Welcome to Issue 124, our Global Capacity edition!

May 17, 2022

Face-To-Face Conferences Are Back

…and like many, I could not be happier.

I must admit I grew tired of “virtual” about 18 months ago. Don’t get me wrong, having the ability to communicate with your team via Teams or Webex or whatever has been a gamechanger for us. We are more effective with the capability than without. But trying to “conference” via a small screen has been incredibly difficult and frustrating. We are a social species, and we like proximity and intimate conversation. So, like many I am thrilled to be re-entering the conference arena anew.

The first out-of-the-box conference for me was ITW, where we had the chance to visit with industry colleagues last seen in January 2020 in Honolulu. I heard there were more than 5,000 participants. It easily felt that big. I think most of us spent the first day or so in awe for being around so many people for the first time in years. Meeting after meeting was started with a quick capsulation of how you managed the last three years, but by the second day it was straight back to the business at hand.

It’s great to be back.

Cable Almanac

The latest edition of the Cable Almanac is back this month. Next week you will see our latest edition of the almanac, and we are trying to quickly encapsulate additional updates from a number of conference meetings. There’s a lot happening in our industry to put it mildly, and we hope the almanac makes things a little easier to comprehend.

Thanks as always for the updates from the industry.

Ode to Mike

I first met Mike Rieger about 20 years ago when he joined the industry in the system supplier space. I had just recently started WFN and SubTel Forum and he was someone you needed to meet. I think he thought we had alliances or some such with others; so, he initially kept a cool distance. A few years later he reached out to me at a conference to say maybe he had misunderstood who we were and how we operated, and wanted to reboot a relationship, which I appreciated as a classy act. From then on we would meet-up at various venues to talk projects, compare notes and tell stupid stories. We even had the opportunity to work together on some efforts. I will miss those meet-ups.

He left the party far too early, and I offer only my sincerest condolences to those who mattered most to Mike.

Thanks to Authors and Advertisers

Thank you especially to the excellent Authors who have contributed to this edition, including a couple of articles from last year’s edition, which were reprised and are just as relevant today!

Thanks also for their support to this issue’s advertisers. Of course, our ever popular “where in the world are all those pesky cableships” is included as well.

Thank you as always to our readers and supporters for honoring us with your interest.

In a world full of Putins, be a Zelenskyy. #Ukraine

Stay well,

Wayne Nielsen, Publisher