Vegas Daze at The Cable Show

By Mike Robuck

With SCTE's Cable-Tec Expo just around corner, last week's NCTA show in Las Vegas is already a distant memory for many of the attendees. Here are few shallow observations of some the events that transpired.

On a personal level, it was a show where I did not step out of the massive confines of the Mandalay Bay from Saturday evening until Wednesday afternoon, all the while cocooned in the cottony swath of a bad cold and the accompanying cold medicine.

For the most part, those that I talked to didn't think there was anything earth-shattering at this year's show. (Unless you happen to be former HBO CEO Chris Albrecht, whose alleged behavior Sunday morning may have turned out to be a repeat performance.) Since I missed my scheduled flight out on Wednesday from Vegas, I had time to poll various other Denver-bound attendees while on standby for four hours. The consensus answer to the question of, "What did you think of the show?" seemed to be, "It was OK."

I'm not astute enough to figure this out on my own, but Light Reading editor Jeff Baumgartner opined it was hard to tell we were at a show when the show was in Vegas. Certainly the lines between the lights and sounds of the show floor blurred with the roaring, unremitting glitz that is Las Vegas. The only real difference was the sound of an occasional payoff from the slot machines on the casino floor; otherwise it was a full-on blitz on the synapses from one end of Mandalay Bay to the other.

Last year's NCTA show in Atlanta was my first, and I'll admit that seeing the women in the Penthouse and Hustler booths were enough to cause me to pause and gawk like a tourist from Baggs, WY. In Vegas, those booths were just more obstacles to go around on the way to an appointment, and the booth babes seemed to be only a step or two above being propositioned in the Mandalay Bay casino. (From what I can determine, the come-ons fall into three opening lines: "Are you alone?" This uses the old salesman's technique of getting someone to start out by saying "yes"; "Are you looking for me?" No, I always look lost, but it has more to do with finding the elevators than with my sex drive; and "We're going to a party; want to come?" Cool, I'm going to the Tandberg party, too!)

Wideband demo a hit

At Tuesday's "State of the Industry: Competition Works, Consumers Win" general session CT contributor Jim Barthold (who is known throughout the telephony and cable industries for putting the "cur" in curmudgeon) remarked that the middle section in front of the panel with security guards on either side was reserved for high-ranking attendees whose sole purpose was to applaud wildly when one of the panelists said something. This seemed to be somewhat born out when Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts did his wideband cable modem demo that downloaded the entire 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica and Webster's dictionary in 3-1/2 minutes.

This demo also proved to be wildly popular with the mainstream press, but it probably wasn't much of a surprise to those who cover cable on a weekly, rather than yearly, basis - although there didn't seem to be much mention of Arris Chairman and CEO Robert J. Stanzione, who sent the file to Roberts in the demo.

This sort of demo is reminiscent of the dog-and-pony show that Apple CEO Steve Jobs trots out every year when he unveils a new product, but, hey, if it gets people to notice cable in the business section of their newspaper, it's all good.

Eating up the competition

Lastly, I was sitting next to a Reuters correspondent during the above panel, and since Barthold was writing the story for CT, I had time to read the Reuters copy as the reporter sent it in to the New York desk. In quoting Time Warner CEO and Chairman Richard Parsons, the correspondent wrote, "They are the custards of this modern battle; we are the Sioux Nation," when describing the difference between online startups such as Google using content from big media conglomerates like Time Warner without permission. According to that version of the quote, I think Parsons is saying cable will eat up the over-the-top competition.

- Mike Robuck