Tech Shines at Cable Show

Lots of 2nd screen products and services basked in the Cable Show spotlight this week, with major vendors like Cisco and Arris drawing large crowds and smaller vendors like Entropic and Veveo seeing good traffic. With cloud tech’s "huge momentum,” Cisco svp, service provider video Jesper Anderson touted the company’s cloud-based videoscape unity IP video platform. Highlighting the platform’s open API framework that spans the cloud and network client, he argued that “this industry has been subject to proprietary technology for too long… It’s important that we open up the cloud platform. That gives us a better ecosystem… That’s the way we combat the OTTs.” Powered by Cisco cloud infrastructure framework and OpenStack support, the cloud DVR services seek to enable large recording concurrency and multiscreen delivery.

Cox, which is integrating the Cisco platform to its TVE systems, will launch the service in the summer, said Mark Gathen, Cox’s sr director, video product management. This “personalized video experience” seeks to allow subs to access live, VOD, and recommendations from iPad devices. It is expected to be free to eligible video subs and will be expanded to other operating platforms, said Steve Tranter, sales dir, Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group. In addition to its roll helping the MSO better engage subs, Gathen said, the service also represents “an evolution” of the Cox Connect TV offerings.

And it wouldn’t be a cable show if we weren’t talking about broadband. Cable’s WiFi alliance, which includes Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevision and Bright House, announced they have deployed 150K WiFi access points across the country, about 1 year after the ops formed a partnership to do WiFi sharing. In addition, Comcast launched its home-based neighborhood hotspot initiative, which seeks to create “millions of WiFi access points” for its Xfinity Internet subs for no additional cost.