* Society of Cable Telecommunication Engineers becomes a Cisco Academy
A year ago, Cisco made a big splash in the cable arena by spending $6.9 billion buying up cable set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta. The move was part of Cisco’s bid to sell its IP expertise to cable operators scrambling to dominate the emerging consumer IPTV and IP video-on-demand markets. Last month, Cisco reinforced its ambitions in the cable industry by partnering with a cable engineers group to offer Cisco training.
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) has become part of the Cisco Networking Academy and is now authorized to include certain Cisco networking curriculum into the group’s education offering.
SCTE will offer courses mapped to the Cisco Certified Network Associate certification. According to Cisco, the aim is to provide cable professionals the opportunity to learn about networking and IT “to advance their careers in cable telecommunications.”
The professionals group says individuals taking the training will probably come from multiple system operators that provide phone, Internet and cable services to residential and business markets. Such organizations are having to quickly up their knowledge of IP. The presentation of the program will allow for cable-specific application of the content, says SCTE.
Initially, SCTE will offer certain Cisco courses in the Greater Philadelphia area, where SCTE is based. The training will eventually be offered nationwide, say the partners.
“The SCTE board of directors and the board’s professional development committee have committed the society to elevating the level of knowledge in networking technologies,” said SCTE Vice President, Professional Development Mary Nelson, in a statement. “Being able to offer networking curriculum such as that provided through Cisco’s Networking Academy Program is a huge first step toward achieving that goal.”
SCTE counts more than 15,000 individuals as members in job titles including CTO, engineer, system operations manager, technician, and field operations personnel. Members are based in the U.S. and 70 countries. Cisco says that many of its employees gained through its acquisitions of Scientific-Atlanta and Linksys are active SCTE members.
It’s interesting to note that through this partnership the number of Cisco-certified professionals could potentially be boosted by an additional 15,000 individuals. Would this mean more competition to traditional Cisco certified professionals for jobs that call for Cisco certifications? Probably not since the move appears to be aimed at increasing a cable professional’s awareness of Cisco and IP as the individual progresses in their cable industry career.
