Posted by Stephane Bourque on February 6, 2012
In my global quest for IPv6, I came back from Hong Kong with an interesting finding:
With a population of 7 million and 2.2 million households, they don't need IPv6 yet.
It's surprising given that APNIC was one of the first RIRs to run out of v4 addresses. The threat of disappearing IPv4 caused other organizations to grab everything in sight. Case in point: a provider with 600,000 subscribers has 1.5 million public IPs. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on February 3, 2012
Hong Kong is a world unto itself in many ways. Although it was transferred to Chinese rule in 1997, the city-state has remained distinctly its own. One of Hong Kong's unique features is its expansive skyline and with it, a high population density.
The population density has had an interesting effect on broadband, among other things. In one of the most expensive real estate markets, broadband costs next to nothing.
Fiber has been embraced in recent years and as any new trend, is quickly being deployed amongst the 2.2 million households in the city. The competition for subscribers is between the incumbent PCCW and the challenger Hong Kong Broadband. iCable is the last provider with an HFC plant and despite the migration towards fiber, it still enjoys a large video subscriber base. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on January 31, 2012
It's time to invite you to our next user conference. You will hear more from me about this in the next few months. For now, please consider joining us in Fort Lauderdale (30 minutes north of Miami) at the end of June 2012.
By the way, we have renamed our user conference the Incognito Community Exchange (or ICE). Why did we do that? Well, we listened to what many of you have said about this event in the past. One thing we've heard a lot is how this is a great chance to get together with people of the same industry and discuss common challenges. We always bring some good case studies and assemble great panels to tackle the hot topics. It really is a community, and an exchange. This year will be no different. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on January 31, 2012
The first month of 2012 is ending as I write. Do you remember what you resolved a month ago? With experts telling us that New Year's resolutions have an 80 percent failure rate, I'm guessing many of you have quietly dropped your plans by now, if you made any.
What I drew up at the end of 2011 was not so much a list of resolutions as a short wish list. Here are the three things I would still, really like to see happen this year, in no specific order: (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on January 13, 2012
It was my first time at CES, which as an electronics lover, I'm ashamed to admit. I have been missing out all this time.
CES made me realize how big the "Electronics Industry" actually is. Everything from car stereos, home electronics, 3D technology, batteries, phones, tablets to robots were on display.
Along with 140,000 other enthusiasts, I had to filter through all of it to find out what's in, what's out, and what's coming up. CES might be too big for its own good as the hot items were lost in all the noise. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on January 10, 2012
I'm here in Las Vegas at CES and headed to the IPv6 World Forum event next month in Paris, and my mission isn't just to visit exotic settings. (OK - Vegas is not so exotic unless you put in 100,000 geeks salivating at the new 4K TVs.) (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on January 6, 2012
Recently, I went to my cable provider's customer service page to add a specialty channel and activate a new set-top box. I had used this portal before to easily add channels and equipment, but much to my chagrin, doing so was no longer easy or straightforward. I expected a smooth and easy procedure, but the experience left me feeling frustrated. By the end I was considering other options.
Not having been to the page for a while, it was difficult to find. Logging in also proved challenging as both the layout and procedure had changed. Once in, I identified the specialty channel I wanted from a list and clicked on the icon that I thought would activate my subscription. Instead, I was directed to the "Please contact us" page. I hit the back button and tried again, but all other actions led to the same result. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on November 29, 2011
The ICTC–that's short for International Coverage and Transmission Conference–is small in comparison to the CCBN. (I blogged about the CCBN in April here.) The ICTC was held back in October in the historic city of XI'an, an old capital of China before Beijing. If you've heard of the Terracotta warriors, then you know where Xi'an is. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on November 2, 2011
Speaking of trade show season, before it gets too far away, I wanted to say a little more about this year's Broadband World Forum. It was held in Paris back at the end of September. Attendance was its best ever, but this is the last year for Paris, as the event moves to Amsterdam in 2012. (Read More)
Posted by Stephane Bourque on October 17, 2011
Fall is a busy time of year for tradeshows and this year is no different. We started the season with our second appearance at Broadband World Forum in Paris at the end of September and the launch of our TR-069 Open Interop Program. The conference was a great success and if you'd like to learn more about the free program, please visit: www.incognito.com/interop/
Following Paris, we'll make our first appearance at ICTC (October 18 to 19) in the historic Chinese city of Xi'an. China has an emerging cable business and we hope to welcome more Chinese service providers into the Incognito family. (Read More)
Stephane Bourque, the founder of Incognito Software, has built an elite team of dedicated engineers and championed Incognito's development of high performance, multi-platform provisioning software to meet the needs of service providers worldwide.
