Fresh back from CES, and with the turn of a new year, it's worth reflecting on where we as an industry stand. One of my favorite mental exercises is to reflect on how far we've come in the last ten years. In 1996, we were in the analog video delivery business. Period. Yes, we had some other business activities, but I'd bet that 90+% of our revenues were pure analog video. Then I fast forward and look at today: digital video, on-demand, program guides, high speed data, telephony, advertising, commercial services, cellular... the list goes on. It's truly mind-boggling.

The fun part is to extrapolate; where will we be 10 years from now? If you're not careful, it's easy to think we'll be a powerful full-fledged telecoms provider, but largely still providing the same services that we do today (albeit with many enhancements). However, when you ponder how much has changed in the past 10 years, coupled with the pace of change that you can observe at CES, you can reach a different conclusion: that we will look vastly different than we do today.

I believe the key enablers that will fuel the change engine are Internet protocol (IP) and wireless. It's now obvious that IP is the incredibly powerful glue that allows this all to be knit together. Wireless gives us the important ingredient of mobility. Over the holidays I read the article “The Phone of the Future” (subscription required) in the Economist, and the author stated that the cell phone has now become the first thing many of us look for when we leave the house. And there are only two other items that we won't leave the house without: our wallet and our keys. Technically, there are no barriers to the wallet and keys being collapsed into the cell phone; plenty of social barriers, but really no technology barriers. That says to me that our mobile wireless devices will not only serve as important communications devices, but will become key transaction devices. At the heart, IP is the common language that facilitates all the services. Cable needs to consider how it will maintain a key role as the central player in the digital lifestyles of our customers.

Lifestyle trends will clearly drive us to layer services and applications on top of our core telecom products. Though it's wonderful to finally have launched the triple play everywhere, we can't for a moment rest there. Speed of introduction will be critical to maintaining differentiation, and differentiation is the key to providing value.

Going forward, it will be the ability to rapidly introduce new services that will allow us to stay ahead of the power curve. PacketCable and its incorporation of many of the IMS standards will be helpful. For an insightful peek at the future of our world, you need go no further than attending CTIA Wireless, the cellular industry's premier trade show, where wireless applications proliferate. There you will find hundreds, if not thousands, of applications and a rate of change that obsoletes apps in less than two years. We need to think hard about how we might replicate that in Cable. Rapid change really hasn’t been a central part of our culture.

Look back ten years and it is obvious that Cable can evolve and compete. Look forward, and its clear that it’s going to be a fascinating ten years....

Jay Rolls is Cox Communications' Vice President of Technology