HFC tops Innovations in Fiber

In the not-too-distant future, we'll have a hard time convincing our grandchildren that once upon a time, phone companies sold only phone service and cable television companies brought only better television reception and commercial-free movies into the home.

And if, as we pry them away from the billions of bytes flickering across their latest multimedia devices, our grandchildren give us the disbelieving looks today's youth give to those who actually remember using rotary phones and sending telegrams, we may have the three industry visionaries below to thank for that.

For their work in furthering the use of fiber optic-based technology in today's and future networks, Telephony is proud to present its Innovations in Fiber Award to the following:

In the Vision category, to David Fellows, senior vice president of engineering and technology at Continental Cablevision, for his contributions in developing the hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) architecture and re-engineering Continental's network for telephony services; for Network Design and Implementation, to Russell A. Skinner, director and chief engineer at U S West International, for his work on U S West's Omaha HFC trial; and for Service Development, to Paul R. Gibson, director of broadband deployment at Optus Vision Pty. Ltd., Sydney, Australia, for engineering that carrier's advanced services HFC network.

"It's appropriate that all of our award recipients are being honored for their work with HFC architectures," says Larry Lannon, group publisher of Telephony. "The Innovations in Fiber Award recognizes those who champion new ways of using fiber optics. Both from a technological perspective and from a services orientation, HFC is clearly one of the most innovative and influential fiber-based architectures the industry has ever seen."

Telephony congratulates the winners and salutes them for their contributions to the industry.