Grow up!

It’s time to pull out an old chestnut and heave it at the cable industry. “Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.”

Cable always wanted recognition as responsible members of society that did more than re-purpose Leave it to Beaver reruns. Cable invested huge sums of money in network upgrades so its operators could proclaim: “We can do high-speed data. We can do voice. We’re information providers.” Cable wanted a piece of a rich telecommunications pie it saw the telephone guys hoarding, and it wasn’t ashamed to follow any method – however juvenile – to get it.

It even changed its labels. The National Cable Television Association became the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. Pole climbers switched to windbreakers with the logo Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and gave old Society of Cable Television Engineers jackets to museums. Everything was meant to convince the money guys that cable means telecommunications.

Of course, with cable’s luck, the term telecommunications has sunk lower than a CEO on an expense account, and the money guys are looking askance at all that capital expense cable spent and is spending on telecommunications networks.

So cable’s backpedaling, trying to differentiate its good telecommunications infrastructure from the bad one that’s been taking negative hits. That’s like discerning good cholesterol from bad: only those with a really keen desire to know can tell the difference – and most don’t care.

So, a little unfairly, cable is lumped into the squalid telecommunications space, watching its valuations bottom out while its potential rises. The reality is that cable got what it wanted. It’s now seen as a telecommunications player, and no amount of nitpicking is going to take that away.