Last month at CableLabs Winter Conference, we unveiled a new way forward for CableLabs’ technology strategy — a transformative roadmap designed to support our member and vendor community through innovation and technology development in the coming years.
Mark Bridges, CableLabs’ Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, recently sat down with David Debrecht, Vice President of Wireless Technologies, to talk more about this new Technology Vision. Check out the video below to learn more about the strategy and how it evolved from conversations with our member CTOs about what’s important to them.
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Thinking About Connectivity Differently
The Technology Vision serves as a framework to help align the industry around key industry issues for CableLabs members and operators. By leveraging what CableLabs does best, we can help provide alignment and scale for the industry and direct our efforts toward developing a healthy vendor ecosystem. Involving our members from the get-go has allowed us to refine the Tech Vision framework to focus on areas that will have the most impact for them and give them a competitive edge.
“It’s all about connectivity,” Bridges explains. “People don’t care how they’re connecting. They don’t think about the access network. They don’t think about the underlying technologies like we do. We’re best positioned to be that first point of connection for people.”
The CableLabs Technology Vision defines three future-focused themes — Seamless Connectivity, Network Platform Evolution and Pervasive Intelligence, Security & Privacy — that encompass the scope of broadband technologies. The goal is to provide a concise model for building adaptive networks and set up a framework of core areas focused on defining network capabilities that are flexible, reliable and able to deliver quality services and user experiences.
In the video, Bridges highlights some of the initiatives CableLabs is already deeply involved in to support this vision, including Network as a Service (NaaS), fiber services and mobile innovations designed to move us closer to seamless connectivity. These areas are mainstays in CableLabs’ technology portfolio, allowing us to drive innovation and advancement while keeping costs low.
Creating an Adaptive Network
What’s ahead for the industry in the near future? Bridges points to a “convergence of connectivity” that enables operators to offer seamless services across different network and device types.
As AI evolves and more intelligent devices enter the market, we’re already seeing increases in network usage. These innovations raise critical questions as we look to the future: How will traffic utilization patterns change? What impacts will we see for reliability and capacity needs?
Bridges envisions a network that is more reliable, more capable and, in a sense, less visible. It’s a network, he says, that “fades into the background. You connect and do the things that you want to do and you don’t have to think about it.”
Do you want to be a part of shaping that future? Our working groups bring CableLabs members and vendors together to make meaningful contributions that advance the industry as a whole. Reach out to us to learn how you can participate in this work and help make an impact.
