For those who’ve been looking for all of Jay Junkus’ articles in one place, here’s everything we’ve got: both columns and features from April 2003 to today. Articles are listed by date, most recent first. Just click on the headline to read the full story.

An SCTE member since 1995, Jay has more than 30 years of telecom experience. He is president of KnowledgeLink, a telecommunications consulting and training firm, and author of Digipoints: The Digital Knowledge Handbook (Volumes 1, 2 & 3). He also is Communications Technology‘s telephony editor. 2008

Watching the PacketCable Barometer
February 1, 2008
CableLabs’ current activities may not be a foolproof indicator of cable’s future service offerings, but history indicates that they correlate well with how we got to where we are today. DOCSIS-compliant plant and customer premises equipment…

Ad-Based Phone Service?
January 14, 2008
Now that traditional ad supported video is losing ground via DVR fast-forward, wouldn’t it be great if the ad-supported model could be migrated to one of cable’s new services? San Jose, CA-based Pudding Media believes its platform does exactly…

Coax-Based Home Networks: MoCA Makes Its Bid
January 1, 2008
MoCA claims it’s ready for prime time and that prime time is now. MoCA is the acronym for the Multimedia over Coax Alliance and also designates the technology advocated by the group. At its first Technology Conference and Open House in Austin…

TELEPHONY: Avoiding Telephony Gremlins
January 1, 2008
Square 1: The first rule of telephony troubleshooting is trouble avoidance. While it’s tempting to cut time per installation by doing a quick disconnect-reconnect from the other telephony service to yours without a check of all phone outlets, don’t…

2007

Telephony: Standards Seek a New Home
Dec. 1, 2007
Ask an engineer or developer in our industry about where our industry gets its guidelines, and chances are the answer will be "CableLabs" or "SCTE." In reality, the world isn’t that simple. Hundreds Although it’s typical for a handful of…

Telephony: SIP Trunking as a Business Service
Nov. 1, 2007
In a recent training session on business voice systems that I conducted for a group of cable technicians, one of the participants asked whether Internet protocol (IP) private branch exchanges (PBXs) would connect to a cable company s network…

Telephony: Where Cable Business Telephony Meets the Customer
Oct. 1, 2007
If the past couple of columns stimulated some thoughts on why cable wants to get into business voice telephony and the differences in business communications equipment, this column should keep your neurons flashing. We’re going to review actual…

Structured Wiring
Oct. 1, 2007
In a market increasingly dominated by consumer electronics retailers, Bright House Networks, Tampa Bay division, has created a way to use business partnerships and home wiring to secure the home for cable services. It is a model that other…

Telephony: More Ways to Be SMB Heroes
Sept. 1, 2007
Last month, this column discussed how cable could provide a valuable service to small and medium businesses (SMBs) by offering packages of business communications systems that eliminate the need for an SMB to build its own telephone system. While…

Telephony: Finally, a Telephony Killer App
Aug. 1, 2007
Cable folks, there’s an unusual opportunity waiting where you get to be a hero and make money at the same time. This golden opportunity is cable business telephony. That’s right – plain old telephone service, aka POTS, for the small to medium…

Telephony: Broadband Telephony’s Video Reincarnation
July 1, 2007
Like many logic-driven folks, I like things to stay where I put them – that includes the beer steins and DVDs on the shelves in the family room bookcases, and the technology I wrote about less than a year ago. But you and I both know that isn’t…

Telephony: The Top View Emphasizes Bandwidth
June 1, 2007
Although people in cable tend to change companies, the fact that most of us keep working for some part of the industry gives us a pretty good sense of how things work and where the industry is going. Some of us who enter management also have the…

Telephony: Clearing Some Fog and Noise
May 1, 2007
Just when I thought I was clear on fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), I got two new press releases that started another train of thought. They made me think that from the consumer’s point of view, the choices to be made as service providers offer the…

Telephony: Time to Synch Up
April 1, 2007
Independent thinking is a big part of the cable telecom mentality. For the most part, the pioneers who started our business didn’t fit into corporate molds. Most technicians I know would die in a cookie-cutter job. Even our technology is our own…

T-1, PBX and Centrex
March 1, 2007
When I started this column more than 10 years ago, finding a match between what our industry needed to hear and what I had to say was about as easy as filling a glass of water from Lake Michigan. There was so much new stuff, and cable technical…

Create Your Own Telephony Training Checklist
Feb. 1, 2007
The things you need to know to understand telephony today has changed. That should be pretty obvious to folks who read this column on a regular basis, but until recently, I didn’t consciously realize how much this fact has affected the other side…

Cleanup Time
Jan. 1, 2007
Last year, many operators achieved respectable penetrations levels for public switched telephone network (PSTN) quality plain old telephone service (POTS) and this year will be looking at new offerings to continue expanding their telephony base…

2006

The Coming Year for Cable Voice Services
Dec. 1, 2006
The December column is traditionally a place to review what we ve done over the year and make predictions. As I thought about cable telephony’s future, I was reminded of some observations by Jagdesh N. Sheth, a respected industrial marketing…

Cable’s T-1 Opportunity
Nov. 2, 2006
If opportunity comes in windows, the bottom line at a set of morning workshops held during the SCTE Business Services Symposium on Oct. 18 was that there is a lot of fresh air flowing to cable operators from cellular backhaul. Dave Clough…

Quad Play Is No Piece of Cake
Nov. 1, 2006
Getting to the quad play is a multidimensional task. If you follow what our industry is doing to put together a business that includes mobility as well as video, data and voice, you understand why this piece of the communications puzzle may be the…

Bright House Business: A Voice Partner in Tampa
Oct. 31, 2006
On the heels of the SCTE Business Services Symposium in Chicago, last week Bright House Networks announced a new commercial services line designed for both large and small businesses. The Enterprise Services arm of this new unit, Bright House…

Understanding Customers’ Needs Is Key to Business Voice
Oct. 26, 2006
In a mixed panel consisting of vendors, operators and operators-turned-vendors, there was only agreement on how to be successful in the business voice services market. The message from the Voice Services session at the SCTE Business Services…

Wireline and Wireless: Enemies or Friends?
Oct. 19, 2006
The theme at the first session of the SCTE Business Services Symposium in Chicago on Oct. 17 may have been "friend or foe?" but the participants proved that technology is indeed agnostic. Mark Vogel, manager, Applications Engineering, CommScope…

Broadband Telephony: Toy or Tool?
Oct. 1, 2006
Until a couple of months ago, I had been pretty much ignoring the increasing number of broadband telephony products. Then a press notice from Vonage inviting me to sample a new offering called V-phone caught my eye, mainly because it stated that…

New Frontiers for Cable Telephony?
Sept. 1, 2006
A recent conference on Healthcare Unbound therefore attracted my attention as a source of information on what appears to be a growing need for communications to monitor and manage activities affecting quality of life issues. In particular, the…

Beyond IP Voice
Aug. 1, 2006
As my column groupies have probably noticed, I’ve been on a roll the past couple of months, stressing the need to offer telephony subscribers more than basic dialtone and a few custom calling features. Once everyone offers bundles of data and video…

Cable IMS: Adolescent Growing to Adult
July 11, 2006
Cable’s version of IMS at Expo, in many ways, looked a lot like a teen-age football star about to enter college. It’s poised for a major role in fixed mobile convergence (FMC), but still needs some definition before it can join DOCSIS and…

Want to Build a World Wide Voiceweb?
July 1, 2006
In a video-centric industry like ours, it’s tough to get attention for basic voice applications, but I keep trying. A couple of months ago, this column talked about the opportunities that could surface if our industry were to commit to upgrading…

Comcast Media Center Tour Highlights Industry Asset
June 27, 2006
As part of Cable-Tec Expo, the SCTE offered tours of Denver area cable facilities, including the Comcast Media Center. On last Tuesday’s tour day, Expo attendees got a view of an industry asset that, although seldom seen by consumers, directly…

The Number Portability Switch
June 1, 2006
In the cable telephony game, a rapid turnaround from customer order to installation is critical. Video and high-speed data can often be up and running within one to three business days. Voice service, however, often requires arranging for the…

Telephony’s an Inventor’s Playground
June 1, 2006
If you ask someone in cable telephony, "what’s new," be prepared for a long answer. A trip to the National Show followed by a tour of the Greater Chicago SCTE Vendor Day yielded the subjects for this column, and I have a feeling there’s more to…

The New Meaning of Phone Selling
May 1, 2006
Cable telephony needs the quad play. And not for the reasons you might think. I was scratching my brain (less hair, a lot easier to reach nowadays) for the subject of this…

Telephony Knowledge Benchmarks
April 1, 2006
Certification keeps growing in importance as a benchmark for technical ability. Perhaps the proliferation of "easy" degrees has made it necessary to create industry-sanctioned programs, rather than academic ones, to provide a sense of security for…

VoIP Testing
April 1, 2006
It looks like cable operators have struck oil with telephony service. Several MSOs are experiencing penetration rates of 20 percent and above. One independent operator has even noted that "all you need to do is crack open your window, announce you…

T-1: Dodo Bird or Phoenix?
March 1, 2006
With all the talk about Internet protocol (IP) and multimedia, you’d think the days of T-1 are gone. Vyyo, Narad Networks and Scientific-Atlanta are betting development and marketing dollars to the contrary and are trying to convince cable…

The Higher You Go, the More You Need to Know
Feb. 1, 2006
As the Sprint-MSO consortium revs up the engines on the race to the quad play, my mind has started playing a flash micromedia video covering seamless wireless installation. (Training people have warped daydreams!) Watching the part of the video…

Getting More from the Telephone Industry
Jan. 1, 2006
Hey, cable! The telephone guys want to talk! No, it’s not a white flag truce in the convergence wars, but it is a search for some common ground in creating and maintaining back office systems. If you…

2005

Technology on Parade – Fast Pace
Dec. 1, 2005
Once a year, it’s a good planning exercise to step back and review where you are going and what’s driving you. That statement holds true for technologies, industries, companies and individuals. At the…

Disaster Planning
Nov. 1, 2005
The unfortunate series of events in the Gulf region this year showed us just how vulnerable our communications systems are. Water and wind can remove an infrastructure that provides network interconnections and electrical energy, leaving human…

It’s Not your Father’s Headend
Oct. 1, 2005
A couple of days ago, I was reminded via a tour that building a headend isn’t what it used to be. Bright House’s VP of Engineering and Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Board member Gene White took me through his Brandon, Fla….

Road Tripper’s Guide to Wireless Convergence
Sept. 1, 2005
When you need to cut through the choices that lead to adding mobility-based services, it helps to build a down-to-earth analogy. As summer winds down, perhaps a road trip might sort things out. Mapping the way The endpoint is often, if imprecisely…

A Case Study of Telephony Installation
Sept. 1, 2005
This month, you’re going to join me as an observer at an actual voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) installation as it is videotaped for training use. I will provide a running commentary on procedures and the reasons they are being implemented…

Business Voice Arrives
Aug. 1, 2005
At Expo, it was apparent that cable has discovered commercial services as a market. Although T-1 interconnection is probably the lowest hanging fruit, that product is essentially another transport service, rather than an application. While cable…

Alarming Facts about VoIP
July 1, 2005
One of the best ways to grab attention is to use a play on words, and I couldn’t resist a golden opportunity. Alarm systems and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP, aka cable digital telephony) may not always mix, and this column will look at what…

NCTA Wrapup
June 1, 2005
This year’s National Show revealed an industry reaching beyond its traditional boundaries. That elasticity was visible on the high-level panels, as well as in technical sessions on cable’s evolving network. The opening panel on Sunday afternoon…

Untethered Enthusiasm
June 1, 2005
There has been much talk about the quad-play being the most likely candidate for cable’s attention after voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). There s little doubt that seamless mobility is on cable’s horizon, but there are many factors that…

VoIP Doesn’t SPIT in the Wind – or Anywhere Else
May 1, 2005
In this year’s March column, I mentioned how spam on Internet telephony (SPIT) could become a big problem as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) proliferates as a replacement for circuit-switched telephony. This month, I’m pleased to report on how…

VoIP Testing
April 1, 2005
Now that we’ve finally reached the Year of VoIP (voice over Internet protocol), our installation and operations teams are beginning to realize that although voice and data both involve packets traveling across networks, voice requires different…

Cable Looks to ENUM to Support VoIP
April 1, 2005
The Electronic House Expo (EHX) held in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 24-26 provided fresh evidence that that cable will have to carve out its own niche in an already large market. While cable has been focused on communications applications that extend…

ET ’05
March 1, 2005
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ Conference on Emerging Technologies (ET) in Huntington Beach, Calif., in January attracted 935 attendees looking to stare three to five years into cable’s future. (That marked a 20 percent…

Fortune Telling
March 1, 2005
It seems the first quarter of the year is the time for telecom trend observations and predictions from analysts through CEOs. Although much of this fortune telling is self-serving attempts to stimulate some market action, over the past couple of…

Don’t Forget the Wires
Feb. 1, 2005
You’ve done your voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) homework, and it’s time for your region to implement. You’re confident the bases are covered because you’ve checked out the RF plant, you’re just as comfortable with a multimedia terminal adapter…

Does Your Network Speak My VoIP?
Jan. 1, 2005
Connecting networks always has been a challenge. I remember that one of my first engineering assignments (way before the Bell System broke up) was to connect an operator services trunk from our lab in Cicero, Ill., to a remote lab in Holmdel, N.J…

2004

2004: A Year of Progress
Dec. 1, 2004
The December column is one of my favorites because it’s an opportunity for an annual wrapup and a chance to reflect on cable telephony progress and direction. This year’s wrapup is particularly satisfying because, in 2004, we got back our focus on…

Everybody Wins when Vendors Think like Operators
Nov. 1, 2004
In September, I had the privilege of planning and chairing the joint Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers-Communications Technology voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) Symposium session on Engineering VoIP with Capital and Operating…

Part of the VoIP Game Is Learning from Others
Oct. 1, 2004
I confess. I’m a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) addict. When I get press releases, thumb through the trades, or hit the show floors, if the publicity has those four letters in it, there I go. Worse yet, the word "multimedia" is beginning to…

Cablevision and IP: A Case Study
Sept. 1, 2004
If the cable industry as a whole had a business plan, the 2004 version would include a large section on voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony, but it would also include several paths to potential new services. For reasons explained later…

Make Way for PVRs
Aug. 1, 2004
Ask the average home electronics consumer to think about home networking, and chances are that set-top terminals will be one of the last topics to enter his or her mind. On the other hand, mention TiVo, and immediately the same consumer will see…

SIP Primer for Cable
Aug. 1, 2004
The session initiation protocol (SIP) has become a buzzword in cable voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) recently. Vendors have made SIP famous in applications ranging from adapters for telephony over a high-speed data interface through telephone…

VoIP Network Interconnection
July 1, 2004
End-to-end telephone call completion often requires the use of multiple networks operated by two or more service providers. This month, we are going to discuss how cable voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) networks can be interconnected, and look…

Installing VoIP
June 1, 2004
VoIP spans access, distribution and core networks. This month, we’ll move the column’s focus to the access network, and we’ll look at how cable telephony installation is affected by VoIP. Within the access network, the embedded multimedia terminal…

Reapplying the PSTN to Data Services
May 1, 2004
Last month’s column introduced the concept of the three-layer network hierarchy that is used to complete VoIP calls over an internet. This month, we will look further into how parts of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) are being…

New Rules for New Times
April 1, 2004
Telephony evolution has finally become the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) revolution. SCTE’s Emerging Technology (ET) conference this January, and everything I’ve been reading since then, convinces me that we have moved past the evolutionary…

Sorting Through the VoIP Maze
Jan. 1, 2004
It looks like voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) is the latest techno-buzzword to become part of consumer common language. The hype in the media from vendors who offer VoIP products and service providers who are giving consumers the option of free…

2003

Cable Telephony OSS: Trick or Treat?
Oct. 1, 2003
As Halloween approaches, it seems appropriate to talk about unseen forces that make cable telephony work. In theory, an operations support system (OSS) works operational magic to move information when needed from any part of a cable operator’s…

VoIP: It’s Alive!
July 1, 2003
We can finally say it: Voice over IP (VoIP) is alive and growing! Some of the places it is springing to life may surprise you. Although activity is beginning in MSOs like Time Warner and GCI, more action in VoIP technology is outside cable. Several…

Pulse of Cable Telephony
May 1, 2003
What’s the status of cable telephony? Will IP telephony overcome integration obstacles? Can cable networks support large deployments? Which operations-systems challenges remain to be solved? What’s the role of constant bit rate (CBR) telephony…

Measuring Voice Quality in a Packet Network
April 1, 2003
Everyone knows the ability to guarantee voice quality is a prerequisite to providing primary line telephony service, but how do you really know that your system meets the standards of carrier-grade quality? For that matter, do you know what those…

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