Pipeline Profile: Alan Amato

SCTE member since 1994 Title: Director of Engineering, Times Fiber-Amphenol Broadband Background: An SCTE Senior Member since 2000, Amato is the inaugural recipient of the SCTE Excellence in Standards Award. Amato is involved in the SCTE Interface Practices Subcommittee (IPS), serving as chair of the IPS Working Group 7’s Specialty Drafting Group, chair of IPS Working Group 3 and chair of the IPS Connector Task Force and IPS Cable Task Force. He has been in the cable and wire business for more than 25 years and serves on the board of directors for the SCTE New England Chapter. What are some tips for fostering what SCTE calls the "spirit of cooperation" during a heated negotiation regarding a standard? The spirit of cooperation is, generally, not difficult to achieve in the IPS meetings. The attendees are hard-working, intelligent, experienced and well-respected individuals carefully selected by their companies. Cooperation follows from giving the attendees the respect they deserve, maintaining a professional forum, giving the attendees sufficient time to discuss/debate the issues and providing a fair method for dispute resolution. What has been the most complicated standard you have worked on technically speaking? The most complicated standard I’ve ever worked on is ANSI 32 2001, formerly IPS-TP-010, Ampacity of Coaxial Telecommunication Cables. It is a procedure used to calculate the number of amperes a coaxial cable can carry given its installation conditions. ANSI 32 2001 is based on a thermodynamic model that balances the sources of heat (cable conductors) and the paths that the heat follows (dielectric, jacket, etc.) to get to the outside environment. What standard has been the most difficult for all involved parties to agree upon? In my opinion, the most difficult standard to secure general agreement on has been SCTE 74 2003 (formerly IPS-SP-001) Specification for Braided 75 Ohm Flexible RF Coaxial Drop Cable. Without a doubt, this standard has resulted in the most spirited discussions I can recall in my time with IPS. We are currently discussing changing the existing document to a performance-based document. I guarantee you that discussions on the re-development of IPS-SP-001 will be interesting. What are the most pressing standards your SCTE subcommittees currently working on? There is really a lot of activity taking place in IPS. Here are several pressing projects: I’m helping to coordinate work in the Specialty Section of Working Group 7 (WG7). The intent of WG7 is to establish recommended practices to provide clarification and interpretation of The National Electrical Code in areas where, in our industry, there has been some uncertainty. Working Group 3 is in the final stages of developing a new standard, IPS-SP-008, Specification for Braided 75 Ohm, Mini-Series Broadband Coaxial Cable. There seems to be a reasonable amount of interest and anticipation in the industry for this standard. Working Group 2 has several important and pressing standards that the Connector Task Force has been working on for a long time. They are: Specification for "F" Port, Female, Outdoor, IPS-SP-400; Specification for "F" Port, Male, Feed-Through, IPS-SP-401; Specification for "F" Port, Male, Indoor, IPS-SP-406. What type of work is your U.S. technical advisory group at the IEC currently undertaking? The U.S. TAG is working with the member countries of the IEC to develop worldwide, internationally accepted standards for coaxial cables used in cabled distribution networks. These will be standards for drop and hardline coaxial cables and the associated test procedures. I don’t believe that the intent of IEC is to replace other standards, such as SCTE and CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization), but to harmonize them as much as possible in the hope of wide acceptance, particularly in the United States and the EU countries. What sessions are you interested in at Expo? The SCTE has done a fantastic job of selecting really pertinent content for the Expo sessions. My personal favorites are "Home Networking—The Next Frontier" and "Powering Considerations for VoIP." What will Times Fiber be exhibiting? Times Fiber’s focus will be on highlighting a wide range of products that provide broadband solutions to our worldwide customer base. Our traditional offering of coaxial cable is expanding to encompass exciting new designs, for example: smaller form-factor, high-performance cables used in space-limited, high-density headend environments. Our partnership with Extreme Broadband brings a new aspect to Times Fiber’s offering, with a focus on customer premises passive and active devices (splitters, amplifiers, couplers, etc.) that have class-leading design and performance for today’s mission-critical applications. Our product offerings in coaxial assemblies address the growing need for self-installation platforms and HDTV interconnect solutions across a wide range of system platforms. Finally, our integrated offering for fiber-optic interconnect and management, offered in partnership with our Amphenol sister division, rounds out our offering. And not to lose sight of the fun side of Expo, TFC will be displaying an Expo first: the Broadband Chopper (motorcycle). Constructed in partnership with our extremely talented customers, the Chopper incorporates a number of the system components we currently supply into the look of a Chopper. It is truly a must-see at the show.