Cable is back! Literally. At least in Denver, host this week of the annual SCTE Cable-Tec Expo.

Issues that have weighed down the cable TV industry in recent years — most notably, the decline of video subscribers as they moved to online video options — were at the sidelines in favor of the tech. This was, after all, the annual Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers event.

“I can think back to 1983 — 60 million homes built, 30 million subscribers. … And it was all about television,” said Mike Fries, the Denver-based CEO of Liberty Global during an opening keynote session on Tuesday. “Fast forward to today to an industry of $150 billion in revenue. It’s completely transformed itself. Seventy percent of the revenue today comes from services that did not exist when SCTE was founded.” 

SCTE, which celebrated 40th anniversary of the show this year, provides technical training for the industry and is a subsidiary of CableLabs.  Louisville-based CableLabs oversees tech specifications so cable equipment from different manufacturers work together. And not-so coincidentally, the latest and greatest in cable tech launched just before the show — the next generation of DOCSIS, or Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. 

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