Broadening its international reach, CableLabs said it has added four new members: Guangdong Cable Network (Gcable) and Henan of China, Nowo (Portugal), and Sofa (Denmark).
CableLabs said its service provider membership now stands at 59 operators that represent more than 180 million subscribers worldwide.
According to a blog post by CableLabs COO Chris Lammers, Gcable serves Guangdong Province, and serves 13 million TV subs and 1.7 million broadband subs, while Henan Cable, a company 49% owned by CITIC Limited, has 11 million TV subs and 400,000 broadband subs.
Nowo, he noted, provides cable service in Portugal to 172,000 TV subs, and 144,000 broadband subscribers, and is the largest cable op in that country. Stofa provides fixed and mobile services to 344,000 TV subs, 323,000 broadband subs, and 84,000 digital voice subscribers.
The latest batch of members expands on CableLabs’s international strategy, which is aiming to align technologies with cable operators around the globe, drive scale and lower costs, and to have members collaborate and exchange best practices.
CableLabs, which added Australia’s nbn as a member in April, merged with Cable Europe Labs in 2013. CableLabs also has plans to host an “Inform[ED] conference next year in Lisbon, essentially replacing the org’s annual U.S.-based Winter Conference.
RELATED: Cable’s R&D Hub Adds New Faces in Ongoing Quest for Global Reach (subscription required)
Earlier this year, Jeff Chen, an engineering exec late of Bright House Networks, joined CableLabs in the newly created role of senior vice president, global technology, where he’s focused on developing and maintaining relationships with CableLabs members in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
