CableLabs Summer Conference
Attracts More Than 900 Attendees

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Slightly more than 900 people attended CableLabs annual Summer Conference held August 6–9 at the Keystone Conference Center in Keystone, Colorado. The conference included two general sessions and 18 track sessions along with four roundtable sessions and was accompanied by an exhibit area with roughly 80 demonstrations. Sunday, August 6, served as the Smaller Market Conference and also included a welcome reception for the Summer Conference.

August 7 began with a track session on “Strategies for Integrating Home and Mobile Services,” moderated by Glenn Russell, Director of Multimedia Applications in the Advanced Network Systems Dept. at CableLabs. Speakers: Tim Burke, Vice President of Wireless Technology, Liberty Global, and Khurram Sheikh, Vice President Wireless Strategy and Development, Time Warner Cable.

The concurrent track session was entitled “IPTV Technology” and was moderated by Dave Waks, System Dynamics Inc. Speakers: Marcus Weldon, CTO Broadband Solutions, Lucent; Bob Noonan, Vice President of Global Sales, Marketing and Customer Care, Tut Systems; and S.V. (Vasu) Vasudevan, Director & Chief Architect, Cable Video Architectures, Video/IPTV Networks & Systems, Cisco Systems.

The next pair of sessions included one titled “Interactive Applications on Cable's Advanced Platform” and was moderated by Don Dulchinos, Senior Vice President of Advanced Platforms and Services at CableLabs. Speakers: Mark Swan, Vice President, New Video Product Development, Comcast Cable; Will Kreth, Director, Product Management-ITV, Time Warner Cable; and Charlie Barnes, Vice President, Product Development, Insight Communications.

Paired with that session was one titled “Business Service over DOCSIS” that had Charles Bergren, Engineer Technology Development, CableLabs, as moderator. Speakers: Ben Bekele, Senior DOCSIS Engineer, Cox Communications, Inc.; Scott Davis, Vice President, Commercial Services, Charter Communications; and Louise Wasilewski, Vice President, Business Development, Metro Ethernet Forum.

A general session with top level cable technology executives followed. Fred Dawson, CEO of Broadband Information Resources, Inc., moderated. Speakers: Chris Bowick, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Chief Technical Officer, Cox Communications, Inc.; Steve Craddock, Senior Vice President, New Media Development, Comcast Corporation; Mike Hayashi, Senior Vice President, Advanced Engineering and Subscriber Technology, Time Warner Cable; Tony Werner, a Senior Vice President and CTO, Liberty Global, Inc.; and Nomi Bergman, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Development, Advance/Newhouse.

From left, moderator Fred Dawson, CEO of Broadband Information Resources, Inc.; Nomi Bergman, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Development, Advance/Newhouse; Tony Werner, a Senior Vice President and CTO, Liberty Global, Inc.; Steve Craddock, Senior Vice President, New Media Development, Comcast Corporation; Chris Bowick, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Chief Technical Officer, Cox Communications, Inc.; Mike Hayashi, Senior Vice President, Advanced Engineering and Subscriber Technology, Time Warner Cable.

The afternoon began with concurrent sessions. One was titled “It's Downloadable,” moderated by CableLabs CTO Ralph Brown. Speakers: Kevin Taylor, Comcast Cable; Jim Esserman, VP Business Development, Polycipher; and John Carlucci, Vice President, Engineering, Polycipher. The other session held at this time was “Attack of the Clones” moderated by Oscar Marcia, Vice President of Security, CableLabs. Speakers: Jeff Hartley, Director of Security and Abuse, Cox Communications, Inc.; and Mike Hathaway, Internet Security Administrator, Enterprise Security, Charter Communications.

“Preparing to Adopt IPv6” was the next track session, and was moderated by Alain Durand, Director IPv6 Architect, Comcast Cable. Speakers: John Brzozowski, Principal Engineer/Architect, Comcast Cable; and Brian Field, Comcast Fellow, IP Architecture, Comcast Cable. The other track session was “MSO Obligations under the Integrated Security Ban - Now and Proposed: Are You Ready?” This session was moderated by Jud Cary, Deputy General Counsel of CableLabs. Speakers: Paul Glist, partner, Cole, Raywid & Braverman; Steve Silva, Executive Vice President, Digital Development, Comcast Cable; and Hayashi of Time Warner Cable.

That day closed out with concurrent sessions. “VoIP Service Assurance: The Bottom Line for Cable VoIP” was moderated by Roy Perry, Director, Technology Integration, CableLabs. Speakers: Tom Staniec, Vice President, Transport Network Engineering, Time Warner Cable Advanced Technology Group; Randy Burke, Senior Director, Voice Technical Operations, Comcast Cable; Anthony Coates, Director Network Operations, Service Assurance & Change Control, Charter Communications.

The accompanying session was titled “Networking Video Around the Home” and was moderated by Clarke Stevens, Senior Architect Digital Video, Advanced Platforms and Services, CableLabs. Speakers: Mark Francisco, Comcast Fellow, Comcast New Media Development; Jeff Markley, Senior Network Engineer, Time Warner Cable; and Vince Groff, Director Video Product Development, Cox Communications, Inc.

Sessions on August 8 began with “The Evolution of IP Content Distribution Services” moderated by Terry Shaw, Director Network Systems of CableLabs. Speakers: Ashwin Navin, President and Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, BitTorrent, Inc.; Marc Morin, Co-founder and CTO, Sandvine, Inc.; and Todd Johnson, Vice President, Broadband Content Services, VeriSign. The other track session at this time was “PacketCable Goes Multi-Service” moderated by Ed Miller, Vice President of Advanced Network Systems, CableLabs. Speakers: Steve Craddock of Comcast New Media Development; and Mark Kaish, Vice President, Voice Product Development and Support, Cox Communications, Inc.

The next set of concurrent sessions included “Converged Service Gateway (CSG)” which was moderated by Pete MacCormack, CableLabs. Speakers: Carlton Sparrell, Advanced Technology Director, Connected Home Technology Office, Motorola; and Khurram Sheikh of Time Warner Cable. The other session was “Cable Services in the PC World,” moderated by Don Dulchinos of CableLabs. Speakers: Charlie Kennamer, Vice President Engineering, Standards & Industry Affairs, Comcast Cable; Kevin Flanagan, Software Engineer, Advanced Media Services, Advanced Platforms & Services, CableLabs; and Tim Dodd, Vice President Technology Policy, Time Warner Cable.

Tuesday's general session was moderated by David Reed, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President, CableLabs. Speakers: Mike Lee, Chief Strategy Officer, Rogers Communications; Kevin Leddy, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Technology, Time Warner Cable; and Dallas Clement, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Development, Cox Communications, Inc.

The afternoon featured on set of concurrent track sessions and four roundtables. The track sessions included “What Applications Are Using Our IP Capacity,” which was moderated by Bob Lund, Director Advanced Network Technologies of CableLabs. Speakers: Jim Rice, President and CEO, Information Technology Association of Wisconsin, Inc.; Randy Kinsey, Director IP Engineering, Cox Communications, Inc.; and Chris Williams, Principal Engineer, Time Warner Cable. The paired session was “Ensuring Quality of Service beyond the Last Mile: Requirements for In-Home Media Distribution” and was moderated by Amol Bhagwat, Engineer Technology Development/OSS Provisioning, CableLabs. Speakers: Chris Cholas, Senior Engineer, Time Warner Cable; Brad Alexander, IP Services Engineer, Cox Communications, Inc.; and Jim Poder, Systems Engineer Home Services, Comcast Cable.

The roundtables were:

• “Q&A Session on OCAP” with Frank Sandoval, Director OCAP Specifications, CableLabs; Craig Smithpeters, Manager, Advanced Technology and Standards, Cox Communications, Inc.; Jean-Pol Zundel, Chief Software Architect, Comcast Cable; Tony Istvan, OCAP Architect, Charter Communications; and George Sarosi, Time Warner Cable.
• “DSG Tool Box” with Bill Warga, Director Digital Technology & Standards, Comcast Cable; and Mary Ellen Hardee, Test Development Engineer, CableLabs.
• “CAP E2E” with Allen Gordon, Senior Software Engineer, CableLabs; and Steve Didomenico, Director OCAP Software, Comcast Cable.
• “Gaining Increased Customer Satisfaction Through Automation and Subscriber Self-Management” with Mark Bell of Cox Communications, Inc.

On the morning of August 9, the conference involved two general sessions. The first was entitled “Business Perspectives on OCAP” and was moderated by Dulchinos. Speakers: John Allen, CEO, DigiSoft; Bill Sheppard, Senior Industry Marketing Manager, Sun Microsystems; and Nathan Smith, of Sprint Nextel. The next session was “PacketCable 2.0: Cable's Road to Service Convergence,” and was moderated by CableLabs' Ed Miller. Speakers: Eric Rosenfeld, Director, PacketCable Architecture, CableLabs; and Kevin Johns, Project Director, Communication Protocols, CableLabs.

In addition to the conference sessions, there were demonstrations from approximately 75 companies: 1394 Trade Association; Acme Packet; ADB; Alarm.com; Alcatel; Alticast; Arbinet; ARRIS; Arroyo Video Solutions; ATI Technologies Inc.; Aurora Networks; BigBand Networks; Broadbus Technologies; Broadcom Corporation; BroadLogic Network Technologies, Inc., CableMatrix Technologies, Inc.; Camiant; CarrierAccess; Cauldron Solutions; C-COR; Cedar Point Communications; Cinea, Inc., A Dolby Company; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Clique Communications, LLC; Comverse; Digital Deck; Digital Keystone; Ellacoya Networks; Empirix; Ensequence; Ericsson Inc.; CableLabs ETV; F-Secure; Gallery IP Telephony; Harmonic Inc; IBM; ICTV; Incognito Software Inc.; Infinera; Integra5 Communications; Level 3; Lucent Technologies; Mixed Signals; Motorola Connected Home Solutions; Multimedia over Coax Alliance; Nagravision; NETGEAR; NetNumber Inc.; Neustar; NewStep Networks; Next Generation Broadband; NexTone Communications, Inc.; Nominum; Nortel; Nuera Communications, Inc.; OpenTV and C-COR; OpVista, Inc.; Pace Micro Technology Americas; Panasonic; Peak8 Solutions; PerfTech, Inc.; Promptu; Proxilliant Systems Corp.; QUALCOMM ; RGB Networks; Samsung; Sandvine Incorporated; Scopus Video Networks; Siemens Communications; Sigma/Nortel; SPATIALinfo; STMicroelectronics, Inc.; Superconnect; Tandberg TV; TII Network Technologies, Inc.; Strategy & Technology, Ltd./UniSoft Corp.; UpdateLogic, Inc.; VectorMax; Vidiom Systems; VoiceAge Corporation; Vyyo; and VCom, Inc.