Is There a Contortionist in the House?
PHANTOM’S FINAL WORD
Might need a contortionist about now, because I want each of you to pat yourself on the back. Now you may be able to do it, but to old bones (I have been haunting for centuries now), patting myself on the back is not in the cards. You have brought our beloved industry through a trying time while dealing with the worst, and officially the only, pandemic in a century. All of a sudden almost every human interaction went on-line. People grabbed their laptops and went home to work. Students went home to study on-line (to the extent that study happened). Meetings of every type went from street address to IP address, even church people moved from A sanctuary to THE sanctuary of their own homes. Many doctor visits and even house closings moved on-line.
This caused one gigantic explosion of Internet usage around the world. As the largest supplier of residential (and increasingly business) Internet services in this part of said world, our industry got hit quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Were there problems? Yeah, some, of course. But they were solved, and the Sun continued to set in the evening and rise in the morning. In fact, we were surprised that the problems were as mild as they were, especially considering that the good folks in the industry were not immune from this coronavirus thing.
All this is a tribute to the robust networks we have built and learned to operate. It was not always thus: cable TV networks used to be the laughing stock of the “real” telecommunications industry, and for good reason. But we persevered. It took many people pulling in the same (more or less) direction for years, but what emerged is pretty good. And the “real” telecommunications industry has more-or-less accepted us as equal partners, as both they and we embrace fiber optics as the future transport medium. But our HFC networks work better than their twisted pair networks.
As this is written we’re a ways away from being out of the pandemic woods, but I’m pretty sure that this time the light ahead is not an oncoming train. So, do things go back to the way they were before the pandemic brought life as we knew it to a screeching halt? Not hardly. Business found out that hey, this work-at-home thing ain’t half bad for some occupations. The company found that productivity in many cases went up, not down as many bosses had feared. Employees learned the joy of working in PJs. Even TV news reporters learned to roll with the punches when a toddler wanders into the room in the midst of a live on-air segment. We learned that in many cases on-line courses and industry meetings could actually produce results as good as the much more expensive and time-consuming travel that they replaced. Movie theaters are wondering if they have a future. Even churches have accepted that a portion of their people will attend on-line from now on. Schools? Looks like one area that may go back to almost business as pre-pandemic usual, from what we hear. But low-end laptops (a.k.a. “dumb terminals”) were getting to be standard issue even before things got crazy (crazier?), and have they ever proliferated in the last year! They need to connect to something to be useful. Docs and legal-beagles have found that, while they will still need in-person meetings, they can be more efficient on-line in situations where that works. Laws and insurance payments have adjusted to this new normal.
There are still bugs to be worked out, many things we knew about but didn’t worry about as much “back then.” The rural service nut remains a hard one to crack; it takes a lot of money to bring big-city services to the RFD folks, but there are far fewer customers to provide the requisite revenue. Fiber needs to go deeper into the network, providing more service and less opex, but upgrades get harder by the day for a lot of reasons. Competition? Get used to it.
But we’re an industry that was born in obscurity. We have faced problems before and have overcome them. Those who came before had mighty broad shoulders for you to stand on, but as you face and overcome your challenges, even the considerable challenges of the last year plus, your shoulders are growing broader so that yet another generation of folks will someday have broad shoulders to stand on. And you’ll have great stories to tell your grandkids.
The Phantom
the.phantom@youwontfindmeanywhere.com
You never know when The Phantom is standing right beside you. Sometimes he is in a meeting with you or walking the floor at your favorite cable show. Sometimes he’s hanging with the suits and other times with the front liners. But be assured, The Phantom sees all, The Phantom knows all and, most importantly, The Phantom tells all.
Image: Shutterstock
