Pat Esser
President, Cox Communications

A week after the International Consumer Electronics Show concluded, the coverage and discourse continue. One of my favorite comments likened CES to a Paris fashion show: Lots of flashy, extravagant items that won’t be hanging in any real people’s closets any time soon, if ever. True, over the coming months, the realities of economics and commerce will separate the bizarrely impractical from those products with true potential to capture consumer dollars.

One product that is clearly here, ready and real is HDTV – from small screens to the 100-inch-plus behemoths displayed in Vegas. To borrow from one of my favorite movies, when it comes to HDTV, “They built it and the content is coming.”

I always come away from CES with a fresh point of view on what the next several months and years will bring from a CE perspective. Usually, there’s a single device that stands out as the one “wow” thing. However, this year was more about trends, new participants in the CE revolution, future applications that can leverage our services and network (in the home or wherever our customers go), and some overarching themes – including portability, mobility, voice convergence and the digital home.

Moving content, information or entertainment around the home was a recurring topic everywhere, driven by device manufacturers, application companies, content providers, distributors, and countless other companies sure they have the freshest new idea. Frankly, there are too many players and too few standards. We owe consumers better solutions than that; we owe them simplification, reliability, convenience and local support. Personally, I think Cable has the best opportunity to meet those consumer needs and to deliver on the digital home.

Clearly, the home media center is coming, as well. It might not be in the next 12 months, but it is coming and will be affordable over the long-term. Its ability to combine IP-delivered services; traditional linear TV content; interactive applications, user guide and search capabilities; record and playback; and media/content storage to one “center” in the home is exciting and an area that we are fully engaged in exploring.

As we proceed and evaluate technologies including many displayed with great fanfare at CES, our filter consists of some key questions:

1) Does the technology create value in a customer's life?
2) Is it simple, or can we at least make it simple?
3) Is it bullet-proof for mass adoption?
4) Is it standards-based and capable of operating across platforms?
5) Is the product or service most likely to be delivered to the home via our network?

We’re busy asking and answering those questions at all levels of the company – with consumers’ current and future demands top of mind.

Incidentally, although I said that no “one thing” caught my attention at CES, there was that awesome hand-held HDTV home video camera. While not yet commercially available, chances are very good that it’s going to capture my consumer dollars when it hits the shelves in 12 to 18 months.