CableLabs^® 14th Summer Conference
Enjoys 25% Increase in Attendance

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CableLabs 14th annual Summer Conference had a 25% increase in attendance. Approximately 500 people attended the session held August 12-14 at Keystone Resort and Conference Center in Keystone, Colorado. The conference is held as a CableLabs' members-only event, accompanied by a number of exhibits and vendor demonstrations. In 2001, 400 people had attended.

In addition to the main conference, CableLabs hosted a Small Market Conference August 11. CableLabs COO Chris Lammers organized that conference and about 40 people attended that session.

The Summer Conference began with concurrent sessions. Opening sessions were Home Networking: Services Your Subscribers Want, moderated by Stuart Hoggan, Project Director, CableHome™. Speakers: Mark Francisco, Director Engineering, Home Services, Comcast New Media Development; Richard Hertz, Vice President of Cross Platform Engineering, AT&T Broadband; and Jeff Henry, Vice President, Retail Product Development, Time Warner Cable.

The other track session was Advanced Video Compression: Making It Into Reality, moderated by Dr. Yasser Syed, Project Manager, Emerging Digital Video Technologies at CableLabs. Speakers: Sandy MacInnis, Technical Director, Digital Video Technology at Broadcom; Gary Sullivan, Program Manager of Video Technologies & Standards and Joint Video Team Chairman, Microsoft; and Ray McDevitt, Vice President, Business Development, End-to-End Solutions, Pulsent.

CableLabs Summer Conference 2002 attendees listen to panel discussions.

First general session of the conference was a Strategic Business Panel moderated by CableLabs Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning, Dr. David Reed. Speakers: Mark Coblitz, Senior Vice President Strategic Planning, Comcast Corporation; Dallas Clement, Senior Vice President Strategy & Development, Cox Communications; Roger Keay, Vice President, Technology, Rogers Cable Inc.; and Gary Lauder, Managing Partner, Lauder Partners. CableLabs Manager of Technology Demonstrations Jim Rice also participated in the panel with some interesting demonstrations to which panelists reacted.

The second general session followed, closing out the morning. The session was populated by senior cable technology executives and was moderated by Leslie Ellis, independent analyst and author. Speakers were Mike Hayashi, Senior Vice President of Subscriber Technologies and Advanced Engineering, Time Warner Cable; David Fellows, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), AT&T Broadband; and Chris Bowick, Senior Vice President Engineering & CTO, Cox Communications, Inc.

Members of the CTO panel discussion from left Mike Hayashi, Senior Vice President of Subscriber Technologies and Advanced Engineering, Time Warner Cable; Chris Bowick, Senior Vice President Engineering & CTO, Cox Communications, Inc.; and David Fellows, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), AT&T Broadband.

Track sessions resumed after lunch with DTV: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been, moderated by Joe Weber, Senior Technologist, CableLabs. Speakers: Charlie Kennamer, Vice President, Digital Engineering, AT&T Broadband; Dan Brenner, Senior Vice President Law and Regulatory Policy, National Cable & Telecommunications Association; and Phil Garvin, General Manager and COO, HDNet.

A concurrent session was Games People Play: Delivering IP-Based Services on Your Network, and was moderated by Jason Gaedtke, Software Architect, PacketCable™. Speakers: George Hart, Director, Technology Integration, Rogers Cable Inc., and Paul Newson, Program Manager, Xbox Online, Microsoft Corporation.

The final set of sessions for the first day were IP-Based Telephony Services: What Cable Operators are Doing Today, moderated by Glenn Russell, Director of PacketCable. Speakers: Rich Higgins, Director Telecom Engineering, Time Warner Cable; Steve Craddock, Senior Vice President, New Media Development, Comcast Corporation; and Roy Frederickson, Vice President, Product Development, Cox Communications.

At the same time, there was a session on Creating Advanced Digital Services, moderated by David Reed of CableLabs. Speakers: Tony Werner, CTO, Liberty Media Corp.; Toby Farrand, CTO of Digeo, Inc.; and Todd Walker, Senior Vice President, Product Management & Acting General Manager, TV Guide Interactive.

The next day began with concurrent track session. One session was Enabling Innovation and was moderated by Ralph Brown, Chief Software Architect, CableLabs. Speakers: Joe Godas Manager Network Strategies at Cablevision Systems, and Bob Clyne, Corporate Staff for Digital Video, also of Cablevision Systems; and David Reed of CableLabs.

The other session was Symmetrical DOCSIS™: More is Better, moderated by Greg White, Project Director, DOCSIS Specifications, CableLabs. Speakers: Dr. Terry Shaw, Director, Network Systems, CableLabs; George Hart of Rogers, and Doug Semon, Principal Internet Systems Architect, Time Warner Cable.

The second set of track sessions in the morning included Emergence and Evolution of Peer-to-Peer Applications, and was moderated by David Waks, co-founder System Dynamics, Inc. Speakers: Talmon Marco, Expand Networks; Jay Haynes, Blue Falcon Online, Inc.; and Sean Ryan, Listen.Com.

Concurrent session to the peer-to-peer session was Skeletons in Your Back Office: Broadband Device Provisioning, moderated by Doug Jones of YAS Broadband Ventures, LLC. Speakers: Kenneth Gould, Principal Engineer, Time Warner Cable; Franklyn Athias, Vice President, Data Network Engineering, Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.; Rich Woundy, Executive Director, IP Platforms, AT&T Broadband; and Matt Osman, Director Multimedia Signaling Architectures, CableLabs.

NCTA's Dan Brenner moderated Tuesday's first general session. The panel was titled Cable Industry Public Policy Update and had as speakers Joe Waz, Vice President External Affairs and Public Policy Counsel, Comcast Corporation; Alex Netchvolodoff, Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Cox Enterprises; and Michele Beck, Vice President, Regulatory Engineering, Canadian Cable TV Association.

The next general session was a question and answer session with AT&T Broadband CEO William Schleyer, moderated by Mark Greenberg, a senior vice president with Invesco Funds.

Mark Greenberg, Invesco Funds Group, talks with AT&T CEO Bill Schleyer.

The afternoon resumed with concurrent track sessions. CableLabs Specifications and Privacy on the Network was moderated by Simon Krauss, Associate Counsel, Intellectual Property, CableLabs. Speakers: Linda Reisner, Vice President, Senior Counsel, Charter Communications; Gerard Lewis, Senior Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, Comcast Cable Communications; and Christopher Harvie, Partner at Mintz, Levin law firm.

The other session was Put On Your Thinking OCAP™ and was moderated by Frank Sandoval, Senior Software Architect, Advanced Platforms and Services Group, CableLabs. Speakers: Alan Kaplan, Senior Scientist, Panasonic Technologies Company, a division of Matsushita Electric Corporation of America; Sandoval and Peter Briggs, Scientific-Atlanta.

A session on Video on Demand and Subscription Video on Demand followed, moderated by Ralph Brown of CableLabs. Speakers: Jiong Gong, Senior Advisor, Strategic Assessment, CableLabs; Mark Hess, Vice President, Digital Television, Comcast Cable Communications; and Bob Zitter, Senior Vice President of Technology Operations, HBO.

Closing out the conference was a panel on Securing Your Access Network: What Cable Operators Need to Know Now with Oscar Marcia, Chief Security Architect, CableLabs as moderator. Panelists: Israel Rosencrantz, Senior Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Broadband; Andrew Danforth, Senior Technology Engineer, Time Warner Cable/Road Runner; and Bruce Kaalund, Director, Network Security, Comcast Cable IP Services.

In conjunction with the conference there were demonstrations from a number of companies including: ADC, Alopa Networks, Arris, AT&T, ATI, BayPackets, Broadband Innovations, Broadcom Corp., Cedar Point Communications, Cisco Systems and Texas Instruments, Cogency, Comverse, Convergent Networks and Ionic Microsystems, Convergys, Core Networks, Gist Communications, Hewlett-Packard, ICTV, Intel and MetaSwitch, IP Unity, Juniper Networks, Linksys, Magis Networks, Motive Communications, Inc., Motorola Broadband Communications, Netgear, Netopia, Nortel Networks, Nuera Communications and InnoMedia, Pace Micro Technology Americas, P-Cube, Quantum Bridge, Rapid5 Networks, Scientific-Atlanta, Syndeo Corp. and Convedia Corp., Tality, Terayon Communication, and e-Box.

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