At the 2004 National Show in New Orleans, NCTA staged a very successful exhibit called The Broadband Home. The exhibit, which consisted of a full-scale mock home filled with broadband applications running over cable plant, provided a showcase for telephony, home networking, high-definition television, DVRs, and VOD. At The Cable Show ’09, the highlight was Broadband Nation, an exhibit that we described as “a Main Street America-themed technology showcase highlighting the advanced services and consumer benefits associated with cable’s broadband telecommunications platform.” It was set up to show urban, suburban and rural settings, with an entertainment center, a school, a medical clinic and the small business environment. We’ve just announced details for this year’s consumer-focused content and technology pavilion: “My World – Powered by Cable.”
If you’ve been to some of our earlier tech exhibits, you may be wondering what’s different this year. To take advantage of our L.A. location, My World will focus on the important role that content plays in broadband technology. As the cliché goes, “It’s Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley.” You can see the trend here. We believe that’s cable’s platform is quite powerful. There is a developing trend to make more content available to our customers, to make it available on more platforms, in more formats, to make it easier to search for and find content. Some of the examples include:
- Multi-platform, time- and place-shifted TV (e.g., “TV Everywhere/Anywhere”)
- Next-generation program guides and user interfaces
- 3-D TV delivered to your living room
- tru2way and enhanced TV interactive applications
- Social networking/social television
- Online video gaming
In addition, we’ll have VoIP solutions, WiMAX, DOCSIS 3.0, home automation, energy management, educational applications, commercial services for retail and hospitality industries, and so on and so on. All of which serves to demonstrate that the cable industry is playing an important role as America’s telecommunications landscape undergoes a massive overhaul. We think My World will help pull if all together into one place, making it easier to appreciate these dramatic developments.
