SCTE® LiveLearning Webinars™ 2024 Schedule
SCTE Member Benefit: SCTE® LiveLearning Webinars™ are a series of live, interactive, web-based seminars offered on the third Thursday of every month
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Getting (or Drawing) a Bead on BEAD
Date: Thursday, January 18, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
With the U.S. government now preparing to hand out $42.45 billion in subsidies for new broadband network builds, cable operators and other service providers are lining up for a hefty share of the public funds to close the Digital Divide. Under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, qualified operators need put up just 25% of the project costs, with the feds picking up the rest of the tab. Participants must also submit letters of credit for 25% of their BEAD award amount.
How can cable operators take advantage of BEAD? What kinds of network builds qualify for the subsidies? How will the program change U.S. broadband market dynamics? What hurdles does BEAD raise? This session will spell out the opportunities and challenges of BEAD for cable.
SCTE Speaker: Robin Fenton, Vice President, Membership & Learning Operations
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Smart WiFi, Smart Homes
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
As homes fill up with more and more connected devices, managing the customer’s home Wi-Fi network effectively and efficiently has become more important than ever. With the adoption of Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and now Wi-Fi 7 technology in their broadband routers and modems, cablecos are seeking to stay ahead of the curve by offering higher speeds and more bandwidth to subscribers, extending the home network’s range and reducing the mounting congestion of the home network. Operators are also looking to develop and deploy new smart-home services and generate fresh revenue.
But all these things are easier said than done. How can operators use the next-gen Wi-Fi specs to overcome thorny home networking issues? And how can they leverage the specs to craft and support promising new smart-home services? In this webinar, we will discuss the potential of the new Wi-Fi specs to drive ARPU for cablecos, as well as the technical, operational and integration challenges the specs raise.
SCTE Speaker: Steve Harris, Vice President, Global Market Development
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Fiddling with Fixed Wireless
Date: Thursday, March 21, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
As cable operators and rival providers gear up to deploy DOCSIS 4.0 and next-gen PON over their wireline networks, fixed-wireless access (FWA) is swiftly emerging as a major new platform for delivering broadband service to rural, exurban and other markets that can’t be reached cost-effectively any other way. In particular, small and midsized cablecos are increasingly rolling out FWA in their regions.
But deploying FWA is much easier said than done because of geographical, spectrum, technical, regulatory, cost and other knotty obstacles. When does it pay for cablecos to go the FWA route? What conditions are the most favorable? What obstacles must be overcome? In this session, leading industry technologists will assess the pros and cons of FWA.
SCTE Speaker: Paul Rodrigues, Director, Field Education
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Cable and 5G: The Odd Couple?
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
As cable operators plunge deeper into the mobile space, they are increasingly rolling out 5G networks to supplement their other broadband services. Some cablecos are leveraging 5G for mobile offload while others are creating private 5G networks for larger commercial customers. As a result, they are deploying 5G small cells on their HFC network strands and integrating the cells with DOCSIS technology.
What are the most promising benefits of 5G for cable? How can operators leverage DOCSIS for 5G networks? What are the biggest technical and operational challenges to overcome? This webinar will address the integration issues of mixing and matching DOCSIS and 5G.
SCTE Speaker: Steve Harris, Vice President, Global Market Development
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Delivering the DAA Difference
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
A decade after the development of remote physical RF layer (R-PHY) technology, Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) is now going strong. Cable operators are increasingly installing R-PHY and R-MAC/PHY gear in their HFC plant to shift key functions and equipment from the cable headend to the access network, simplify their hubs and make their networks more powerful, flexible and efficient.
At the same time, though, cablecos are making their networks much more complex by deploying DAA. How are they dealing with those complexities? What steps can they take to simplify their distributed architectures? How can they still get the biggest bang for the buck out of DAA? In this session, our panel of experts will distill the lessons learned from a dizzying decade of DAA deployments.
SCTE Speaker: Dennis Brown, Director, Engineering Education
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Deploying DOCSIS 4.0
Date: Thursday, June 20, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
Now that the much-anticipated DOCSIS 4.0 era has begun, several major cable operators are starting to roll out service in their initial regions. At the same time, key technology suppliers are starting to roll out all the equipment necessary to support the new spec in the field. And cable subscribers are starting to sign up for the faster speeds, greater bandwidth, lower latency levels and other benefits that D4.0 has to offer.
Where are the initial rollouts taking place? How are subscribers responding? What are operators and their vendor partners learning from these early deployments? What obstacles are they encountering? How are they working to overcome those hurdles? This webinar will delve into the D4.0 deployment details.
SCTE Speaker: Steve Harris, Vice President, Global Market Development
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Boosting the Upstream
Date: Thursday, July 18, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
After decades of focusing mainly on expanding their downstream spectrum, cable operators are now seeking to expand their upstream capacity, thanks largely to changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. With heavier loads on their networks from video conferencing, online gaming, work-from-home and other bandwidth-intensive applications, operators are pursuing both short and long-term strategies to boost their upstream capacity. These measures inclide deploying lower-gain amplifiers, executing mid-splits and high-splits, and extending plant spectrum to 1.8 GHz and possibly beyond.
How are cablecos carrying out these moves? What’s working and what isn’t? Which spectrum expansion options are proving to be most promising? What are the biggest hurdles to overcome? In this webinar, we will explore the upstream expansion options.
SCTE Speaker: Dean Stoneback, Senior Director, Engineering & Standards
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Going Carbon Neutral
Date: Thursday, August 18, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
With the planet increasingly burning up, cable operators are stepping up their efforts to combat climate change in a charge led by SCTE and CableLabs. From service vehicles to set-top boxes to cable modems to power supplies and other equipment, operators are moving to slash their carbon emissions and energy costs, as well as manage all their hard assets in a more sustainable, energy-efficient manner. But, like other industries, cable still faces major challenges in trying to go green.
How are operators tackling these challenges? What steps are cablecos taking to make their networks, equipment and fleets more sustainable? Where have they made the most progress so far? What hurdles still remain? In this webinar, we will tackle these questions and more as the industry strives to build a more sustainable future.
SCTE Speaker: Derek DiGiacomo, Senior Director, Energy Management Programs and Business Continuity
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Embracing the Fiber Future
Date: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
Even as the industry begins the DOCSIS 4.0 era, cable operators are increasingly placing their bets on fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks as the broadband platform of the future. Led by such major MSOs as Comcast, Charter, Cox and Altice USA, cablecos are briskly installing new fiber lines in all greenfield areas and some brownfield areas as well as they seek to leverage government subsidies and stave off competition from fiber-happy telcos rivals like AT&T, Verizon and Frontier.
Yet, even as they plunge more heavily into fiber builds, operators face critical questions about their network upgrade strategies, their timing and the heavy costs involved. This webinar will examine cable's embrace of fiber builds, the opportunities that FTTP offers and the technical and operational challenges that it presents for the industry.
SCTE Speaker: Dean Stoneback, Senior Director, Engineering & Standards
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Cable’s Tech Transformers: AI, ML & Automation
Date: Thursday, October 17, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
Seeking to harness the full power of intelligent plant operations, cable engineers are increasingly leveraging network automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to speed service delivery, slash operating expenses, resolve network problems and generally enhance the customer experience. In particular, cable cos are tapping into these new technologies to make their operations more effective and efficient.
However, implementing all these complex next-gen technologies is much easier said than done. What kind of progress are operators making? What obstacles are they facing? How can they overcome these hurdles? In this session, we will explore the brave new world of AI/ML/network automation.
SCTE Speaker: Derek DiGiacomo, Senior Director, Energy Management Programs and Business Continuity
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Prepping for Next-Gen PON
Date: Thursday, November 21, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
Despite the long-awaited debut of DOCSIS 4.0 earlier this year, next-gen PON over fiber networks is rapidly emerging as the broadband delivery technology of the future, even for cable operators. Encouraged by generous public subsidy programs for fiber network builds, cablecos are increasingly turning to GPON, EPON, XGS-PON and 10G EPON to meet the needs of their broadband subscribers.
But making the pivot to PON is no easy matter because of the technical integration and operational issues of bringing DOCSIS and PON networks together. How is cable's evolution to PON proceeding? What speed bumps is the industry hitting along the way? How can cablecos mix and match DOCSIS and PON services over HFC and FTTP lines? This webinar will address these questions and more.
SCTE Speaker: Robin Fenton, Vice President, Membership & Learning Operations
SCTE® LiveLearning for Professionals Webinar™ Series: Going to 10G & Beyond
Date: TBD-- Thursday, December 12, 2024 OR Thursday, December 19, 2024, 11:00 a.m. New York / 4:00 p.m. London
Nearly six years after setting its ambitious 10G target, the cable industry is closing in on its goal of delivering symmetrical 10 Gbps speeds over its hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) networks. After conducting numerous lab and field trials on several continents over the past few years, operators are now beginning to deploy next-gen versions of both DOCSIS and PON technologies to deliver blazing-fast speeds to tens of millions of broadband subscribers.
What comes next in cable’s 10G journey? What, if any, roadblocks remain? How can they be overcome? What new targets will the industry set? In this year-end session, we will look at how far industry has come and how much further it still hopes to go.
SCTE Speaker: Steve Harris, Vice President, Global Market Development