21285 - SCTE Broadband Dec2021 COMPLETE v1

43 Vol. 43 No. 4 - November 2021 Issue from the industry I can see some links with the Broadband Industry, but when did you actually get involved in the nitty-gritty of cable and beyond? Internal reorganisation within Scicon led me to look at a new role and I was attracted by an advert for a Technical Manager with Racal-Oak, a joint venture company between Racal in the UK and Oak Industries of the USA. Following the UK government’s Hunt Report, the aim of the project was a transfer of technology from USA to Europe at the start of the broadband revolution in the 80s. A lot of what we were doing involved support of existing Oak products (the Oak Multicode) in systems such as Greenwich, Swindon and Coventry. It was during this time that I met Chris Swires who had been providing technical support to Oak. Chris introduced me to the SCTE and has remained a valued friend ever since. Oak industries also had a research facility in Dordrecht in the Netherlands where I met both Rien Baan, our current Society Vice President, and CEO Peter den Toonder, a legend in the industry and who was later one of the founders of Irdeto ( Ir. den Toonder). Together with Racal Thanet, Kent and the Oak factory in Taiwan we set about introducing new technology into the European arena. In the satellite field we developed and provided the encryption equipment for transmission and reception of the first Sky TV channel (from BT uplink in Docklands to headends across Europe). The video used analogue scrambling with the sync intervals being replaced by secure digital audio. This was also my first contact with IBC, where I presented a paper at the 1984 Brighton Exhibition. A similar technology was used in the newly introduced Sigma set-top decoders with versions for cable and over-the-air systems. It was during this time that I first met the late Dave Keeley, whom many will know from Jerrold and Motorola. At the time he was working for BT in their Alperton Labs. Dave was the technical interface for the Aberdeen Cable contract where Racal-Oak supplied the computer control and billing system, as well as the first 20,000 set-top boxes. The contract involved liaison with the Oak Taiwan production plant to define build and test procedures, as well as implementation of QC requirements at plant and provision of QA inspection in the UK. A week spent in Taiwan with Dave was particularly memorable (written evidence is not available!). It was unfortunate that Oak in the USA overstretched themselves by becoming involved in TV production while seeing a decline in leased STBs in major city cable networks. They withdrew from the partnership in 1985, leaving a difficult decision for Racal to make. We had ongoing contracts in Europe in addition to Aberdeen Cable, but still needed cash support for ongoing R&D. Timing was not good since Racal had to decide at the time whether to invest tens of millions into Vodafone; remember this was at the start of the mobile phone era. They chose Vodafone and shut down Racal-Oak – a great shame, since we were at the forefront of set-top box technology and our existing Sky contract moving to a DTH service, could potentially have yielded enormous sales. Seems very unfortunate, but it didn’t put you off? No, I spent a couple of months shutting down Racal-Oak, which gave me chance both to reflect on the industry and what I wanted to do next. A move from supplier to network provider seemed a good idea and in 1985 I joined Westminster Cable, reporting to the MD Peter Alden. Westminster Cable was a joint venture between corporate investors and BT, the latter providing the technology, physical network and installations. BT saw this as an opportunity to showcase their baseband Switched Star technology, using FM multi-fibre to distribute to 300 home street cabinets. (editor’s note – there are several papers covering the Westminster system available in the SCTE archive including recent ‘from the archive’ in Broadband) Roger’s Egyptian Adventure