In this special episode of the Broadband Pulse podcast, we're tracking key trends taking place at SCTE's TechExpo25 show.

This episode has highlights from the second day of the show, including:

DOCSIS 4.0 Evolution: Comcast and Mediacom revealed their progress during the show through their vendor partnerships with CommScope and Harmonic.

MDU broadband: As they did with cable TV, cable operators and competitive carriers are capitalizing on the multi-dwelling unit (MDU) broadband opportunity. Parks Associates, in partnership with Cox, released a study that found that nearly one in five multifamily residents with home internet reported receiving gigabit or faster download speeds. Meanwhile, CommScope's Ruckus unit continues to deepen its MDU presence across various verticals, including large apartment complexes, college campuses, retirement communities and federal prisons.

Rural Markets: Bringing broadband to rural areas is becoming a big opportunity for large and smaller cable operators. Comcast announced that it is deploying Ciena’s 5131 Coherent Access Platform (CAP) to extend the reach of its current fiber deployments more than 100 km and deliver 100 Gbps—capacity to serve residential, small to medium-sized business (SMB), enterprise, and community anchor institutions—to new and existing communities with unserved or underserved connectivity needs.

Service convergence and the customer experience: A Lightwave panel called Maintaining a Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Converged Service Offerings leveraged research results to uncover service providers’ plans for building networks that are robust enough to fulfill their business aspirations.

The panel included two key fiber and cable industry experts:

Barry Walton, Senior Broadband Solutions Advisor for Corning

And
Lamar Horton, VP, Network Engineering and Operations for Astound Broadband/Astound Business Solutions

Among the many themes discussed during the panel was how to create a good customer experience regardless of if a broadband provider is using HFC or fiber.

About the Podcast
In the Lightwave Broadband Pulse podcast, we address the key issues affecting the optical and broadband industry segments. Join us every week for insights from industry leaders on these topics. Visit our website at www.lightwave.com and listen here.