'Abel Cable''Abel Cable'

9:40 AM -- Last week, we asked you to toss in some ideas to help the cable industry come up with a new, more consumer-friendly name for the Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), a CableLabs -specified platform that enables some simple interactive apps to run on the industry's entire universe of digital set-tops. (See Renaming EBIF and Comcast, TWC Plan for EBIF.)

Analyst and technology translator Leslie Ellis chipped in "Able Cable" -- or so I thought. She clarified to me that her suggestion was actually an homage to "Miss Abel Cable," a character the cable industry used in days of yore to promote and put a wholesome, friendly face on the service.

Leslie did some more poking around on it, and The Cable Center was kind enough to pass along a couple of images that show Miss Abel Cable in her glory days.





Gary Arlen, president of Arlen Communications, points out that the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) still owns the brand.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Cable Digital News