The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers will host its Smart Energy Management Initiative Forum later this month, and the organization notes it has added Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) VP Mark Palazzo to its list of speakers. Palazzo will introduce keynote speaker Mark Coblitz, senior vice president of strategic planning at Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA).
The SEMI Forum, scheduled for March 15 in Philadelphia, will focus on the cable industry's efforts to improve energy management, and reduce energy consumption and expenses. On the agenda are sessions covering network density and power requirements, fuel cells and energy dashboards.
The SCTE conference comes as cable operators are trying to do more with environmental initiatives both in their own networks, and through new services being offered to cable subscribers. Comcast, for example, is currently putting marketing muscle behind the Xfinity Home service, which offers the ability for consumers to remotely adjust digital thermostats and turn lights on and off in addition to home monitoring and security features. Now available in several markets, Comcast announced just today that it has completed its Xfinity Home service rollout in Delaware.
Meanwhile, the SCTE says that at the SEMI Forum, Cisco's Palazzo will "highlight the importance of innovative thinking and vendor alignment with the long-term energy management needs of cable system operators as programmers."
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