In my first post, I thought I'd give you a little background on myself. I have worked in the cable industry for 16 years. I've always been around the film and television business; my father worked for a broadcast network for 20 years. I'm a voracious TV viewer and always have been. Still, all of my time in cable continues to be a learning experience. Cable is heading into its 60th year in 2008, but it's a dramatically different business than it was in the late Forties. In the early Seventies, I had cable as a kid because we lived north of L.A. and television signals were blocked by mountains; without cable, you couldn't see TV at all. By high school, there were new channels like A&E and Superstation TBS. I vividly remember a show called "Pop Clips" on Nickelodeon, which was the pilot for MTV.
By the time I entered the cable business in the early Nineties, the technology was beginning to undergo some dramatic changes. Cable modems showed up in the market in 1994. I was at the panel where John Malone (then of TCI) made his famous pronouncement about a new world with "500 channels," a remark misunderstood at the time, since he was talking more about increased bandwidth through digital compression than he was speaking of programming networks. Since then, digital cable, video-on-demand, telephony -- all these services have changed the cable industry.
Now we're in 2008, and NCTA has launched this blog in order to discuss these issues online. At CableTechTalk, we will be examining many of the current trends in broadband and telecommunications. As a consumer myself, I'm just as anxious as you may be for things to keep changing and getting better all the time. That's why we welcome your input here as well, since we all have a vested interest in the technology that delivers us out entertainment and information to thrive. Let the dialogue begin!