CHICAGO-Patrick Esser, president of Cox Communications Inc., reminded Globalcomm attendees during a keynote speech of his cable/telephone company’s plans to unveil wireless service later this year in partnership with Sprint Nextel Corp.
But Esser didn’t stop there-he also threw out a challenge to state and federal regulators, imploring them to resist the incumbent telco’s collective lobbying efforts to relieve them of franchising requirements. Early in his address, Esser said, “What troubles me most about the competitive landscape today isn’t the Bells’ fiber-to-the-home promises or their deep discounting of DSL service. We’ll contend with this as we always have. … What troubles me most are the competitive battles over the rules of the game being waged in Washington, D.C., and in state capitols.”
Esser then unabashedly told the story of how Cox became the nation’s 10th-largest phone company and its third-largest cable TV company by borrowing $15 billion to build broadband networks shortly after the Telecom Act of 1996 went into effect.
Esser took aim at the telcos for their lack of vision or investment in video-providing technology, firing off, “The very same (telecommunications) act that paved a path for cable to enter the business also contained a road map for the Bells (telcos) to deliver video. Did they forge ahead? Upgrade their networks? Ready the back office and roll out new services? No.”
Instead, Esser claims the telcos issued “press releases promising a fiber utopia that doesn’t exist.”
Now, Esser asserts, the telcos have realized that they have to get into video, so they are pressuring regulators to ease up on franchising rules, making it easier for them to enter the video arena. Relaxing the rules at this stage of the game would establish “two wildly different sets of rules,” Esser said.
Esser bragged on Cox’s successes, claiming the company’s early entrepreneurial efforts set up an atmosphere of customer-satisfying bundled services, including video, voice and high-speed Internet, which helped reduce churn by some 40 percent.
