Is this thing on? OFC speakers face tough crowd

Though public speakers are typically advised to soften up crowds with a joke, audiences at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference are tough to crack, perhaps due in part to the dry subject matter of optical engineering as well as the difficulties of bridging cultural gaps in a highly diverse international group. When one of the OFC chairs warned the crowd at the first plenary session that their seats would eject them from the room if their cell phones interrupted the presentation, the crowd responded with far more silence than he asked for. Another speaker heard only breathing when he invited the crowd back to his home for 10,000 cups of coffee (from a mathematical and engineering perspective, it’s highly unlikely he could efficiently scale a standard consumer coffee-maker to that kind of volume, which is why it’s funny). But Broadwing CTO Mike Jones got a good laugh at a panel discussion when an SBC executive asked him what advice he had for a carrier that’s looking to build out a nationwide optical backbone. Jones’ deadpan reply: "Buy ours."