Backtalk

Got news, quotes or photos of people in the broadband cable engineering
community? Send it to [email protected] for possible inclusion on this page in future issues. People Tubinis to Cedar Point as CTO
Cedar Point Communications named Mark Tubinis as the company’s first CTO. Tubinis was a co-founder of WaterCove Networks most recently was VP in the Mobile Solutions Division of Alcatel.

Bombelli, Bentley to Imagine
Lorenzo Bombelli and Brian Bentley have joined Imagine Communications as VP product strategy/management and VP sales, respectively. Bombelli was with Scientific Atlanta/Cisco. Bentley’s career includes stints with S-A, Motorola and BigBand.

SCTE Foundation Gets Gold
The SCTE Board appointed Bob Gold, principal of Bob Gold & Associates, to the SCTE Foundation Board of Directors.

Trilithic Promotes Webb
Trilithic promoted Mark Webb to VP Broadband Instrument Products. Webb had been the director of instrument sales.

Concurrent Promotes Pasquinilli
Concurrent Computer Corp. promoted Michael Pasquinilli to VP engineering, with responsibility for all video-on-demand development resources. Quotables Here’s a sampling of some of the more outrageous – or just plain fun – things that CT contributor Jim Barthold picked up at The Cable Show ’07 in Las Vegas last month:

"DSL was created by a dyslexic engineer. You spell it backward and look what you’ve got." – Steve Craddock, senior vice president of new media strategy, Comcast.

"FiOS is something my grandson should worry about, not me." – Craddock.

"They need to catch up, and they need to catch up as fast as possible because cable is killing them." – Greenfield, WI, Mayor Michael Neitze, on why telephone companies need statewide franchising.

"It’s actually a pleasure to be here; actually, it’s a little more – it’s a surprise." – FCC Chairman Kevin Martin during his first-day keynote address.

"We call it voice. We don’t even want to be associated with that product." – Cablevision Systems COO Tom Rutledge, referring to the dread "p" for phone word.

"We’ve got to get better at delivering service. At least for Comcast, that’s going to be a big initiative." – Comcast COO Steve Burke.

"We still have differences of opinion." – NCTA President-CEO Kyle McSlarrow, responding to Martin’s keynote.

"You don’t want to be the Beatles; you want to be the (Rolling) Stones in this industry," – Coleman Breland, executive VP, sales and marketing, Turner Network Sales, comparing MSOs and programmers to rock band members.

"Sure, it’s better to get some scale economics." – Comcast Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts.

"It’s all about relationships. People buy from people they know and people they trust." – Leo Brennan, regional vice president and general manager, Cox Communications-Las Vegas.