What Tech Expo 26 Reveals About The Future Of Broadband

Evan Kirstel (0:01)

Hey, everybody, fascinating chat today. We're talking about what's changing in broadband and what people could expect to see in the future, in particular, at Expo 26 in Atlanta. We have a true industry insider and expert from the SCTE. Janelle, how are you?

Janelle Morse (0:17)

I'm good, Evan. It's nice to meet you and having me on your podcast.

Evan Kirstel (0:22)

Thanks so much for joining. For those who may not be familiar, how to describe the work you do at the SCTE, and we'll talk about Tech Expo as well.

Janelle Morse (0:31)

Perfect. Sounds great.

Evan Kirstel (0:34)

So yeah, what is Tech Expo? What is the SCTE? Let's do some introductions here. And I have a bunch of questions.

Janelle Morse (0:41)

Of course. I'm glad to bring them on. So Tech Expo, it's one of the largest broadband events in North America. And it has a long legacy. It's been around for over 40 years. But Tech Expo is about where the people who build, operate, evolve the networks.

You know, we all come to depend on, come together once a year. So we bring the operators, technologists, engineers, vendors, thought leaders all together to look at what's next. But more importantly, like how are they actually going to make it work at scale?

Evan Kirstel (1:13)

So just just a trivial little question, getting things to work, you know, that's all.

Janelle Morse (1:19)

Exactly. Exactly. And how to operate, at some points, the technology, how do you operationalize it, right? So bringing that piece together, and that's really what SCTE as an organization is focused on.

Evan Kirstel (1:32)

Oh, it's a long, interesting history.

So are there big themes this year versus last year? Like what's new? What's exciting?

Janelle Morse (1:39)

Yeah. So last year we were in DC, so it definitely had a policy focused slant, which was fantastic. But this year, the theme is convergence powered, so it's a new experience for VECTED. So convergence really is the thread running through the entire event.

For years, we've talked about different access technologies, but almost independently. Now the conversation is really increasing about how do they operate together to create that one seamless experience. So you'll hear a lot about AI and Fracture, Autonomous Networks, Next-Gen Wi-Fi, Cloud Native Networks, and the continued evolution of both Fiber and HFC. But what I really find particularly interesting is how we're connecting all of these technologies back to reliability in customer experience.

So, in the past, the question's always been how fast is the network? But more so now is, did the customer have a great experience? So that shift is going to drive a lot of the conversation at Tech Expo this year.

Evan Kirstel (2:50)

I bet. So in your opinion, what are the biggest changes happening in the network and behind the scenes right now with operators around the US, maybe globally? What are you seeing? What do you have a unique bird's-eye view of that?

Janelle Morse (3:04)

Yes. So I think the world, we're moving more towards a world where the customer cares less about which access technology they're on. They just expect their connectivity to simply work.

So behind that simple experience, is a very sophisticated network environment. So we're seeing higher capacity, more intelligence at the edge, more virtualization, more Cloud-native architectures, and a tighter integration across all those technologies. But we're also seeing, and it ties back to the agenda, is we're seeing more of that network extended much further into the customer experience.

So an operator might have looked in the past at the connection to the home was performing properly. But to the customer, their Wi-Fi is their Internet. So their device isn't performing, say, in their living room, they don't care that the network in the house is working perfectly. So that next evolution isn't about just building faster networks, it's about building smarter, more adaptive, more reliable networks that understand the experience end to end. So Tech Expo this year, you know, agendas reflected in that, with intelligent, connected homes, adaptive home networks, Wi-Fi 8, cross-domain network evolution, and then the AI-powered customer experience. That's some of the conversation happening, but you see that more so, like, in the next year as well.

Evan Kirstel (4:41)

Interesting. Obviously, AI is on top of everyone's mind, including, you know, it's being used by the carriers and the network providers and all kinds of ways and operations and consumer experiences. Do you have any anecdotes or stories that might be interesting on how it's being used in the network?

Janelle Morse (4:57)

Yeah, so I've been in events for a very long time, and, you know, if you're in a technology event, you have to cover AI. And for years, it's all been about this theory, right? But we never had actual use cases. Well, how is it being applied, right? But we're, you know, at Tech Expo, you're really going to see examples of AI being used for network diagnostics, predictive service assurance, fault detection, optimization, and operations.