EDITORial
Editor’s Letter
The news that Virgin Media O2 has acquired Netomnia has caused ripples of excitement across the industry, along with the Amphenol acquisition of CommScope and rumours of a TalkTalk sale of its broadband division. The long-anticipated acquisition phase is now underway. You can read all about this, and other industry developments in our News section on page 44. To celebrate International Women’s Day, this time around I ended up with four fabulous interviews which I just couldn’t bring myself to edit down into bitesize chunks, so you’re getting two in this issue, this one featuring Zenita Henderson and Laura Baskeyfield and two in the next. You can find this on page 36. We interviewed Andy Rayner, CTO of Appear for this issue and heard all about their recent IPO, Netgear share their thoughts on the transition to IP, Gigabit IQ issue a sage warning about child safety online and suggest reframing the proposition differently. And we examine the pitfalls of auto-renewal of broadband contracts with Crystaline. You’ll see Ben Allwright, another familiar face detailed on page 6 in our Member Focus section, sustainability covered by Sandie Brodier on page 66, Dave Hodges’ annual standards report on page 40, Camilla Formica on her Intrapreneurship programme at the Syndeo Institute at the Cable Centre, and we have technical papers on OTT-TV, bitrate reduction, quantum security technologies and AI and ML in telecoms TV in the EU. There is so much more but I am running out of room. I will let you get on. Enjoy. Melissa Cogavin
Welcome to another bumper issue of Broadband Journal, first one for 2026 and this one will certainly keep you occupied! We started this year straight out of the traps with our first of four SCTE ® Presents events on January 22 in London, focusing on the theme of Testing & Measurement. It was another sell out event and if you missed it, we have it covered extensively on pages 10 through to 29. You may have noticed this issue is slightly different as the print deadlines and next event neatly coincided, so we have designed the back end of this issue to complement the next SCTE ® Presents event, The Future of Tech, taking place on March 18. To save you thumbing through pages while the speakers are doing their thing on the day, just turn your Journal upside down and begin from the back - that’s your event guide. At the time of writing there are still a few places left – register here for your seat: https://thescte.eu/
Melissa Cogavin Broadband Journal SCTE ® , Society for Broadband Professionals melissa@theSCTE.eu www.theSCTE.eu
We’re going to need a bigger room.
The North American market is an important one, especially right now, it seems there is never a dull moment; we thought it timely therefore to focus on the US and Canada on a regular basis and are delighted to be working with industry journalist Alan Breznick, a familiar name to you all I’m sure, who has been liaising with our Corporate Members across North America to provide a fascinating and detailed American market review You’ll find his first piece for Broadband Journal on page 80.
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MARCH 2026 Volume 48 No.1
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