WORKSHOPs and descriptionS

The technical workshops at Cable-Tec Expo will be offered on Mon., Nov. 14, Wed., Nov. 16 and Thurs., Nov. 17. These technical workshops presented at Cable-Tec Expo are part of the 125% increase over 2010 in educational offerings available for this year's event.

Speakers for this year's technical workshops are chosen through a call for papers process. The call for papers for SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2011^® is closed.

View the workshop schedule

Workshop sessions are grouped into 5 tracks, designed to help you identify the workshops most pertinent to your job function.

• Customer Service
• Home Certification
• Regulatory Update
• The Next Generation of Workforce Management
• Training and Certification

Business Services

Whether it is TV Everywhere or part of your IP video transition strategy, customers are moving away from traditional group-viewing environments and embracing individual entertainment options on myriad customer devices. In this session, we will discuss how advanced advertising is evolving to meet the challenges of this new environment and how personalization of content can lead to exciting new opportunities for revenue generation.

Moderator:       Charlotte Iola Field, Senior Vice President – NETO – Infrastructure and Operations, Comcast Cable Communications

Building a Standards-Based Advanced Advertising Infrastructure: An Overview of the Standards and Specifications for Linear, Interactive & On-Demand Dynamic Ad Insertion
Bruce Dilger, Vice President, Advanced Advertising Architecture, Canoe Ventures, LLC

Driving Personalized Advertising to Multi-Screen: Linear Advertising Migration and Virtual Zoning
John Reister, Vice President, Advanced Technology, Chief IPTV Architect, BigBand Networks

This session will give a holistic view of business opportunities that includes both the standard IP phone offerings to retail and commercial businesses (with their ensuing SLAs) and the offering of enhanced new services to the classic MDU environment. Business opportunities are increasingly becoming the “next-generation” revenue generator for MSOs. This session speaks to the voice market business that offers SIP trunking as a PRI replacement, a video delivery platform to enhance profits and reliability, and a discussion of the all-important SLA that requires close cooperation between marketing, the promissory vehicle, and engineering, the service delivery vehicle. Also, MDUs have long been end-users of the MSO delivery platform but should now be considered as higher-profit model drivers by offering IPTV and 1 Gbps symmetrical high-speed data to retain high-density/high-value hotels, apartments, and condominiums.

Moderator:       Charlotte Iola Field, Senior Vice President – NETO – Infrastructure and Operations, Comcast Cable Communications

IPTV and Very High Speed Internet Service for Multiple Dwelling Units (MDU)
Mike Emmendorfer, Senior Director, Solution Architecture and Strategy, ARRIS

SIP Trunking Delivering Telephony over IP to Business
Douglas Wadkins, CTO, Edgewater Networks, Inc.

The Business of Business Services: Aligning Business Processes and Operational Resources for SLA Committed, Ethernet Delivered, Services
William Dentinger, Senior Director, Business Development and Strategy, Spirent Communications

Products and services that are based on very high speed and wide coverage area (such as Cell Tower Backhaul) are gradually becoming a routine offering of MSOs to their larger commercial clients. These services require a different architectural design, planning, provisioning, monitoring, and set of support systems than those typically utilized for residential and small-medium business customers. This session will explore some unique solutions for this class of services as well as a comprehensive review of some real-life implementations and lessons learned.

Moderator:        Hamid Heidary, Executive Vice President, CTO, Insight Communications

Architecting Your Network for Efficient Cell Backhaul Using OTN DWDM G.709 and G.975
FEC
David Allen, Director, Network Engineering, Comcast Beltway Region

Bringing Ethernet over MPLS to CMTS — Rogers Case Study
Arun Vignesh Siddeswaran, Senior Software Engineer, Cisco Systems Inc.
Yassar Abbas, System Designer, Rogers Communications Inc.

Cell Tower Backhaul Best Practices
Joe Shandlay, President, Project Management Consulting Group, Inc.

Cable has a long history of embracing fiber technology by adopting HFC as our de facto standard for plant design and construction. In the 21st century, advanced technology allows us to take fiber even deeper into the plant, sometimes to individual homes. Aligning with international standards will greatly help us in reducing innovation cycle, improving interoperability, and reducing deployment cost. In this session, we will talk about some upcoming standard and various applications of this fiber deep technology.

Moderator:        Jeff Chen, Senior Vice President, Advanced Technologies, Bright House Networks

An Analysis of EPON, GPON, and RFoG for Business Services and Beyond
Scott Shupe, Vice President, Technology Strategy, ARRIS

DOCSIS^® Provisioning of EPON (DPoE™): A Next Generation Business Services Network
Curtis Knittle, Ph.D., Director, Digital Video Services, Cable Television Laboratories

Using PON and RFoG to Serve the Hospitality Market
David Russell, Solutions Marketing Director, Calix

MSOs are exploring approaches to extend our infrastructure to capitalize on increased wireless capacity requirements. In this technical session, we will explore the network architectures involved for meshed wireless topologies, Fiber to the Tower (FTTT), and Pico cellular networks. In addition, we will detail the key engineering considerations including performance requirements of throughput, interference resistance, latency, Service Level Agreements, and network resiliency for the components of each architecture. Participants will gain critical insights into the most important technical elements in wireless project exploration and execution.

Moderator:        Leo Kutz, Vice President, Network Engineering, Suddenlink Communications

Wi-Fi Hotspots for MSOs, an Operators Guide to Best Practices
Steve Frederick, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Motorola Mobility

Wireless Mesh Networks and MSO Positioning for Pico Cellular Networks
Jerry L. Patton, Jr., Product Manager– Wireless Networking, ARRIS

Engineering

As the industry goes all digital and plans ever-increasing amounts of IP bandwidth, the access network is facing unprecedented pressure in terms of both functionality and scale. Come to this session to learn how next-generation access technologies such as Ethernet and PON can meet these challenges, what needs to be done now to prepare, and more!

Moderator:        Ken Williams, Cox Communications

Beyond CMAP
Jeff Finkelstein, Senior Director, Network Architecture, Cox Communications

Deploying Scalable Radio Frequency over Glass Networks that Coexist with PONs
Dr. Yuxin (Eugene) Dai, Senior Staff Engineer, Huawei Technologies

Examining HFC and DFC (Digital Fiber Coax) Access Architectures
Mike Emmendorfer, Senior Director, Solution Architecture and Strategy, ARRIS

Though one might say that cable has always been a content delivery network, CDNs are fast becoming an integral part of the video service delivery mechanism for operators today. What's the difference between building and operating a CDN and being a CDN? Does everyone need a CDN, or should they be interconnected or federated? Content needs to be packaged and delivered in a variety of ways, including DASH—adaptive streaming for the cable industry. Find out these answers in this exciting session.

Moderator:        Jaime Miles, Vice President, CDN Operations, Time Warner Cable

CDN Evolution, Considerations and Design Complexities
David Helfrick, Principal Consultant, IBB Consulting Group

Using DASH and MPEG-2 TS for Adaptive Multiplatform Delivery
Alex Giladi, Software Architect, Avail-TVN

Interconnection of Content Delivery Networks
Weidong Mao, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Comcast Cable

Unified Content Packaging Architectures for Managed Video Content Delivery
Santosh Krishnan, Ph.D., Vice President, Product Strategy, Verivue, Inc.

CDNs will be an integral part of the delivery mechanisms for existing and emerging IP video services. But, is all video created equal? With myriad devices requesting content in a variety of profiles and encoding formats, how is an operator to satisfy these demands? By leveraging various transcoding strategies and architectures and defining standard-operating practices, some unique approaches to video transcoding for CDNs will be discussed in this session.

Moderator:        Jaime Miles, Vice President, Time Warner Cable

Leveraging Video Transcoding in Headend and Hub Architectures
Sara Venhuizen, Project Manager and System Engineer, Sencore, Inc.

Transcoding Strategies for Adaptive Streaming
Santhana Chari, Vice President, Engineering, ARRIS

A Standards-Based Approach for Adaptive Streaming Content Security and Key
Management
Yuval Fisher, CTO, RGB Networks
Stephen Christian, Vice President, Marketing, Verimatrix

As all good IP networking engineers know, IPv4 address exhaustion is on the horizon. IANA has depleted its global free pool of IPv4 addresses, and the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is expected to hand out its last IPv4 address by the end of 2011. However, it isn't so much about turning off IPv4 as it is about turning on IPv6 in addition to IPv4. This workshop will be focused on preparing you for this transition, through practical IPv6 deployment guidelines, transition strategies for circumstances where IPv4 addresses must be shared across multiple homes, and deployment of SIP over IPv6 for VoIP services.

Moderator:        Ralph Brown, CTO, CableLabs^®

IPv6 Deployment Guidelines for Cable Operators
Patricio S. Latini, Senior Director, Sales Engineering, ARRIS Group, Inc.

SIP over IPv6 Deployment: Considerations for Carriers
John Downing, Senior VoIP Deployment Consultant, TrainingCity

The Experience Gap: Coping with the Looming IPv4 Address Shortage
Chris Grundemann, Architect, IP Networks, CableLabs^®

As MSOs move from traditional video services to IP delivery of video many aspects must be considered in planning for an evolutionary migration. This session will provide in-depth view of the technologies and end to end systems required for a successful transition.

Moderator:        Pragash Pillai, Senior Vice President, Digital Network Engineering, Cablevision Systems Corporation

Architectural Alternatives for Cable IP Converged Services Consumer Premise Equipment
Jeff Brooks, Vice President, IP Video Product Management, ARRIS

Options and Strategies for Evolving from a Legacy MPEG-2 over QAM to MPEG-4 over IP Cable System Network
Patrick J. Wright-Riley, Director Strategy & Business Development, Motorola Mobility

“V2B 2.0”: Cox’s Evolving National Video Backbone using Layer 1 Multicast over DWDM
Mark Pellegri, Senior Manager, Transport Networks, Cox Communications

Consumers are fast expecting to consume video on any screen they have. But, moving video that is suited for viewing on large screen HD format to the handheld or tablet in a fast-and-friendly way is filled with challenges. Is the device capable? Is the user entitled? What about digital rights management? Once the video starts to stream, how does the user navigate through these choices? Attend this session and get a flavor for what's involved in sending video to multiple screens.

Moderator:        James Manchester, Senior Vice President, National Video Operations, Time Warner Cable

Multiscreen Video: Design Considerations and Lessons Learned
Yaron Raz, Director, Digital Video Solutions, Harmonic Inc.

Putting The Best of the Web into the Guide
Steve Tranter, Vice President, Broadband and Interactive, NDS

Supporting Multi-CAS and DRM Entitlements
Barry Falvo, Principle Member of Technical Staff, Motorola Mobility

Multi-Screen, Multi-User and Multi-Delivery for Mixed Network Environments
Peter Davis, Senior Director & Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff, Neustar

From Adaptive Bit Rate streaming to DWDM to tailoring HFC to IP traffic, there are many considerations and options for using existing infrastructure to meet growing capacity demands.

Moderator:        Ken A. Wright, CTO, ARRIS

When Wavelengths Collide Chaos Ensues: Engineering Stable and Robust Full Spectrum Multi-Wavelength HFC Networks
Fernando Villarruel, Business Development Manager, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Venk Mutalik, Vice President, Technology and Strategy, ARRIS

Competitive Analysis of Adaptive Video Streaming Implementations
Tom Cloonan, Chief Strategy Officer, ARRIS

HFC Capacity Planning for IP Video
Sangeeta Ramakrishnan, Video Architect and Principal Engineer, Cisco Systems Inc.

Our increasingly IP-connected infrastructure is providing unprecedented flexibility and scale. At the same time, new security threats are emerging as the IP connectivity provides new pathways for threats to reach critical infrastructure components. Come to this session to learn what tools and best practices can be used to protect your infrastructure from these threats.

Moderator:        Kip Compton, Vice President, Strategy and Product Management, Cisco Systems Inc.

Consumer Electronics and TV: 4 Major Risks
Mark Baugher, Technical Leader, Cisco Systems Inc.
Keith O’Brien, Distinguished Systems Engineer, Cisco Systems, Inc.

Converged Networks and Smart Consumer Devices: Security Challenges and Defenses
Professor Mustaque Ahamad, Georgia Institute of Technology and Director, Georgia Tech Information Security Center

MSOs business landscape is changing rapidly and the OSS/BSS platforms have become a critical element to quickly deliver new, innovative and robust solutions to our customers. This session will provide an in-depth view of the OSS/BSS solutions, critical to meet the demanding business requirements.

Moderator:        Pragash Pillai, Senior Vice President, Digital Network Engineering, Cablevision Systems Corporation

A Next Generation Provisioning Architecture for the New Cable Headend Platform
Brian Hedstrom, Senior Architect, CableLabs^®

Simplifying Video Delivery Network Management
James Welch, Senior Consulting Engineer, IneoQuest Technologies

Validating the Accuracy of ISP Subscriber Traffic Usage Meters
Peter Sevcik, President, NetForecast, Inc.

Facilities Management

The demands on cable providers in engineering mature facilities, from the traditional Head End to Data Centers, are increasing as we move forward as a critical infrastructure provider. This session will cover both practical aspects of facilities through HE futures with CCAP.

Moderator:        Frank Miller, CTO (MSO), Huawei

DC Power Introduction
James Wascisin, Senior DC Service Applications Engineer, Alpha Technologies Inc.

Grounding and Bonding Testing
Mike Lewis, Senior Application Engineer, Megger

The Evolution of the Headend in the CCAP World
Jeff Howe, Senior Director, Broadband Communications Architecture, ARRIS

Today's cable networks require higher reliability, capacity and recovery than our original cable systems as we move into commercial and enterprise services. This session will focus on telemetry and monitoring, preventative maintenance and finally business continuity / disaster recovery in our cable networks.

Moderator:        Leo Kutz, Vice President, Network Engineering, Suddenlink Communications

Mission-Critical OSS Systems in Production: A Pragmatic Approach for Deploying 24x7 Systems
Gary Cunha, Senior Director, Assurance Product Management, ARRIS Inc.

Telecom Facilities Management Best Practices at Cox
Carl T. Turning, Director, Network Buildings, Cox Communications, Inc.

With higher costs for power and the impact of power consumption to our environment, cable systems must engineer towards power efficiency and green initiatives moving forward. This session will cover various strategies towards engineering for power efficiency and options towards green initiatives in plant futures.

Moderator:        Frank Miller, CTO (MSO), Huawei

Outside Plant Powering Efficiency - How to be More Green for Less Green
Paul D. Brooks, Director, Network Engineering, Time Warner Cable

The Next Generation Critical Facility Increased Reliability with and Renewable Energy While Maintaining Best Cost Practices
Derek DiGiacomo, Senior Director, Information Systems and Energy Management Program,
SCTE
Jim Heidenreich, Vice President, Product Management and Customer Fulfillment, Alpha Technologies
Merle Seeman, Product Line Manager, CommScope

While the optical portion of HFC and backbone networks is also characterized by system measurements such as bit error ratio (BER), there are unique aspects to keeping the optical portion of HFC networks in top health, such as fiber connector integrity, optical loading and nonlinearity issues, and the use of optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) in quickly identifying locations of optical impairments in HFC networks. In this session, the relationship between clean optics and optimum system performance, optical measurements and theory for peak optical loading, and details of OTDR measurement techniques and best practices will be given. This workshop is for both access and backbone network engineers and technicians who must maintain and optimize the optical portion of cable networks.

Moderator:        Dr. Gee-Kung Chang, Professor, Georgia Tech College of Engineering, Byers EminentScholar Chair in Optical Networking

Contemporary Considerations: Precision Cleaning Fiber Optic Connections
Edward J. Forrest, Jr., Zone Manager, Telecommunications National Lead, ITW Chemtronics

Optical Spectrum Analyzers and Back Reflections in Next-Generation Networks
Jean-Sébastian Tassé, Eng, M. Sc. Product Line Manager, EXFO

System thinking and tools for plant operations are not only required but critical to ensuring the customer experience is top-notch while making maximum use of our cable RF capacity and, in particular, increasing the data rates our networks provide to the customer via higher-order QAM, DOCSIS^® 3.0 bonded channels, and advanced modulation schemes such as S-CDMA. In this session, getting maximal use out of the upstream via a now-mature Proactive Network Maintenance tool that has been implemented across the industry will be detailed, and lessons learned from its deployment will be used to point to next steps for enhancing the tool. A wide range of measurements, system characterizations, and network health metrics will also be described, particularly as they relate to DOCSIS^® 3.0 deployment and maintenance.

Finally, the real-world experiences in and performance thresholds for providing more than 100 Mbps upstream data rates to customers via 256 QAM and three bonded channels on the upstream using both TDMA and S-CDMA will be detailed so that attendees can see how and when to use these cost-effective tactics for remaining maximally competitive.

Moderator:        Lamar West, Ph.D., Owner, LEW Consulting, LLC

Advanced Troubleshooting in a DOCSIS^® 3.0 Plant
Brady Volpe, President, The Volpe Firm
Walter Miller, Research and Strategic Development Lead, JDSU

Multiple Access Made Easy
Rob Thompson, Principal Staff Engineer, Motorola Mobility

Progress on Pre-Equalization Based Proactive Network Maintenance
L. Alberto Campos, Ph.D., Principal Architect Broadband Technologies, Cable Television Laboratories
Larry Wolcott, Distinguished Engineer, Comcast Corporation

One of the most cost-effective ways to improve capacity on our highly capable HFC networks is to increase the order of QAM used, but this comes at the cost of increased sensitivity to RF impairments. Thus, cable technical and engineering staff must use ever more diligence in identifying sources of RF plant impairments, interference, and anything else that reduces the theoretical capacity or the customer quality of experience as HFC networks are pushed closer to their theoretical limit.

In this session, a detailed understanding of modulation error ratio (MER), bit error ratio (BER), and other important RF characterizations and required performance levels will be described that are needed to increase the orders of QAM and/or improve customer quality of experience by further improving the RF portion of HFC networks. Also discussed will be issues and resolutions surrounding HFC network RF susceptibility as new, higher-frequency wireless services such as LTE are deployed. Both seasoned and new cable RF engineers and technicians will benefit from this workshop.

Moderator:        Ron Hranac, Technical Leader, Cisco Systems, Inc.

256-QAM for Upstream HFC Part 2
Rob Thompson, Principal Staff Engineer, Motorola Mobility

Recognizing and Resolving LTE Interference Issues in Cable Systems
Paul Denisowski, Applications Engineer, Rohde & Schwarz

Understanding Real-World MER Measurements
Ron Hranac, Technical Leader, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Bruce Currivan, Technical Director, Broadcom Corporation

This segment's primary objective is focused on measuring the customer experience and improving service quality through improved product delivery. It will examine approaches to holistically evaluating the customer's Quality of Experience (QoE), effectively managing video networks for improved product reliability, and refining volumes of HFC telemetry into high-impact information utilized in more effective maintenance of the HFC and drop network.

Moderator:        Gregg A. Wood, Regional Vice President, Engineering, Time Warner Cable Inc.

Effective Management of Video Delivery Networks Using ANSI/SCTE 168 2010
Recommendations
James Welch, Senior Consulting Engineer, IneoQuest

Holistic Approach to Evaluating Quality of Experience
L. Alberto Campos, Ph.D., Principal Architect Broadband Technologies, Cable Television
Laboratories

Turning Data into Information
Michael Gotwals, Principle Systems Engineer, JDSU

This workshop is focused on improving the customer experience through improved installation and service techniques. From the “One Stop/Last Man Out” mindset, improving drop installation and superior service quality are key. The presenters will cover Home Certification, MoCA troubleshooting experiences and recommendations for efficient installations along with designing and installing reliable wireless home networks.

Moderator:        William DesRochers, Technical Quality Assurance Manager, Charter Communications

Design of Wireless Home Network
David Urban, Distinguished Engineer, Comcast

MoCA^® Troubleshooting Recommendations
Carol Ansley, Senior Director, IP Engineering, ARRIS

Technical Performance at the Drop Plant- Last Tech Out and Home Certification
Mark Hood, Corporate Field Operation Manager, Suddenlink Communications

It has been a busy year in Washington, and the industry has a number of new requirements to meet. The CALM Act aims to tackle the oft-heard complaint about commercial loudness. New requirements in EAS-CAP are designed to support nationwide messaging. SamKnows is testing your broadband performance, and the first reports are just coming out. This session will focus on what you need to know about these new requirements and how you confirm compliance.

Moderator:        JR Walden, Senior Vice President, Technologies and CTO, Mediacom Communications Corporation

Loudness Monitoring and CALM Compliance (Unfolding Events)
James Welch, Senior Consulting Engineer, IneoQuest Technologies

The Storm Before the CALM: Quieting Loud Commercials in the Cable Environment
Steve Liu, Vice President, Video Network Monitoring, Tektronix

Washington Update
Dr. William A. Check, Senior Vice President, Science & Technology and CTO, NCTA

This workshop will review today's available WFA technology and its applied applications toward operational improvements, cost savings, and improved customer satisfaction. It will also provide a detailed review of available providers and their solutions, a look at the tools used in the field to support WFA, and ways GPS is integrated. Participants also will get a review of current best practices from tech, dispatch, supervisor, and senior management levels. The workshop will cover programs operators have integrated and what future technologies are in the works to take WFA to the next level. It also will examine how an integrated WFA system focused on providing the best customer experience can change the perception of an industry.

Moderator:        Tom Gorman, Vice President, Field Operations, Charter Communications

Field Workforce – Next Frontiers
Tom Gorman, Vice President, Field Operations, Charter Communications

Providing Best in Class Customer Service Using Workforce Automation
Andy Parrott, Vice President, Technical Operations, Suddenlink Communications

Workforce Management — Technologies and Tools
Mark Ericson, Partner, The ECAM Group

The benefits of training and certification to the bottom line of MSOs have always been touted but seldom with concrete examples and recommendations for best practices. Likewise, especially in highly technical fields such as cable, the conventional wisdom is that the best field managers are those who not only manage and lead their teams using proven leadership methods and tools but are also well qualified in the technical aspects of the work itself. And, most would argue that, ultimately, the key metrics of a better trained and managed workforce are not just improved performance and lower operations costs but improved customer experience and perception of our industry as a whole.

In this session, the impact of training and combined SCTE/MSO certifications on improving employee professional development, reducing employee attrition, and, very importantly, reducing repeat service calls will be detailed, where the latter two are seen to have direct impact on reducing operations costs. Additionally, the requirements and tools to develop managers and leaders from our existing workforce will be described, and it will be shown that skills such as conflict resolution, team building, motivation, and discernment can be taught using well-known tools and methods. Finally, SCTE's own efforts in these areas will be described, including how partnerships with both MSOs and industry members such as CommScope have led to improvements in all facets of the cable workforce for the benefits of reduced cost and improved customer experience.

Moderator:        Dr. Patricia Crull, Vice President, CLO, Time Warner Cable

Career Progression with SCTE Efforts
Steve Harris, Senior Director, Advanced Network Technologies, SCTE

Linking Training and Certification for Workforce Development and Risk Management
Milynda Weis, Director, Technical Training, Suddenlink Communications
Edward Newman, Senior Vice President, Lockton Companies, LLC;