MONT TREMBLANT – Attendees were very pleased with the new trade show format at the 2008 Canadian Cable Systems Alliance.
The group tweaked its annual general meeting, renaming it Connect 2008 – The Summit for Independent Communications, rescheduling some of the traditional events and re-formatting the trade show. Feedback was very positive on Monday from some of the 250-plus attendees we talked to here at the Fairmont Hotel.
Here are a few of the things we saw and heard on Sunday and Monday.
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Rogers Communications is now a member of the CCSA. Both the Alliance and the largest cableco in the country were playing the move pretty low-key, as no formal announcement was made. Rogers’ 2.3 million cable subs outnumber the CCSA’s one million represented cable customers by quite a margin but perhaps Rogers executive Michael Allen shed some light on the move when he accepted the CCSA’s Friend of Small Systems Entrepreneurial Award on behalf of award winner Ted Rogers, RCI’s founder.
Allen noted that Rogers faces many of the same issues as the CCSA member companies in that it wants to keep costs low, stay on top of changing technology while facing signal acquisition issues and capacity challenges. Plus, Allen pointed out, in Newfoundland, Rogers owns a number of non-interconnected small systems which are similar to many independent Canadian ops who are long-time members of the alliance. “We have common objective beyond simply being in the same industry,” said Allen while accepting the award.
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Astral Media and Corus Entertainment, besides pushing this release, were on the floor with a presence promoting a pair of recently launched digital specialties that, despite their brand names, still aren’t as widely carried as either company had hoped. Corus’ CosmoTV and Astral’s Playhouse Disney face cable operators (both are carried by Bell TV and some cablecos) with continuing bandwidth challenges who are choosing to add more high definition channels and are telling programmers they are having trouble finding room for the channels (plus, they don’t want to take on additional wholesale fees). www.cosmotv.ca; www.playhousedisneycanada.com.
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Jeff Dancy – of CCSA platinum sponsor Macrovision – poked a little fun at himself. Since he’s been hawking the same product – the Prevue EPG – nearly interrupted for years, but has had several ownership changes, Dancy said: “people ask me all the time what company is on your business card now?” He added that the new software company owners will be helping drive the EPG across many devices in the home, making it easier to find content on a number of devices. www.macrovision.com.
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The Alliance honoured Jim Irvine, a founding member of the CCSA on Monday night at its board of directors dinner. Irvine sold his company, Aurora Cable, to Rogers Communications earlier this year. Irvine was one of the originators (along with Delta Cable’s John Thomas, Fundy Cable’s Bill Stanley and Seaside Cable’s Irving Schwartz) who dreamed up and launched the CCSA in 1992. Of the four, only Schwartz still remains an independent.
Back then, noted CCSA president and CEO Alyson Townsend, competition had just been okayed by the CRTC, technology was advancing quickly and costs were rising so they decided to work in tandem to bring costs down and work collectively on technology. “Not an easy thing for an autonomous – dare I say, opinionated – group of people,” she said to knowing laughter.
In accepting the recognition – which included a standing ovation – Irvine noted that no matter what happens and who happens to sell or how technology may change the game, “We’re still better off together than we are separately,” he said.
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On the trade show floor earlier on Monday, TVC Canada, the trade show’s presenting sponsor, was emphasizing its BGI division, showing off its RGB HDTV series cables and cost-effective home networking solutions. www.tvccanada.com; www.bgi.ca.
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Power & Tel, a silver sponsor, used the trade show time to promote its Alpha Technologies Novus Micro Secure 100, an outdoor rated UPS ideal for low-power CATV powering applications such as MDUs. P&T was also talking up the Cisco GS7000 "segmentable" fibre node which can accommodate up to four fibre optic receivers and four fibre optic reverse transmitters, which give greater flexibility to the cable operator. www.ptsupply.ca.
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The micro-scalable Nomad Soft Switch was the central product on the Clearcable table. Aimed at small (even very small) cablecos, it can allow small ops to get into telephony and be profitable with just 100 lines. One $5,000-box, which is integrated with the GLDS flow through provisioning system, will serve 500 customers, said company president Rob McCann. www.clearcable.ca.
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Evolution Broadband had a couple of interesting products (one of which we’ll expand on more in a future story), but it was also touting its easier, cleaner EVO-5-U/P residential entry unit – an all-in-one wall-mounted unit that is cleaner and easier to use for cable techs. www.evolutionbb.com.
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Coming tomorrow, coverage of the special CTAM panel on the digital transition held Monday during the CCSA conference.
