New directions for Cable Europe
March 5, 2010
From Nick Snow in Brussels
Manuel Kohnstamm has been re-elected as President of Cable Europe at the trade body's 2010 Congress, with his fellow industry chiefs continuing a bullish perspective on the future, with key announcements on mobile strategies, future consolidation and changes to industry association.
“It's a crucial time in cable's development and I am delighted to be re-elected at a time where, in terms of customer reach, popular appeal and innovative technology, the cable industry is confounding its critics,” said Kohnstamm. “We're going places in both growth and service offerings, something that is coming across clearly at Cable Congress 2010.”
Working on the launch of a 'ten times faster' new mobile Internet service, Telenet CEO Duco Sickinghe said that the operator believed strongly in the principle, 'follow the customer, not the cable'. “With the promise LTE holds and the increasing demand for super-fast mobile Internet, Telenet should be able to improve its product offerings even more in the future,” he predicted. Liberty Global CEO, Mike Fries claimed that the cable industry was “totally redefining what broadband means. We start where DSL ends. We are all in on [DOCSIS] 3.0. By the end of the year we will be close to eighty per cent of our footprint.” Arris CEO, Bob Stanzione observed that
DOCSIS 3.0 added “enormous capabilities at very little cost.”