Digital Phone

It’s often these days that we see the cable industry described as the stodgy incumbent, supposedly standing in the way of innovation.  But almost from the very beginning, cable has been doing the disrupting, acting as a transformative force for innovation.

On Tuesday, the FCC released the third Local Telephone Competition report on subscribership to telephony service, both interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), as well as more traditional telephone lines.

Recently, Hank Hultquist of AT&T posted some interesting food for thought on the evolution of voice services.  His general premise is that the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) is as outdated and old-fashioned in the telecom world as the Edsel is in the automotive realm.  Instead, we are moving to a world where voice service will be merely another application riding on a “broadband autobahn” of Internet protocol (IP) networks, and these IP networks will seamlessly interconnect without the need for pesky rules or government intervention.

In the new issue of Consumer Reports, the cover story is their annual look at TV, phone and Internet service (Here’s a news article about it.).

Regular readers of Cable Tech Talk may remember an exchange between Verizon’s Tom Tauke and NCTA’s Kyle McSlarrow that took place last June.  At issue was an FCC decision into allegations that Verizon had violated retention marketing restrictions and actively tried to prevent customers from leaving only after the customer had put in a request to terminate their service and move their number to cable.

While I typically stick to discussions of policy issues, broadband, and emerging technology, when I see some really good news about cable and our ongoing efforts to improve customer service, I have to talk about it.

On Friday morning, Tom Tauke took to Verizon’s blog to post thoughts on the rumored FCC decision reversing the bureau’s suggested dismissal of cable’s complaint about the telco’s “retention marketing”.  NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow drafted a response here and on Verizon’s blog.  The back and forth went on late into the night with Kyle posting his final word after 8pm.

As mentioned previously, each week on the front page of NCTA’s website, we highlight a relevant statistic. This week’s is worth taking note of. With the five largest cable operators having reported results for the first quarter of 2008, there are now 16.2 million customers receiving phone service from the cable industry… …and counting.

The cable industry has spent more than $100 billion since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to create the most extensive and robust broadband network found in America.

There are many ways that the cable industry has expanded consumer choice. You don’t have to be that old to remember a time when you had maybe a half-dozen TV viewing choices – maybe a few more, maybe less – and now you probably have hundreds.

More than 15 million Americans have switched to cable’s digital voice service. One big reason that consumers are switching is the significant savings that can be found, especially if the service is included as part of a bundle that includes video and high-speed Internet.

In 2007, J.D. Power and Associates’ annual rankings of telephone service provider customer satisfaction ranked cable companies #1 in customer satisfaction in all six US regions.

It’s worth noting that cable’s phone business has grown in a fairly short period of time. The current competitive age can be traced back to the passage of the deregulatory 1996 Telecommunications Act.