Pat Esser, President, Cox Communications

Well, the NCTA National Show has come and gone. Although Atlanta was a late-in-the-game substitute for New Orleans, I think Cox’s hometown was a great host city. The weather was perfect, Atlanta’s top-flight restaurants impressed guests, and the Georgia World Congress Center proved a convenient, efficient conference site. And, as I wrote before the show, we all got our opportunity to prove why Cable is the best choice for consumers and businesses (now and in the years ahead), and why the marketplace—not ceaseless lobbying by deep-pocketed telcos trying to change the regulatory and legislative rules—should determine which companies win and lose. We probably won’t know how successful we were on the latter goal for some time, but I do think we made our case strongly. We had many guests with key regulatory responsibilities and legislative leadership roles. They seemed impressed by Cable’s progress, and we thank them for taking time to visit with us.

I had the opportunity to sit on a panel of cable industry leaders to discuss the state of our industry and where we’re going. Not surprisingly, we spent a lot of time on competition and regulation. I think those topics are critical, but I’ve also spent a lot of time recently talking more in-depth about some of the related issues that I think are the underpinnings of Cable’s competitive strength: market share, brand loyalty and operational excellence.

At Cox, we want to “own” the markets in which we operate, and that means growing market share. In one of our markets, for instance, basic-cable penetration is 65%, but almost 75% of our homes passed there take at least one Cox service. That experience underscores the fact that there’s tremendous, often untapped opportunity in non-cable households for Cable’s other powerful services: high-speed Internet and digital telephone. Another area that will determine our success is brand loyalty. We all know people who drink only one kind of coffee or buy only one brand of sneakers. That’s brand loyalty. I believe cable customers can be as loyal or more so than those fervent coffee drinkers and sneaker wearers. But that can happen only through our unwavering emphasis on providing excellent customer service, delivering on promises and building relationships. Operational excellence is the final critical success factor for companies in our industry. We have to make customer experiences even more simple and seamless. This will be particularly critical as Cable’s already-powerful bundle of services expands into a suite of advanced services, and we add wireless to our set of products.

As I walked the floor at this year’s show, I saw a lot of our future right in front of me. There was new technology from Motorola and Scientific Atlanta and others; the progress of Cable’s joint venture with Sprint Nextel; VoIP and video phones; and online offerings galore, each waiting to be plugged up to Cable’s network. Ready or not, Cable’s future is here, and success is ours for the taking. And speaking of the National Show, I’m excited that Cox will get to help roll out the welcome mat for National Show guests the next two years, as well, since the show’s next host cities are Cox markets—Las Vegas next year and New Orleans in 2008.