Gartner Cable Analyst Gets Pink-Slipped

Patti Reali, an analyst covering cable, satellite and telecom industries at Gartner and its Dataquest division for 15 years, was laid off from the research firm two weeks ago.

“Look at what’s happened in the industry, the consolidation with vendors and providers,” she told me when I reached her by phone today. “It was time for a change,” she added.

Reali most recently was research director on the carrier network infrastructure worldwide team in Gartner Technology & Service Provider Research.

She’s seen the industry from different sides, once working at General Instrument Corp. (GI) as a marcomm manager before the equipment company became part of the Motorola empire. She also was a reporter and editor with Communications Daily, Satellite Week and Public Broadcasting Report.

I had called her for story I’m researching on DOCSIS 3.0 — and Reali pointed out that these premium-priced cable broadband services will be a hard sell given the brutal economic climate (no kidding). “These kinds of speeds are coming to the market at an inopportune time, but there will still be a segment of the market that will look for a Cadillac service,” she said.