Interview with Balan Nair, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Liberty Global, Inc.

Balan Nair is responsible for overseeing global network and technology operations for cable operator Liberty Global, which span four continents and over 30mn homes, as well as overseeing global procurement functions.  Mr. Nair will be speaking at the IP Cable conference, to be held at the IPTV World Forum, on Day 1 (March 12th) at 10.40am.

ipTV News: What are you looking forward to most about the IP Cable conference and the IPTV World Forum as a whole?

The opportunity to share information and successes in operator implementations is one of the things that I am looking forward to most about the event.  The passing of technical knowledge between different groups is one of the most valuable things I can envisage for the event.  When it comes to implementing cable IPTV, it is not only the technical issues that can be shared between different parties but also the operational models.

Could you give an indication of what your presentation at the IP Cable conference will include?

Without giving too much away, I’d like to offer a comparison between cable architectures and IPTV architectures.  Although it is an IPTV conference, we will also be covering DOCSIS 3.0 and the enablers of the next generation of broadband speeds.  I would also like to take a look at what’s happening in Japan: if you look at Asia, it is often a precursor to what happens in Europe and North America.  When Europe was talking about 3Mbps broadband speeds, Asia was delivering 10Mbps connections, and now Europe is talking about 10 or 20Mbps speeds, while Asia is delivering 100Mbps connections.

What are the advantages of migrating to an end-to-end cable IP architecture?

An all-IP network has definite advantages for cable operators – in terms of costs, it’s a lot easier to manage, with one addressing scheme, and in my mind, it takes out a lot of the complexity of running a network.  Having said that, the QAM model has been in place for a while now and works quite efficiently, therefore the biggest challenge to migration is absorbing the costs and a change to operations.

Is this a logical progression for the entire cable TV industry?

I think all operators will move towards an end-to-end cable IP architecture with differing senses of urgency, as those with less competitive pressures will move more slowly and at a later stage.  But I do think it is the logical next step.

For more information about the IP Cable conference please click here