With a new wave of everything that revolves around the connected TV and home networks the Confederation of Aerial Industries (CAI) is about to look hard at its membership category names to reflect the way antenna installers have adapted to a new climate of signal engineering.
Traditionally the Confederation’s membership joined for the advantages of the representation offered to broadcasters reaching viewers via terrestrial aerials and satellite. With analogue replacement, that landscape has changed dramatically and the aerial installer now has to be a master of cable installation, TV receiver connectivity and broadband networking.
The CAI is looking at re-badging its old standing ‘domestic’ area of membership to ‘Connected Home Installer’ and a face-lift of its ‘systems’ membership to an enhanced ‘Integrated Networks’ category.
Historically the CAI’s membership could be split into the ‘domestic’ aerial rigger who dealt mainly with terrestrial aerial installations for the single dwelling. These businesses are traditionally sole proprietor operators.
Higher on the scale are the ‘systems’ installing companies building communal networks into apartment blocks or commercial buildings. Generally speaking these are businesses employing qualified signal distribution engineers and so have capacity to work on larger more extensive projects. A building contractor today in the new digital era may well look towards a company with all the skills to provide the signal reception via terrestrial or satellite sources, telephony, security and broadband service delivery.
The other main area of membership is still is the manufacturer distributor sector. The distributor landscape has not changed that dramatically apart from the scale of trading operations by some companies. Installation however has broadened into much wider fields that have emerged from multi-channel viewing over broadband engineering. This has grown as broadcasters dived into interactivity based on telephone return paths, meaning the aerial installer has had to be become proficient at wiring other than traditional coaxial signal feeds.
With all this, the CAI will once more rise to being at the forefront of representation for businesses installing or supply equipment for signal networks.