Interview with Gil Katz, Director of Cable Solutions and Strategy for Harmonic

As Director of Cable Solutions and Strategy for Harmonic, Gil is working with MSOs to define and implement next generation architectures for digital video and on-demand services, and has recently been focusing on scalable VOD systems and solutions. Gil was part of the Harmonic team that defined the EdgeQAM product category, and served as the first EdgeQAM product manager.  He will be speaking at the IP Cable conference (part of the IPTV World Forum) being held in London this March, which will cover the impending arrival of 'cable IPTV', expected to introduce a significant new dynamic to this market.  Gil will be speaking on Day 2 (March 13th) at 1200.

ipTV News: What are you looking forward to particularly for the IP Cable conference this year?

From my perspective, I’m really looking forward to seeing how important IPTV is for cable operators and what their questions are about how to deploy cable IPTV solutions.  I’m looking forward to learning, to seeing what the market looks like, and to present what our cable customers around the world are doing with their deployments.

What can we expect from your presentation?

It will be cover direct-to-edge technology, and I’ll talk about some of the current trends, including delivering video over IP in the cable world.  I’ll also be talking about some of the solutions we are seeing currently, including DOCSIS 3.0.  I’ll also be looking at the marketing background and talk about current status of converged IP-based TV services.

What are the advantages and challenges of migrating to an end-to-end cable IP network for operators?

To deliver a video stream from headend to set-top box via conventional cable networks can be done today very economically – for around $50-70 per stream.  To do this over IP via a cable modem termination system (CMTS) is about 20-25 times more expensive, as it’s hard to carry video over IP cable, even using DOCSIS 3.0: so the first challenge is capital expenditure.  Secondly, the existing standard architecture is not scalable and throws up extra ongoing costs such as for maintenance and support systems.  Furthermore, you need wideband to carry video to the home, as you can’t cannibalise bandwidth to deliver video services via IP. Direct-to-edge technology overcomes these challenges.

The advantages are that it offers high-quality video and high-quality service and features; the other key services that operators offer their customers can also be provided via this method.  It also allows operators to offer complementary services such as broadcast content to the PC.

Will IP cable be the industry’s biggest change in the near future?

IP technology has been increasingly incorporated into the cable infrastructure over the past few years. An end-to-end IP cable infrastructure enables operators to offer a unicast service.  When you move into unicast, it makes it possible to deliver an enhanced user experience, personalisation and the potential to add other advanced services.  Subscribers can move quickly from one stream to another, and it offers full user control on every aspect: moving from one asset to another on-demand is not fast enough right now, and this change will noticeably improve the experience.

For more details about the IP Cable conference please click here