The future of the cable industry

Pat Esser has seen the cable industry evolve considerably over the nearly 30 years he has worked for Cox, where he started working in 1979 directly after graduating college.

Cox Communications is the third largest cable and broadband provider in the U.S., behind Comcast’s Xfinity service and Charter’s Spectrum. Esser has worked his way up from director of programming in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to president, the top job at the cable arm of Cox Enterprises, a privately held, family-owned company based in Atlanta.

Cox counts 6 million subscribers, primarily in the south, Midwest and western U.S. Esser has watched growing competition to cable and broadband providers turn more of his customers into “cord cutters” comfortable with relying on streaming services for their entertainment. Here’s a look at his perspective on his shifting industry.

How is the cable industry evolving, and what will it look like in the future?

It’s about connectivity, connected devices, connected products and solutions. This network that we built 60 years ago is serving up much more capacity and speed than probably people dreamed of and it’s creating a platform for innovation to occur. And you’re seeing that explode all around you. This network is enabling other things to happen in our world.

What do you mean by ‘innovation’?

You wouldn’t have Amazon today if you didn’t have the internet. You could have a form of Apple but you probably wouldn’t have quite what Apple’s evolved from a desktop to a broadband connected service over time. Think of many of the connected things that go on in your life today that are broadband connected.

How big of a threat is 5G fixed wireless to cable?

I think it’s very early for 5G. We ourselves have done trials of 5G, I suspect anybody in the telecom space have done 5G trials. Who knows, at the end of the day it may be the solution I use when I serve a neighborhood. My networks serve neighborhoods that are getting smaller and smaller and smaller, to give more capacity and more speed. Who knows, if those get small enough, 5G may be what I use .... It may be a wireless connection.

How long do you think it will take for 5G to become well established?

Everybody says we’ll have it out in 3 years or whatever the number is. I understand the “use case” can be out and you can be serving a handful of buildings, but when you’re talking about consumers, there’s some development that has to happen, it still has what’s known as propagation issues. Can it go through walls, can it go through trees, can it go through humans walking in front of it. Those things all have to be worked out.