Blockchain: Beyond Hype and Toward Wider Use
Over the past year, blockchain began coming into its own. It remains the foundation of digital currencies, but is now more widely diffused, independent and less subject to inflated expectations than it was at the start of 2018. Many industries are now looking into the distributed ledger technologies once exclusively associated with cryptocurrency. In a lecture I heard last April sponsored by Virginia Commercial Finance on “The Business Case for Blockchain,” the list included the following: pharma/food/agribusiness, import/export, digital...
read moreA Tech Writer Can Really Help Out in this Situation
In my past few posts, I’ve written on network virtualization, CBRS and DOCSIS, topics I heard discussed at this year’s SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tech Expo. As a tech writer, that’s just part of what I do. For several years, I’ve also played another role upfront, helping companies that attend Expo convert their accepted abstracts into finished conference papers. The SCTE receives many more proposals than it can accept. Deciding which ones make it can be difficult, as I recall from serving on the program committee. What happens next is also a...
read more5 Ways DOCSIS Networks are Changing
The cable industry’s DOCSIS networks are again in transition. A panel organized by Broadband Technology Report on Wed, Oct. 24, at this year’s SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tec Expo captured several impending changes. One reason for these options is the flexibility of DOCSIS, which has already undergone considerable evolution. Another is the stability of DOCSIS 3.1, the latest version. “It’s worked better than we thought,” said John Chapman, Cisco Fellow and CTO of Cisco Cable Access, and one of the panelists. “We built margin into the system....
read moreCBRS: The 3.5 GHz Wireless Revival
At trade shows it is now common for scheduled talks occur on the show floor. At the year’s SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta Ga, on Tues., Oct 23, the floor-based Innovation Theater featured execs from ARRIS and ARRIS subsidiary Ruckus Wireless for a discussion of 3.5 GHz band Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS). Expo organizers named this session “CBRS: The Future is Here.” And this future does seem to be approaching quickly. Two years ago, the CBRS Alliance launched with six founding members (including Ruckus Wireless). Now it has more...
read moreDoes Network Virtualization Make Your Head Spin?
For nearly two decades, I’ve tracked trends at the SCTE-ISBE Cable-Tec Expo. This year’s event in Atlanta provided many chances to do so, including the Light Reading breakfast session on “Virtualizing the Cable Architecture.” My high-level takeaway from this Oct 23 gathering: Virtualization is in a holding pattern, at least as far as cable is concerned. It is not surprising that an industry once focused exclusively on physical gear has trouble with this topic. After all, experts define virtualization as the creation of separate images of...
read moreA Tale of Two (or more) DevOps Reports
A recent email from IT automation software company Puppet plugged its 2018 State of DevOps Report. Because this topic is important to many companies I write for (and because I read last year’s report), I downloaded a copy. A few things stood out. First, authorship. Puppet and machine-data software company Splunk present this year’s report. There are three authors from Puppet and one from Splunk. Last year’s report featured two authors from Puppet and three from DevOps Research & Assessment (DORA). That leads to the question of...
read moreCenturyLink Hosts RVA Tech on Tap
“No drink, no ink” – that’s the classic line of an old-school journalist meeting a source at the local bar. So full disclosure up front: I did have a beer at the RVA Tech on Tap gathering on Aug 16, at the Three Notch’d Brewing Co and Collab House. But I paid $10 to attend. That makes my drink mostly a wash between me and the event’s sponsor, CenturyLink. CenturyLink is still interesting enough to write about for one simple reason: Over the past decade, this company has transformed itself. It reminds me of Bell Atlantic, which acquired...
read moreBlog Series Wins PRSA Award of Merit
A series of blog articles that JT Consulting helped create won an Award of Merit in the 71st Annual Virginia Public Relations Awards competition. The Richmond Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) hosted the related ceremony. Held at the Jefferson Hotel on May 24, the evening was a sparkling mixture of drinks, dinner, conversation – and awards. Our award resulted from our collaboration with Wireside Communications, an independent PR agency that focuses on high-tech B-to-B communications. Moreover, they derived from...
read moreIntel Pitches Optane for Content Delivery
The Content Delivery Summit, hosted by StreamingMedia.com in New York City on May 7, provided a stage for chip maker Intel to discuss a storage technology that it developed several years ago with Micron and later branded as Optane. The pitch was a head-turner for a few reasons. First, let’s underscore a point. Intel was talking memory and storage, not micro-processing or CPUs, with which is it more popularly associated. Second, maybe you already knew about the 3D XPoint (crosspoint) technology that Intel and Micron announced back in...
read moreCable-Tec Expo: A Mile High and 18 Years Deep
This year’s SCTE•ISBE’s Cable-Tec Expo in Denver was my 18th. To old-timers, that still makes me a rookie. Yes, the cable industry can be tight-knit and self-referential. But it is also welcoming, open to change and attentive to innovation. And mile-high Denver was the place to go this fall to tap into the industry’s forward-looking execs. Joining the big blue bear at the Denver Convention Center on the opening day were the CEOs of Charter, Comcast Cable, ARRIS and Liberty Global. Mike Fries of Liberty Global was a notable addition. I’d heard...
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