A half-dozen individuals in the cable industry were honored for pushing the technological envelope at CED’s Sixth Annual Pacesetter Awards. The awards were bestowed last night at Cable-Tec Expo. Recipients came from Bresnan, Bright House, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable.
The Pacesetters recognize individuals at cable and other broadband service providers who have taken leading positions or innovative first steps with advanced services, applications and technologies. In short, the Pacesetters honor the engineers and business managers who are among the first to try out new technologies and new ways of doing business.
Scott Shelley, regional vice president of engineering for Comcast Cable’s Beltway Region received the Pacesetter Award for Advanced Architectures. Earlier this year, in conjunction with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the Cable Show 2009, Shelley was tasked with powering Broadband Nation and the entire DC Convention Center with Comcast cable services. To accomplish the task, Shelley elected to go with Aurora Networks’ RFoG FTTH solution. The deployment was so successful that the Convention Center decided to keep this system in place to service all future events.
Mark A. Clark, senior director of field operations for Bright House Networks’ Central Florida division earned the Pacesetter for Test & Measurement. Clark directed a project to install new DOCSIS services in the area, ultimately passing 100 percent of test results passing required thresholds and achieving 100 percent customer satisfaction. The organization accomplished the task using VeEX’s CX150 SLM + DOCSIS 2.0 meter with advanced IP features, in conjunction with the VeEX’s workforce management server.
Comcast’s senior VP of Communications and Services, Frank Athias was the recipient of the Pacesetter Award for Residential SIP/VoIP. Athias joined Comcast’s Strategy Planning Group in 1995, and now works in the Office of the CTO. He led the migration from Comcast@Home to the company’s self-managed broadband Internet service; helped create Comcast Commercial Internet Services (CCIS); and was involved with Comcast’s earliest efforts with VoIP. Currently Athias is working to drive the development and delivery of next-generation voice architecture based on the PacketCable 2.0 specification. The Residential SIP/VoIP Award was sponsored by Camiant.
The Pacesetter Award for Business and Mobile Backhaul Services went to John Dickinson, senior director of network architecture and strategy at Bright House Networks. Dickinson was cited for his pioneering work building mobile backhaul and business service networks using EPON access equipment. Award sponsor Hitachi credits Bright House for building the largest EPON-based business and cell backhaul network in the U.S.
Louis Williamson, fellow engineer at Time Warner Cable, was awarded the Pacesetter for Digital Video. As part of a dynamic team focused on enabling new consumer experiences, Williamson has been instrumental in the delivery and development of game-changing technologies and services such as Switched Digital Video and most recently the transition to next-generation video services. As a result of his efforts, was recently promoted to Fellow Engineer, the first and so far only person with this title at TWC. Award sponsor Cisco recognised Williamson’s successes in the rapid development of next-generation video services and his dedication to the industry.
The Pacesetter for Converged Services was bestowed on Brett Maas, Commercial Sales Director at Bresnan Communications. Bresnan is developing among the most comprehensive converged business product portfolios in the cable industry, including SIP trunking, a supporting suite of unified messaging services, and a Hosted IP PBX solution, branded Bresnan Hosted Office.
Recently, Bresnan earned the business of the Billings Public Schools, a large, 1750 endpoint customer. Developing and launching this product at least six months ahead of schedule and developing the operations processes and procedures to support it was a tremendous challenge for Bresnan and its vendor partners. Award sponsor Metaswitch congratulates Bresnan Communications for accepting the challenge and its successful delivery.
