I’m back from Clearwater, Florida and a trip to the National Cable Television Cooperative’s Winter Educational Conference where the theme was “Find the Answers”.

And, those cable operators that attended will agree with me when I say that we most certainly did find answers to our most pressing questions about broadband, bandwidth and becoming more competitive.

If you missed the Conference, or if you want a recap and links to the best news and resources from the event, read on…

Be a Better Competitor

Participants in the Conference were invited to share their ideas and success stories for growing their cable businesses. Here’s one of my favorites, but you can check out a more detailed list at Cable360.net:

Timothy Hohman of Litestream in St. Augustine, Fla., [...] assigned a personal customer-service rep to each new Litestream customer for the first three months of a contract. The rep keeps in touch frequently during this period[.]

All About Bandwidth

Since Netflix launched its streaming service, broadband providers have been scrambling to serve bandwidth-hungry customers without breaking the bank. Panelists at Conference estimate that Netfilx and other over-the-top video services account for as much as 40% of peak traffic.

Tenzin Gyaltsen, Cable Television Director at San Bruno Municipal Cable TV, a ZCorum Affiliate, spoke to Communications Technology about the challenges of managing the network:

“Our VoD streams went from 200 to 1,000 when we digitized, and we’ve pretty much reached payback,” he said. However, the operator now has “almost hit the bandwidth ceiling.”

Besides video, San Bruno also offers Metro Ethernet and IP PBX business services. The operator faces competition from telcos, OTT providers and from its fellow cable brethren (Comcast Xfinity and the TWC Roadrunner Video Store). Gyaltzen believes the company’s forward-thinking strategy, which included widening its pipe into the home, will prevail.

“The key is to move toward all-IP delivery while the current plant depreciates,” he concluded.

More News from WEC

GLDS, one of ZCorum’s billing integration partners, announced that four Canadian cable operators FCNQ, Seaview Communications, South Island Cable and Switch have all adopted the WinCable management and billing system (see the full report on CEDmagazine.com).

During the Conference, we also extended a decade-long partnership with ElbertonNET, a municipal cable company operated by the City of Elberton, Georgia. In addition to other managed broadband services, ZCorum will continue to provide TruVizion diagnostics and analytics software that Elberton City Manager Lanier Dunn says “has been invaluable to ElbertonNET in improving and maintaining peak performance.”

What answers did you find?

If you attended the NCTC Winter Education Conference, sound off in the comments below and let me know what you learned.