Guest Column: Cable Execs Can Connect at Fiber Connect 2023
If you’re a cable exec who wants to know where the fiber market is heading, please join us at next month’s Fiber Connect 2023.
That’s because our annual Fiber Broadband Association conference—at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Orlando from Sunday, Aug. 20 through Wednesday, Aug. 23—will focus on all things fiber.
Our numbers: 4 packed days, more than 200 industry experts, 55 educational sessions in 7 breakout tracks, plus a record expected attendance of more than 4,000.
With its focus on what fiber will disrupt next (in a good way), Fiber Connect 2023 will cover a wide range of cable-related topics. Here’s a sampling:
- the new stream of public funding for broadband network builds
- fiber deployment opportunities and challenges
- efforts to close the Digital Divide
- the economics of fiber broadband
- the in-home fiber broadband experience
- pandemic-driven supply chain challenges
- the environmental sustainability of broadband networks
“It will be a great conference with a broad selection of topics and experts in the field,” said Evann Freeman, director of government relations at EPB and chair of the conference committee. “If you’re an operator, this is a conference that you want to attend.”
Gary Bolton, President/CEO, Fiber Broadband Association
In a program developed specifically for cablecos, Cablefax and ACA Connects will cover the industry’s growing embrace of fiber. The “MSO Mandate” track on Aug. 22 will tackle trends in fiber upgrades and expansions, the feds’ massive Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) subsidy program and best practices for public-private partnerships. These sessions will explore how fiber can enable operators to expand their network footprints, maximize greenfield opportunities, and generally complement existing operations.
Throughout, Fiber Connect will feature breakout panels, technology deep dives, case studies, workshops, and sessions on other key topics, such as 5G mobile, workforce development, state funding programs for broadband, and broadband moves by utilities.
“With fiber-to-the-home increasingly becoming part of many cable operators’ roadmaps, it’s important to take the time to share best practices, challenges, and opportunities as the industry embarks on this major evolution,” said Amy Maclean, editorial director at Cablefax.
And we’ll be learning from the best. Fiber Connect’s speaking roster includes top execs from AT&T, Google Fiber, Consolidated Communications, Ting Internet, EPB, Lumos Networks, Diamond State Networks, Utopia Fiber, LUS Fiber, Blue Stream Fiber, Four States Fiber, Quantum Fiber, and more.
As well, business and technology strategists from leading vendors will participate in sessions. That list includes executives from Adtran, Calix, Nokia, Corning, DZS, Viavi, Cisco, Ciena, Harmonic, STL, Plume, Fujitsu, Shentel, Radisys, CommScope, A10, SQUAM, Dura-Line, Sitetracker, DeepUp, Clearfield, Crown Castle, and Graybar, among others.
Fiber Connect 2023 comes at a critical time, when cable operators are flocking to fiber and increasingly deploying advanced PON technology.
As context, three of the nation’s largest cablecos—Com- cast, Charter, and Altice USA—are plowing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars annually into fiber builds in greenfield and adjacent areas.
In short, Fiber Connect will give you a lot to learn and a lot of good people to learn it from. I hope you’ll join us in Orlando to find out why fiber is hotter than the Florida sun.
– Gary Bolton leads the Fiber Broadband Association, whose mission is to accelerate deployment of all-fiber access networks.