HOME SWEET HOME

It's disturbing how the telephone industry casually dismisses cable's residential dominance. Because their big bucks still come from giant commercial customers outside cable's reach, telcos tend to write off cable's start-at-home-and-venture-out-from-there business model. But the days when Dad commuted to a high-rise office in the city are on the wane. Today, Mom and Dad carpool to a suburban office park — if they leave the home office at all. When they're home, they surf the Internet with a cable modem and talk to Aunt Sally in Calcutta with a VoIP phone. Incumbent telcos dismiss this as nickel-and-dime stuff. Real commercial customers have big offices and big telecom budgets, and are beyond cable's limited technological reach. For now, maybe. But cable's DOCSIS 1.1 high-speed data specifications include quality of service that makes dependable voice services a reality. DOCSIS 2.0 merges blinding speed, reliability and limitless bandwidth in an obvious enticement to the commercial sector. Cable is teaching its subscribers at home, starting with hundreds of channels of video programming and moving to cable modems and voice services. When those customers hanker for the same amenities in their offices, cable's wires will be within spitting distance to deliver them. Telcos “have one service, and that service is going backwards,” said Comcast President Brian Roberts at cable's recent national convention in New Orleans. Cable has three, and they're all doing a home run trot.