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Internet Resources
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MAILING LISTS
Though the list is entitled the SCTE mailing list, it is not affiliated with The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers. The list is operated by David Devereaux-Weber at the University of Wisconsin. Postings to the list are bundled into a daily digest so that subscribers are not subject to many individual pieces of e-mail. Discussions cover all aspects of the industry. However, most posts are technical in nature. Since the list is not moderated, there are a lot of inappropriate postings. The digested form minimizes the annoyance of these posts and has saved the list from death by over-population. If you have a question that is CATV related, this is the most effective place to ask it. The Broadband Bob Cable Modem Mailing List is a moderated forum for discussions regarding the market and technology enabling data services to be offered over Hybrid Fiber/Coax networks. Posts to the list are sent out once a week in a digest form or when applicable. Subscribers also receive the latest issue of the Broadband Bob Report each week. The Cable Carrier News Mailing List is a moderated forum for discussions regarding the market and technology enabling voice to be delivered over HFC networks. The list focuses on traditional cable telephony solutions rather than VoIP over cable technology. Subscribers receive the latest issue of the Cable Carrier News each month. The xStream Mailing List is a moderated forum for discussions regarding the market and technology enabling voice and fax over IP. Subscribers also receive the latest issue of the IP Pulse each week. NEWS GROUPS UseNet could be an outstanding tool for exchanging thoughts and information. However, the groups are often saturated with spams and flaming. Furthermore, most ISPs do not choose to carry each news group that is created. If your ISP has not chosen one of the following groups, you can use DejaNews' web-integrated service which carries all of these groups and is much easier to use than other news software. This newsgroup is the only one that is truly designated for CATV related discussions. However, most industry members have overlooked the forum and as a result, it has suffered from little to no activity. The lack of success is probably due to its creation under alt. Many news administrators do not accept all the alt groups that are created, meaning that it is possible that the group is not offered on every news server. Furthermore, many people assume that alt. groups are for discussions of unprofessional issues. This is an excellent, active group that includes dozens of posts from cable modem end-users. By reading through the posts, you should get some worthwhile feedback on the level of service operators are providing and the performance of cable modems in the real-world. There are also several threads which discuss the growth of data over cable versus competitive technologies. This newsgroup,created many ages ago for the purpose of discussing cable pirating, is the most active group for discussions of CATV related issues. Though there are more appropriate newsgroups for the industry, online industry members still fail to identify the group as the "how to steal cable" newsgroup and proceed to post legitimate comments and questions. This active newsgroup provides a wonderful forum for discussing cables and cabling. The group attracts more posts from the computer networking community than from members of the CATV industry. Though some quality posts can be found now and then, the group is usually not active. OTHER INTERNET SITES |