The show floor at SCTE TechExpo25 was big and bustling, totaling 85,369 square feet, up from 84,780 in 2024. It saw a steady stream of foot traffic across the event’s three days.

Amid all the antennas, vaults and fiber optics on display, Harmonic constructed a Broadband Land booth with a Candy Land theme. It had a steady flow of foot traffic, thanks partly to the sugary concoctions it was serving up alongside demos of the latest advancements to the cOS virtualized broadband platform. Candy, ice cream and a converged solution for multi-gigabit services that Comcast is deploying to expand its network. Harmonic tied it all together with the tagline: “The sweetest part is still to come.”

While Harmonic was sweet, AOI was spicy. Not only does the company make advanced optical devices, it produces its own hot sauce. Really. As far as we know, you can only get their four blends—Packet Loss Pete, 279 Standard, Ingress Inferno and Coaxial Combustion—at a trade show. And they aren’t just giving out free bottles and samples (warning, we hear Coaxial Combustion is so hot, it will burn your skin). If you ever wished for a “Hot Ones”-style TV show of cable professionals eating hot sauce and performing tasks such as connectorizing both ends of a .500 cable and .500 pin connector, AOI is delivering with its “Spicy Splice” YouTube series.

CommScope showed off its latest DOCSIS and PON advancements at its booth, but it also showed off its need for speed at a separate display on the other side of the floor. Anyone passing by The Continuum stage likely got a look at an F1 car, highlighting the company’s multi-year agreement to be the official connectivity partner of the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team. There was also a chance to win a CommScope swag bag by taking a pic of the car or the booth and posting it on LinkedIn with a special hashtag.

Speaking of The Continuum, the exhibit and stage presented by NCTA and powered by CableLabs offered a tour through the past, present and future of connectivity as well as the policies that have shaped telecommunications. On display from the Breen Technical Archives at The Cable Center was an early line amplifier made out of a Folger’s coffee can as well as the TelePrompTer SpaceCast One Model portable dish that powered the first domestic satellite TV transmission in 1973 at that year’s NCTA Cable Show. There was also a display showing how WiFi tech is supporting American jobs as well as deep dives into immersive entertainment, including a virtual reality demo from HTC, and the future of AI-powered network infrastructure. The sleek Continuum stage itself hosted livestreamed discussions throughout the expo.

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