Four or five years ago, when competitive pressures were leading many cable operators to consider offering telephony services over their networks, the process of upgrading cable networks to carry power for telephone services topped engineering discussions. Those conversations covered a range of issues, from the shift to 90 volts from 60 volts, to technician safety […]

… part II Interactive services Another half-day session honed in on what it means, technically, to offer an integrated suite of services to customers, in what AT&T calls “the whole broadband approach.” Ralph Brown, chief architect of set-top systems for @Home Network, kicked off the session by noting that PC and TV application convergence will […]

Depending on which technology master you serve, telecommunications competition is either the dream you’ve always hoped for, or the nightmare that has you sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night. In the two years since telecommunications was overhauled via legislation, true competition has been largely nonexistent. But beneath the surface, companies are preparing […]

When it comes to interactivity, it seems that the old axiom of “if you wait long enough, everything comes back in style,” can now be applied. Just like the bell-bottom jeans that are flopping all over the place again, and the return of the Volkswagen Beetle, interactivity is making its comeback. In 1992, it was […]

Teamwork. What a concept. Supposedly, that’s what Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League, high school football, the cheer-leading squad, Army (Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard) boot camp, and even marriage are all about. Yet, practically speaking, the virtues of teamwork have never really been extolled, let alone practiced, in the cable industry to any […]

What this year’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo may have lacked in new whiz-bang announcements was more than made up by a buoyant, optimistic sense that the cable industry is preparing itself for entry into a long, competitive battle to provide consumers with a dazzling array of new services. Cable modem news again dominated this show, attended […]

Ah, the fickle finger of fate. During the last decade and a half in the cable industry, that finger has been pointing all over the map, and back again, a number of times. Remember the 500-channel universe? Interactive television? Digital television? High-definition television? How about cable telephony? According to some industry observers (both informed and […]

Anyone who made the trek to Los Angeles last month for the National Cable Show and visited only the hardware booths could have easily mistaken this “cable TV” show for a “computer” show like Comdex. While certainly not as massive as a Comdex, the NCTA show did set a record for number of registrants (more […]

The advance notices regarding the 1995 Western Cable Show said that for the first time in a few years this was not going to be a technology show. Instead, it was to be driven by new programmers and discussions of how to survive a competitive, converging world. But the 23,000 people who went to Anaheim […]

Wilt Hildenbrand’s office doesn’t look like those normally inhabited by vice presidents of technology at the big multiple system operators-it’s small, almost Spartan in its appointments. It’s also more cluttered than most, and it’s filled with toys. Not kid toys, mind you, but fun things like personal computers attached to high-speed modems, and a TV […]