CableLabs® Winter Conference 2010
in Denver Shows Attendance Growth

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CableLabs 21st annual winter conference concluded Tuesday, February 9, at the Hyatt Regency at the Denver Convention Center. Approximately 880 people attended, including cable operators, suppliers and CableLabs staff. Overall attendance rose about 18% compared with the CableLabs 2009 winter event.

CableLabs next winter event will be in Atlanta from February 28 to March 2, 2011.

Among the highlights of the 2010 conference was the Innovation Showcase which included 11 segments of supplying companies, each of which had 10 minutes to present, demonstrate and discuss an innovative new product or service. Jinni, which showcased a video search engine, was named the best new product or idea likely to succeed in cable, based on informal polling of the conference attendees.

CableLabs President and CEO Dr. Paul Liao opened the conference with a welcome keynote. The Showcase followed his speech, featuring the following companies: (1) ClearLeap, Fourth Wall and Weather Channel combined for one demo; (2) iLoop Mobile, (3) IPgallery; (4) Jinni Media Ltd., (5) MiniWeb Interactive, (6) Pace Americas, (7) Related Content Database (RCDb), (8) SeaChange International, (9) Trailer Park and Jargon Technologies; (10) Wowza Media Systems, and (11) Zenverge. The showcase was moderated by CableLabs Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Dr. David Reed.

Sean Bunner, Operating Vice President, Advanced Services, HSN; Don Dulchinos, Senior Vice President, Advertising and Interactive Services, CableLabs; David Rudnick, Principal, The Band; and Todd Walker, Senior Vice President, Product Development, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.

The parallel session was "The Fiber Build Model - Best Practices", featuring Tracy Markwood, Vice President, Service Planning and Management, Rogers Cable Communications Inc.

The next set of sessions included "Tuning Into Over the Top", which was moderated by Bob Lund, Vice President, Advanced Network Technologies, CableLabs. Speakers: Vice President of Marketing, Rovi Corporation; and Andrew Kippen, Vice President, Marketing, Boxee; and Scott Smyers, Senior Vice President, Sony Electronics Inc. The concurrent session was "Making the Cable Landline More Relevant in a Mobile World", moderated by Kevin Johns, Director, PacketCable Architecture, CableLabs. Speakers: Ryan King, GM Social Technology and VP Engineering, Plaxo; Raghu Rao, Executive Director, Product Development, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.; Charley Simon, Director of Voice Services - Corporate, Bright House Networks; and Dr. Ingrid Simunic, PhD, Senior Director, Time Warner Cable.

Following a brief break, the track sessions continued with "ETV Deployment: The End-to-End Issue", moderated by Frank Sandoval, a Principal Architect, CableLabs. Speakers: David De Andrade, Engineering Fellow, NE&TO CVS, Comcast; Glen Hardin, Chief Architect, Video Systems, Time Warner Cable; David Hunter, Director, Systems Integration, CableLabs; and Steve Reynolds, Senior Vice President, Customer Premise Equipment and Home Networking, Comcast.

Accompanying this session was a panel about delivering business voice services, moderated by Glenn Russell, Director, Business Services, CableLabs. Speakers: Don Helms, VP of Telephone Engineering and Operations, Bresnan Communications; Robert Kinder, Manager, Commercial Voice Product Development, Cox Communications; and John E. Martin, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, Product, and Relations, Buckeye TeleSystem, Inc.

Monday's final pair of panels featured one entitled "Money from Data: Impressions-Based Audience Measurement", moderated by Jenifer Cistola, Senior Vice President of Cable Information Services at CableLabs. Speakers: Jason Forbes, SVP of Strategy, New Products and Marketing, Time Warner Cable; Arthur Ordña, CTO, Canoe Ventures LLC; and Frank Sandoval, Principal Architect, CableLabs. Concurrent panel was "The Smart Grid and Cable - Opportunities and Challenges", moderated by Roy Perry, Director, Technology Integration, CableLabs. Speakers: Ray Gifford, Partner, Kamlet Reichert LLP; Vince Groff, Executive Director, Corporate Development, Cox Communications; and Bret Perkins, Senior Director, Public Policy, Comcast Corporation.

The program for February 9 began with back to back general sessions. Featured in the first session was "Broadband Business Strategy", moderated by David Reed, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for CableLabs. Panelists: Dallas Clement, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy and Product Officer, Cox Communications; Mark Coblitz, Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning, Comcast Corporation; Marwan Fawaz, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Charter Communications; and Mike LaJoie, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Time Warner Cable.

Next up was a plenary on Ecosystems for Online Video: What's Coming?" moderated by Fawaz of Charter. Panelists: Ronald Jacoby, Sr. Director, Chief Architect, Yahoo! Inc.; Sree Kotay, SVP, Chief Software Architect, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.; Mark Randall, Chief Strategist, Adobe; and Brendan Traw, CTO Digital Home Group, Intel Corporation.

Concurrent sessions resumed after a short break with a panel "Next Generation Guides", moderated by Phil Bender, Senior Manager, Vendor Relations, OpenCable, CableLabs. Speakers: Sherisse Hawkins, Vice President, Navigation and Subscriber Equipment, Time Warner Cable; Lisa Pickelsimer, Executive Director, Video Product Development, Cox Communications Inc.; and Jon Radloff, Vice President of Video Product Development, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.

"Grow Business Services Faster: Innovation and Automation with OSS", was the other panel, and was moderated by Lawrence Gowin, Senior Product Manager, CableLabs. Speakers: James Pierce, Senior Director, HFC Engineering and GIS, Charter Communications and Dan Hillen of SandCherry.

Next on the agenda was "Tru2way: An Open Source Approach", moderated by Steve Glennon, Principal Architect, CableLabs. Speakers: Jud Cary, Vice President of Video Technology Policy and Deputy General Counsel, CableLabs; Labeeb Ismail, Vice President, Consumer Premises Equipment, Comcast Cable; and George Sarosi, Chief Architect, Platform Software, Time Warner Cable Advanced Technology Group.

Its partner session was titled "Wi-Fi on the Horizon", and was moderated by Leo Cloutier, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Business Development, Bright House Networks. Speakers: Michael Connelly, VP Product Development, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.; Timothy Farrell, VP, Wireless Product Development, Cablevision Systems Corp.; Michael Gillin, Senior Product Development Manager, Cox Communications; and Dan Hawkins, Time Warner Cable.

"New Revenue Spotlight - Mobile Backhaul" was moderated by Roger Williams, Director, Carrier Product Management, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc. Speakers: Alexander Brock, Vice President Emerging Technologies & Innovation, Rogers Communications Inc.; Richard Dowling, Senior Vice President for Corporate Development, GCI Cable and Entertainment; and Eric Harris, VP Commercial Services - East Division, SuddenLink Communications.

The concurrent panel was "Variable Bit Rate Streaming of IP Video", moderated by Ron Reuss, Senior Advisor, CableLabs. Speakers: Sangeeta Ramakrishnan, Video Architect, Cisco Systems; Jorge Salinger, VP, Access Architecture, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.; and Greg White, Principal Architect, CableLabs.

Next up was a pair of sessions including "3DTV: Movies Are Great, But When Will We See TV Programming in 3D?" moderated by David Broberg, Vice President, Consumer Video Technology, CableLabs. Speakers: Wayne Miller, Action 3D Productions; Chuck Pagano, Executive Vice President - Technology, ESPN Inc.; and Bob Zitter, Executive Vice President, Technology and Chief Technology Officer, HBO. The other session was "The Emerging IPv6 Internet", moderated by Chris Donley, Project Director - Network Protocols, CableLabs. Speakers: William Charnock, Vice President of Technology, The Planet; Erik Kline, IPv6 Software Engineer, Google; and David Temkin, Network Engineering Manager, Netflix.

The last set of concurrent sessions featured one called "SIPping Voice and SMS with a Cable Straw: The Business and Strategy of the Peering Registry", moderated by Jean-François Mulé, Vice President, IP Technologies and Services, CableLabs. Speakers: Matthew Cannon, Director Voice and IP Services Engineering, Time Warner Cable; and Wayne Thompson, VP of Telecommunications and Internet Management, Cablevision.

Companies that showcased demonstrations as part of the conference included the following: Acme Packet, Active Broadband Networks Inc.; Advanced Digital Broadcast, Alcatel-Lucent, Amdocs, Inc.; ATX Networks, Aurora Networks, BelAir Networks, BigBand Networks Inc.; Broadcom Corporation, BroadSoft, Camiant, Cedar Point Communications, ClearAccess, Comcast, CommScope, Digital Multimedia Technology (DMT), DVB Project, EchoStar Technologies LLC ; Edgeware, Inc.; Ensequence, Entrata Systems Inc.; Entropic Communications, Ericsson, Espial, FourthWall Media, Front Porch, Fujitsu, GE Security / iControl Networks; Harmonic, Hitachi, Huawei Technologies (USA); IBM, Incognito Software, Infosys Technologies Ltd.; Irdeto, Level 3 Communications, Ligos Corporation, Maxxian Integration Inc.; Metaswitch Networks, Mixed Signals, Inc.; Motorola, Nagravision, NDS, Openet, Panasonic, PerfTech, Inc.; PMC-Sierra & Alloptic/CDTI; pureIntegration; Rovi Corporation, Ruckus Wireless, Inc.; S3 Group, Samsung, Sandvine Inc.; Sencore Inc.; Sigma Designs, SMC Networks, Softel-USA, Sonus Networks, STARZ, Strategy and Technology / UniSoft Corporation; Sun Microsystems, Teknovus, Inc.; ThinkAnalytics, Thomson, Ubee Interactive, Verismo Networks, Verivue Inc.; Widevine, and Zenverge.