s John Chapman, thaul” she explained. “It’s agnostic and will
Xhaul use cases—it’s faster and cheaper than said early tests are proving the LLX con- work with DOCSIS and PON. BWR works
fiber,” he told SCTE attendees. “It’s rather cepts. LLX uses a new L3 request message for LTE today and will also scale to 5G,”
simple to implement with software at the called bandwidth report (BWR) that is sent Andreoli-Fang said, an important competi-
CMTS and RAN.” The LLX spec has been between LTE and DOCSIS parts of the net- tive feature for cable operators.
released and lab tested and is now waiting work. BWR asks for a number of bytes at She also pointed to a more recent devel-
field trials and implementation, he added. a future point; the BWR also connects the opment with the ORAN Alliance, a mobile
Damian Plotz, vp of technology systems mobile scheduler to the DOCSIS scheduler industry standards group, which is working
and strategy for Canada’s Shaw is ready to to create a scheduler pipeline that effectively with CableLabs and several other MNOs to
test, and ultimately, deploy LLX. decreases DOCSIS latency to 1-2ms. “When create cooperative transport interface. “It’s
“Latency and jitter are big challeng- packets come in they go sailing all the way similar to BWR, but is specifically designed
es, and we as a mobile and cable operator through,” he laughed. for fronthaul,” Andreoli-Fang said, adding
are interested in LLX,” he said. “We think “With a higher DOCSIS traffic priority that CableLabs and Cisco are largely driving
there’s strategic value in coax—our coax for mobile, LLX ensures a 1~2ms delay, the new spec.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings shocked work latency. And while those help, the for-
many when he said in the company’s 4Q18 mulas lose their effectiveness when networks
letter to shareholders that the streaming giant experience intermittent delays during data
competes with (and loses to) popular video transfers or packet loss.
game Fortnite more than it does HBO. But the So while it’s great if an operator can keep
truth is that the gaming industry is one of the its latency below 30 milliseconds (what’s per-
largest businesses on the internet and is set to ceived to be great from the gamer’s perspec-
bring in nearly $200bln in revenues by 2022. tive), what could be preferable is to ensure that
“Gaming traffic’s effect on the network latency stays within certain bounds and allow
can be dramatic depending on the type of the lag compensation algorithms to take the
games, depending on whether the game is wheel from there.
being played, downloaded or just viewed,” Cable operators also have an opportunity towards a paid prioritization model given
Cisco Systems CTO/distinguished engineer to get ahead of network congestion by work- the ever-changing nature of net neutrality
Rajiv Asati said at a Monday Cable-Tec Expo ing hand in hand with gaming companies discussions and regulations. CableLabs dis-
panel on Low Latency DOCSIS. And the through peering. “Many gaming companies tinguished technologist Greg White said that
industry is becoming more download-based have started to build their own network… when it comes to the rollout of Low Laten-
by the day, demanding more bandwidth just with peerings that would get closer to the cy DOCSIS and other tools meant to help
to start a game, let alone keep it running. With high-speed networks,” Asati said. “If you can MSOs manage their network, managing the
the upper limit of game sizes only increasing reduce the number of hops within the gaming messaging so that the story being told is one
and the potential for cloud gaming, cable service and the gaming client as a cable MSO, explaining the technology and how it works
MSOs need to prepare for greater strain on you have much better control over the gaming will be key.
their networks and demands from players for quality of experience of your customers.” “What could be a concern is when a dif-
consistent fast speeds and low latency. Other options include data centers to host their ferent type of gaming traffic gets prioritized,
Luckily, gaming companies have done own game servers. another type of gaming traffic doesn’t get
some of the work for them. Most games are More MSOs are taking a look at how they prioritized,” Asati said. “But just prioritizing
already programmed with lag compensation can better serve their gamer customers and all types of gaming traffic for the benefit of the
algorithms, formulas meant to balance the other niche groups, but it’s easy to get cold cable MSO’s customer should not raise any
experiences of all players no matter the net- feet if any of those products begin leaning concern from a net neutrality point of view.”
Experts have long encouraged the cable three strategies for communicating with cus- trap data, Cox started in August to see if it
industry to train more and better service and tomers. First was using inbound contact could improve outage detection and staging
support personnel to improve the customer mitigation to alert subscribers to outages capabilities.
service experience. But it turns out that tech- or intermittent network issues. Second was In a nutshell, the project looks at stream-
nology—specifically, geo-spatial data com- not doing outbound contact for actions like ing data that originates at the CMTS, with
bined with analytics—can reduce service rebooting, re-authorizing or re-provisioning Net Cool collecting messages, which are
calls and truck rolls, according to a couple a device then forwarded on a Kafka topic. A virtual
panelists at Monday’s Cable-Tec Expo. And third was outbound contact, where machine running the model processes the
For Cox Communications, that meant Cox contacted subscribers because there was incoming messages and then the model’s
moving to a more proactive model for cus- no other way to swap out a device swap, pair logic determines whether to stage the outage,
tomer service, said Joe Keller, Cox’s exec- a remote or change an HDMI input. clear it or take no action, Keller explained.
utive director, analytics. “What if a provider “Going proactive also means identifying The project can easily be extended and
could detect and correct issues before cus- real-time data sets that are the leading indi- migrated up to the cloud, and in fact a build-
tomers contacted us?,” he asked. “This is the cators of customer issues,” Keller explained. out is in progress on Amazon Web Services’
promise of proactive customer engagement While Cox considered using set-top boxes cloud platform.
and moving away from reactive manage- and WiFi data, the provider instead chose to Cox has already chalked up some early
ment,” a transition that was once dismissed work with real-time data gleaned from cable successes. In addition to an annual projection
as too expensive, Keller added. modem termination system (CMTS) traps of 160,000 fewer service calls, Cox estimated
A proactive approach meant adopting in its technology pilot. Leveraging CMTS it would tally almost 39,000 fewer truck rolls
annually. “Our new model is also detect-
ing outages 7-10 minutes faster” than the
Joe Keller, executive director of analytics for Cox Communications call-driven model used historically, Keller
told SCTE attendees.
“Proactive network monitoring still has
untapped potential,” said Todd Kuty, direc-
tor, customer integration, IQGeo, whose
geo-spatial analytics software is being used
in the Cox trial. “Effective use of geo-ana-
lytics has proved to be a real game changer.
Big data and analytics can have a real
impact by identifying signatures and using
automation.”
Kuty foresees geo-spatial software
helping to address three of cable’s biggest
business challenges with regard to improv-
ing the customer experience. He told SCTE
attendees that geo-analytics can help with
the explosive growth in data—both in terms
of volume and the need for high quality.
Increased network complexity is also diffi-
cult for field personnel who have to support
these services. And field personnel are con-
stantly being measured against operational
productivity and key performance indica-
tors (KPIs) and are expected to do more
with less. “Lean culture is the norm now…
if you didn’t have time before, you’re going
to have even less now,” Kuty added.
It takes at least 20 years in the indus- innovators, including Rouzbeh Yassini, Dick 25 members of the cable industry to be
try to be considered for inclusion in the Green and Fellows, are already Cable TV inducted. The class includes Liberty Global
Cable TV Pioneers, which got organizers Pioneers. (Don’t worry… One speech will technology vp and Cable-Tec Expo co-chair
thinking as they made plans for the annual cover all the DOCSIS pioneers!) Bill Warga along with former Time Warner
Pioneer induction dinner. 2019 marks the During DOCSIS’ advent, the team Cable top negotiator Melinda Witmer.
20th anniversary of the first DOCSIS 1.0 probably didn’t envision a need for 1Gbps The Pioneers was founded in 1966
certifications. speeds. Back in the early days of personal during the NCTA convention in Miami. It
“I did a quick perusal of MSO Annual computers, “storing kitchen recipes” was a has grown from a group of 21 entrepreneurs
reports and saw that the industry will have popular answer for why a household would to more than 700 men and women over the
$40 billion in revenue this year, and as you want one, quipped Fellows. “Social media past 50 years. With the demise of NCTA’s
know, data customers outnumber video sub- was in the future and not on our radar, but annual tradeshow, the Pioneers Banquet
scribers. We thought it important to recog- the benefits of finding stuff out, connecting moved to Cable-Tec Expo in 2017, drawing
nize the people who pioneered this change in computers together, was clear. It was mostly a record crowd that necessitated an overflow
the industry,” said Dave Fellows, who is both a group of engineers set loose to change ballroom.
the Pioneers chair and a founding member of the world—we felt that,” he said. “When “We are very excited about having a full
team DOCSIS. these unsung heroes—male and female— house for our upcoming Pioneer Induction
With the Pioneers Annual Banquet were told the Pioneers were honoring them Dinner. This year’s class is reflective of the
attaching itself to the tech-focused SCTE-IS- in this fashion, some broke down in tears. evolving nature of our industry and we are
BE Cable-Tec Expo since 2017, some DOC- They have dedicated their lives to this inno- thrilled to be highlighting DOCSIS Pioneers,
SIS appreciation is especially apropos. Just vation, and have never received recognition along with our outstanding inductees from
before Wednesday night’s dinner at the Ritz or rewards, except from knowing they have the operating, programming, marketing, and
Carlton New Orleans, Stewart Schley will made a difference.” technology sectors of the cable industry,”
give a short speech on the import contri- That emotional feeling is one often said Susan Bitter Smith, immediate past
butions of these DOCSIS trailblazers, with shared by Cable TV Pioneers. The annual chair, Cable TV Pioneers.
a list of their names appearing behind him. black tie gala routinely draws a few tears This year’s event kicks off with a cock-
Thirty-seven of those DOCSIS team mem- as inductees reflect on their careers and the tail hour at 6pm, with the dinner and awards
bers will now be considered Cable TV people who shaped them. This year marks program slated to wrap around 9:30pm.
Pioneers. Another 20 or so of the DOCSIS the 53rd Cable TV Pioneer Banquet, with Attire is black tie/dressy cocktail.
Brian Bane Dick Beard Thomas Cloonan Marc Cohen John DiCandilo
Comcast Ervin Construction Arris Evolution Digital Dycom
Duane Dick Marty Dominguez Barry Elson Jim Faust John Fellet
Sand Cherry Assoc. C-SPAN Retired Retired Retired
Chris Fenger Ralph Galione Jean Gay Sandra Howe Ricardo La Guardia
Patriot Media Hewlett Packard Commscope Technetix Arris
Matt Stanek Tim Vaas Bill Warga Tom Williams Melinda Witmer
Charter Cableserv Liberty Global Schurz Communications Look Left Media
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