On Tuesday 7th October, I went up to the IET at Savoy Place in London for the regular Autumn Lecture and AGM for the SCTE. This was my first time even though I have worked in and around the Cable industry for some time. 
The main event were the lectures by a variety of industry representatives. It proved to be a very interesting and informative day, with quite a focus on the Optical and cabling aspects of the ‘Pipe’. The focus in the morning was on aspects of how to make the best of what you have – a very important are considering that cable investment in build out is not likely in the current and near future financial prospects. After a pleasing lunch during which there was much discussion about finance, and some about technology(!), the afternoon started with a more theoretical analysis of the challenges to cable capacity, particularly in light of competition from xDSL technologies. The work as presented for this one however was still a work in progress, and a little bit too theoretical at this time. I would be interested in seeing the results of this when the programme of work is at an end – particularly about just how much bandwidth will be required in the upstream in practice, for most ordinary people.
Much more interesting however was the final presentation conducted by Jason Austin of Motorola, entitled “Connectivity and Media Mobility in the Connected Home”. This was a walk through of the technologies currently in play in the home ecosystem, and this presentation pretty much identified implicitly the cause of the problems in that space – a great many initiatives and technology being applied to solve inter-operability but which largely makes it worse. This was not Jason’s conclusion but it is my interpretation. The issue I believe in the home is to standardise but also to cut the technologies used for interoperability to a minimum – not the current situation where there are 30+ groups all doing the same thing. Good presentation all the same.
After this was the AGM, quickly followed on by the SCTE cocktail party on the locally moored TS Queen Mary on the Embankment. This was a useful time spent catching up on what people have been doing and what they are about to do. All in all a very useful day and I look forward to the next.
To those who are in the cable industry, I can recommend making time to join and take part in the meetings of the SCTE and to find out more you can look at their website for details.
