Harmonic Looks to Lookabaugh

Tom Lookabaugh, a technologist with deep ties into the cable industry, has been appointed to the board of video and access network vendor Harmonic Inc.

Lookabaugh, 55, currently is president of his own consultancy business. Among recent posts, he headed up R&D at CableLabs, was VP of commercial mobility at ViaSat, and was CTO of Entropic Communications, the chipmaker that is now part of MaxLinear, and was an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Telecommunications and Computer Science at the University of Colorado.

Lookabaugh was also the CEO of PolyCipher LLC, a once high-profile joint venture formed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications in mid-2004 that was tasked with developing a downloadable conditional access system (DCAS). CableLabs took control of the PolyCipher DCAS project in 2009. He is also late of DiviCom, a video silicon and processing vendor bought out by Harmonic in 2000 from DiviCom's parent company at the time, C-Cube Microsystems.

Lookabaugh comes on board amid Harmonic’s recent debut of CableOS, a virtualized version of the Converged Cable Access Platform.

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"Tom's deep knowledge of the cable industry, extensive background in bringing cutting-edge technologies to market and experience as an operating executive make him an ideal addition to the Harmonic board, particularly as we execute on our new CableOS growth initiative,” Patrick Harshman, Harmonic’s president and CEO, said in a statement.