Cable Show Takes on OTT

NCTA CEO Michael Powell

CHICAGO Retooling of the show is recognition that the digital economy is broader than just cable, said Mark Bell, vice president of industry affairs at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association about the group's annual convention. The show, now known as INTX for Internet and Television Expo, is coming up May 5-7 in Chicago's McCormick Place. From the unusual layout of the exhibit floor to outsourced segments of the high-profile general sessions, INTX's organizers expect that the event will intensify cross-industry focus on such topics as over-the-top competition, wireless integration and back-end operations.

Depending on the approval status of pending mergers notably Comcast/Time Warner Cable and the AT&T/DirecTV deal-making is likely to permeate event. The overlapping interests of cable's traditional rivals will also be in the spotlight, as Dish-parent company EchoStar will exhibit its SlingTV OTT service on the show floor, and an AT&T executive will speak on at least one keynote session.

Every day, the digital landscape changes and the networks that enable it becomes more powerful, said NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell. This new expo will highlight all of these new trends and voices in every corner of today's digital economy Now is a perfect time to reinvent the way we come together,

Cross-industry competition is also on the minds of the cable guys heading to Chicago.

Today's telco, wireless, satellite and cable operators are desperately trying to compete with Apple, Google, as well as over-the-top providers, to provide more competitive service offerings to their customers, said Jim MacDonald, vice president of sales and marketing of UXP Systems Inc. His firm will demonstrate its business support and operation system software. MacDonald characterizes the biggest challenge for all carriers as their existing backend systems that are making this transition ... to individual user experience orientation ... so difficult.

Sachin Sathaye, vice president product strategy and marketing at ActiveVideo, believes his company's successful project to virtualize set-top box functionality in the cloud an integration of YouTube service for its client UPC Hungary has shown that any online video service can be delivered to every digital set-top box in an operator's footprint, without the cost or time-to-market of installing new, high-end boxes.

We think deployment at scale of online video to existing pay-TV STBs will begin within the next 12 months in North America, Sathaye said.

The growing role of software throughout the industry will also ripple throughout INTX.

A major theme we expect to see at INTX is the shift of pay TV operators becoming more like software companies and embracing the move towards DevOps, said John Maguire, chief strategy officer of TV technology at S3 Group. As operators transform the way they approach product development, testing and service introductions, the test and launch' mindset is being displaced by a more agile launch and test' mindset. Maguire expects that operators will want to focus on continuous test and quality assurance services that Ireland-based S3 Group provides in validating platforms and as overseer of software code facility for the RDK Management, LLC.

REGULATORS, EXECUTIVES

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler will address the convention on Wednesday, likely explaining what happens next in the Net Neutrality process; NCTA intends to add its legal challenge to the lineup of court challenges to the recent FCC ruling. Three of the other FCC commissioners were confirmed to participate on the agenda at presstime; NCTA expects that the full commissioner line-up plus many of their legal advisers and FCC Bureau Chiefs will speak at various sessions. About 30 congressional staff members will also participate in group discussions on the Imagine Park stage.

Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts will speak at Tuesday's opening session, which will also introduce a new format. In addition to main-stage keynote discussions among top executives, NCTA has outsourced two prime sessions to re/Code, which is sponsors and in which Comcast is an investor.

Among the executives confirmed to participate are Peter Chernin, whose Chernin Group is developing content for a variety of platform providers, including AT&T; Nancy Dubec, president and CEO of A&E Networks; and Kerry Trainor, CEO of Vimeo. Michael Kassan, chairman and CEO of MediaLink, will host a general session focused on developments interconnecting content and technology providers.

We're trying to break the silos, have everyone talk to each other, said Barbara York, NCTA's senior vice president of industry affairs. She cites a new event for CxO's the chief officers in various disciplines as an update of the convention's traditional panel featuring chief technology officers from cable companies and vendors.

EXPANDED TECH STRUCTURE

The exhibit floor, now called INTX Marketplace, will feature about 300 exhibitors. The area has been reimagined, Bell said, to resemble L'Enfant's layout of Washington, D.C., with boulevards, plazas and circles at various intersections of the aisle grid.

Everything happens at the intersections, Bell said, describing the aggregation of themed displays at the five primary intersections: TV Everywhere; Streaming Media, Internet of Things, Navigation and Games/Immersive Entertainment. At the larger intersections, more than a dozen kiosks and stand-alone displays will give those who are not familiar with us a chance to stick a toe in the water, York said.

For a deeper dive into technology, the annual Spring Technical Forum will feature 43 technical papers presented at eight sessions on topics including IoT, movi

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