The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) is touting two new developments it says are intended to help cablecos optimize network performance: the release of the SCTE Measurement Recommended Practices, Fourth Edition and the creation of a standards subcommittee focused on network operations.

The group says the new resources "are part of an ongoing SCTE commitment to best practices and standards, providing the industry with new tests and procedures for measuring digital signals as well as a SCTE standards organization, the Network Operations Subcommittee, dedicated to driving and publishing future practices that can increase performance and network availability."

Covering cable-system measurement practices dating back to the early 1980s, SCTE Measurement Recommended Practices is a single-volume resource that spans the analog and digital eras. The new edition includes tests for total signal power and all-digital plant leakage, and it explains how customer premises equipment (CPE) with DOCSIS capabilities can report on plant conditions and assist in the proactive maintenance of HFC plant.

The book also discusses a variety of other topics critical to network reliability and optimization, including Group Delay, Hum on Digital Signals, Modulation Error Ratio (MER), Phase Noise and QAM Flatness. 

For more information about this publication,  click here.

Future updates to the book as well as to all other recommended practices will be the responsibility of the new Network Operations Subcommittee. Chaired by John Olander, senior vice president/Network Operations at Comcast, and Steve Fox, senior vice president and CTO at Cable ONE, the subcommittee also is tasked with looking for “new, proactive ways to improve network performance and drive to new levels of high availability through standards,” SCTE says.
 
In separate SCTE news, the group launched the six-month countdown to SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2012 by putting out its annual Call for Papers.

SCTE is asking for proposals for papers and presentations for this year’s technical sessions. Deadline for submissions is Friday, May 18. The Expo 2012 Program Committee, chaired by Jim Ludington, executive vice president at Time Warner Cable, will review all technical proposals.

In particular, the committee is interested in abstracts addressing Business Services, Capacity Management, Network & Technical Operations, Smart Energy Management Initiative (SEMI), Engineering and Wireless/Wi-Fi. If you have an idea for a submission, click here.

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