Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016
Philadelphia -- While 2016 is a “foundational year” for the industry, 2017 is poised to be the year of “innovation and collaboration,” Tony Werner, president, technology and product for Comcast Cable, said here Tuesday morning in remarks that opened this year’s Cable-Tec Expo.
On the foundational side, he noted examples such as the closing of the Charter Communications-Time Warner Cable merger, with Charter now pushing ahead with a cohesive technology and service plan that covers the combined company’s new, broader footprint.
“I think the industry has got a very solid year under [its] belt,” Werner said, pointing to cable’s continued broadband growth, with accelerated rollouts of multi-gigabit DOCSIS 3.1 technology on the horizon.
2017, he said, is “the year that we can seize as an industry,” added Werner, who this week was re-elected as chairman of the SCTE/ISBE board for the 2016-2017 term. “The wind is at our back as we go into 2017, and I think it's the time for us to really capitalize as an industry and as a Society…The industry has gotten knocked a few years back that we couldn't innovate,” he said. “I think we’re showing everyone that’s not true.”
Reiterating next year’s anticipated theme for MSOs, Werner said the industry’s “secret weapon” is its ability to work together.
“We collaborate, we work across,” he said. “We are not competitors, at present…It allows us to punch above our weight, which I think is so absolutely critical.”
He also presented what he said are key ingredients for the industry’s future success.
Chief among them, again, was collaboration, with Werner giving some credit to X1, Comcast’s cloud-based platform, which relies on agile and DevOps models, attracting top engineering talent, and creating a culture and environment “where people like to show up and work…and build great products on top of powerful platforms.”
And Comcast, Werner reminded the crowd, is collaborating outside of Comcast’s ecosystem, pointing to syndication deals it has with Cox Communications and Shaw Communications.
“The collaboration back and forth [with those partners] is powerful,” Werner said.
More on those opening remarks, including Werner’s follow up conversation with Zoran Stakic, Shaw’s EVP and CTO, will be featured in the Day 2 daily from Multichannel News that will be distributed here Wednesday.
