Steve Pederson is the Chief Product Officer for AOI’s Quantum Bandwidth™ product line and is responsible for leading customer and partner acquisitions. Before joining AOI, Pederson spent 23 years in senior roles in product management, product marketing and business development for Scientific-Atlanta, continuing after its acquisition by Cisco in 2006. During his tenure at Cisco, he championed the launches of industry leading platforms for HFC and CMTS, including the GainMaker amplifiers and GS7000 Nodes. Outside of work, Steve enjoys various outdoor activities and spending time with his family and two dogs. He is an avid golfer, tennis player, skier, fisherman, and cyclist.
Top Five Predictions That Will Shape CATV in 2026
Talk to any cable operator today and the priorities are clear: improve reliability, control costs, and stay competitive without overbuilding the network. The decisions being made now will shape how CATV evolves over the next few years. Based on what we’re seeing and hearing across the industry, these are the five trends emerging that will drive the most discussion, investment, and action in 2026.
1. Vendor consolidation
Margins are tightening, R&D costs are rising, and operators are demanding more integrated, end-to-end solutions rather than point products. Single-purpose vendors will increasingly struggle to compete against platforms that can deliver scale, interoperability, and long-term roadmaps. Expect to see operators narrowing their vendor lists in favor of partners that can accelerate AI and automation capabilities.
2. AI-driven outside plant management (OSP)
OSP has traditionally been reactive — identify a failure, dispatch a crew, restore service. That model is rapidly becoming unsustainable as networks grow denser, and customer expectations rise. Expect to see transformation of outside plant operations through remote management, preventative maintenance, and AI.
3. Ultra-high splits become the preferred choice
With upstream demand driven by cloud services, remote work, gaming, and business applications, traditional split configurations are no longer sufficient. Full fiber overbuilds remain capital-intensive, making ultra-high splits the most practical path forward for many operators. Expect to see this as the predominant deployment choice for Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators.
4. AI will be central to predictive maintenance strategies
For operators, AI is becoming less about experimentation and more about measurable operational efficiency. By correlating historical performance, environmental data, and real-time telemetry, AI-driven systems can anticipate failures, prioritize remediation, and optimize maintenance schedules. Expect to see AI moving beyond dashboards and into the operational core, playing a central role in predictive maintenance.
5. Network convergence and 3 GHz amplifiers continue to evolve
As the industry continues to evaluate options for the next step beyond 1.8 GHz, expect to see operators and vendors testing performance, interoperability, and operational impacts to better understand how the convergence of coaxial and 5G wireless technologies, and 3 GHz architectures fit into long-term network evolution strategies. Focus now is on architecture analysis to reduce costs and tackling broadband network technical hurdles to expand from proof of concepts to future deployments. Lab validations will be a critical milestone.
