Here’s a snapshot of news and announcements being made at this week’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans.
-Guavus has launched Service Reflex 3, a big data analytics application that enables service providers to dynamically improve service quality and enhance customer experience by ingesting, fusing and contextualizing network impacting events with subscriber data in real time. Guavus said the application bridges the gap between Operation Support Systems (OSS) and Billing Support Systems (BSS), helping to improve operations, reduce the cost of customer care and deliver an enhanced quality of experience.
-Provisioning and OSS firm Incognito Software Systems (booth 1109) said it is providing complimentary printed copies of its new book, vCPE for Dummies, at this week’s show. The title, published by John Wiley & Sons Inc. with contribution from Incognito, offers practical strategies on how operators can quickly create, test, and deploy new network functions while still keeping capex and opex costs in check. The book centers on the notion of virtual CPE solutions, which allow operators to move device capabilities from the consumer-side device into the cloud. Interested readers can also go here to obtain a digital copy.
-Huawei Technologies (booth 155) has introduced a suite of products aimed at helping cable operators stay competitive in the digital era. At the show, Huawei will show Hybrid Video Solution and a series of GigaBand Network products spanning Giga Coax, Giga Transmission and Giga Backhaul. Among that group, Giga Coax, Huawei said, creates a converged platform for DOCSIS and fiber-to-the-home, said the company, which now provides cable products to 45 MSOs worldwide.
-Pico Digital Inc. (booth 911) said it will show its Condor cable TV headend system, which uses the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) for the Digital Video Broadcast standard, alongside its PD1600 “headend in a box” that is packed into a 5-RU (rack unit) form factor. The company will also highlight its latest line of high-definitions, standard definition and IP encoders, HD QAM set-top boxes, and a mini cable modem termination system (CMTS). The miniCMTS200a can support up to 400 DOCSIS 2.0 modems, or a configuration of 250 DOCSIS 3.0 plus 150 DOCSIS 2.0 modems. The unit offers 16 downstream bonded channels for up to 800 Mbps downstream and four bonded upstream channels – enough for bursts of 120 Mbps.
-Thomson Video Networks (booth 2127) will demo its ViBE family of SD/HD encoding products, which support the MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and HEVC codecs, and a new software release of MediaFlexSUITE, the company's multiscreen delivery management platform. Thomson Video Networks will also feature 4K compression solutions, including the ViBE VS7000, and the FUZE-1, a 1-RU channel origination playout system.
-Broadspeak (booth 3117), a maker of content delivery network and video streaming products, will show its new Bk350 Origin Packager, which lets operators convert recorded and on-demand content into adaptive bit rate streams while securing content with digital rights management encryption. Also on show will be a “CDN in a Box” approach that supports cloud DVR applications and is managed by company’s BkM100 CDNMediator v5.0, and the nanoCDN, a system that creates adaptive bit rate streams for Android-powered set-tops.
