By Yves Padrines,Vice President & General Manager Cable, Media and Video, Cisco EMEAR

The summer trade show cycle wheels into Cologne, Germany this week for ANGA COM, expected to draw around 17,000 attendees and 450 exhibitors from 34 countries. Cisco is excited to be there to spend time with customers and partners, and showcase our latest innovations.

With the exception of regulatory considerations, the scene is pretty much constant across North America and in Europe: The need for accelerated broadband speeds is sparking innovation in theaccess plant, by way of DOCSIS 3.1, Remote PHY and SDN (Software Defined Networks)/NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) techniques.

On that front, our strategy to help our service provider colleagues get to Gig and 10-Gig speeds involves our new cBR-8 converged broadband router - a world's first pairing of DOCSIS 3.1 and CCAP (Cable Converged Access Platform) that offers 10x the speed and capacity of any CCAP on the market. Bonus: No forklift upgrade required!

It also seems clear that at this moment in time, the major trend line underscoring the broadband and media industry is largely the same, regardless of geography. It's the same because the reasoning is the same: Around the world, service providers have come to the necessary conclusion that over-the-top (OTT) video providers (Netflix and the like) are as big if not a bigger competitive threat than traditional satellite and telco-delivered television.

That mandates a need for a better overall user experience in multi-screen and over-the-top/IP-delivered video - which, in turn, is driving momentum into cloud-served services, bolstered by CPE based on the RDK (Reference Design Kit). With those network and CPE decisions linked, service providers are finding a faster, cleaner way to develop and launch new services - in video and in broadband, with the RDK-B (for broadband) version of the software.

To cloud-power stronger user experiences on multi-screen and IP-delivered video, we'll be showing our full cloud suite, with our Snowflake 14 reference UI, Videoscape Infinite Home, and apps framework - designed for 4K video, cloud DVR and Prime Home management tools.

And last but certainly not least, Cisco will be part of the Congress speakers agenda, sharing insight and perspective on a few panels. I will join peers from the North American and European broadband community as part of the International Broadband Summit, which happens on June 9, from 13:00-14:15.

Then, on Wednesday (June 10) from 16:15-17:30, Arkadiusz Kaliwoda, Cisco Consulting Systems Engineer, will speak about residential CPE virtualization during the TV Cloud Services technology session, in Room B.

There's a lot more to see from Cisco at ANGA! I encourage you to come by. We'll be there for the duration in booth 10.2/J13. See you in Cologne!

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