Old Pros Deliver Soup to Nuts - Company Business and Marketing

ADVANCED SERVICES

They're middle-aged, but think and act like twentysomethings.

Operators for whom the term CATV (community antenna television) was once relevant are still out there plumbing for business with advanced services that make today's mega-merged network providers drool with envy.

Service Electric Cablevision Inc., of Allentown, Pa., Blue Ridge Cable Technologies Inc., of nearby Palmerton, Pa., and Avenue TV Cable Inc., of Ventura, Calif., all have about 50 years in the business. And all operate with the enthusiasm of start-ups, providing everything from digital TV to high-speed data.

"We did all of this while the other individuals and press were saying "this is what we're going to do,'" explained Jack Capparell, GM of Service Electric Cablevision, one-third of the business started by pioneer John Walson.

"I remember when the NCTA first called us and asked us what our goal was as far as implementing some technologies, and we said `a year,'" he continued. "They said, `Next year?' and I said, `No, we've had it for a year.'

"And they were just doing feasibility studies," he laughed.

Blue Ridge mostly operates alone in rural neighborhoods; Avenue TV is a Southern California island surrounded by MSOs like Cox Communications Inc. and Adelphia Corp.; and Service Electric dukes it out daily with RCN Corp.

Proactive

"We try to be proactive as much as we can, probably more so than a lot of companies," explained Fred Reinhard president of the 170,000-subscriber Blue Ridge operation that his father, Claude, founded. "We're able to stop and change direction pretty doggone quick here. We don't have to go through a multitude of layers in order to make a change."

Externally, the bureaucracy can slow things down, as it did when protracted franchise renewal talks in Ventura, Calif., put a much-needed upgrade on hold, said Pam Drake, Avenue TV's marketing director and daughter of company founder Johnny George.

"We initially planned to start to design and build a fiber plant about a year-and-a-half ago, (but) our franchise negotiations went extremely long and we just didn't have time to put forth the effort of the design and planning," she explained.

Besides, she said, the 11,000-sub system didn't want to risk the capital without a long-term commitment. It got an 11 1/2-year franchise.

Another glitch happened late last year, thanks to an earthquake thousands of miles from California's faults.

"We use the Jerrold (Motorola Inc.'s broadband communications sector DCT) 2000 series (digital boxes) and one of their chief suppliers was a company in Taiwan that had been greatly affected by the earthquake," she pointed out. "It's frustrating, with DBS, with the local (channels) coming on, we put a big push on it (digital rollout), but we had to slow down."

Incubator for ideas

It's usually the opposite. New ideas start out with these smaller independents and spread to the bigger conglomerates.

"Home Box Office started with Service Electric. We have the plaque in Wilkes-Barre, (Pa.) designating that as the first cable system," Capparell said proudly of his 126,000-subscriber operation that proclaims itself the nation's first cable company.

Local news, too, hit the independents first.

"We do a lot of local sports and that's been something the company's had since day one," reported Reinhard. "You won't find us doing much national news on those shows; we're more interested in if the sewerage systems are working in the small franchises and that sort of thing."

"Our local production has won two Emmys," boasted Capparell. "We have done a continuous newscast nightly for the past 30 years."

Technologically, there are no flies to be found on any of the three. All offer high-speed data services. Avenue is upgrading from a phone return system to two-way, although the hybrid is more than adequate, said Drake, basing her opinion on two teenage relatives.

"We asked them what do you think and my (13-year-old) niece said, "It's way cool," she said proudly. "If a hybrid situation is way cool, then I look forward to having two-way fiber which would be way, way, way cool."

Avenue, unlike the others, has no immediate telephony plans.

"Our main emphasis is getting the fiber plant completed for allowing near video-on-demand," Drake said.

Avenue's plant, now at 550 MHz is growing to 860 MHz. Its Eastern compatriots are in similar shape.

Service Electric's 750 MHz fiber-to-the-node architecture uses. only one amplifier.

"There is no cascading of amplifiers, which brings our customer nodes down into the 30, 42 customers per node," he said. "The smaller the node, the more poised you are to be able to offer additional services."

That's certainly a story the big boys have been expounding -- but only in trials right now.

"We're able to move quicker than a lot of other larger companies in directions that we need to go," said Reinhard. "We're looking into telephony. We're quickly trying to get up to 750 in order to go two-way and be able to offer digital services and be competitive to the other alternate providers."

For all three, the current direction precludes taking the money that's always there dangling from some bigger conglomerate.

"I'm definitely a mother hen when it comes to my customers and my staff," said Drake. "If I see, as a mother hen, that there's a better mom, then we might look at it, but right now I just want to keep on raising my kids."

It's a family `tude.

"You can see the commitment of the Walson family, and the fact that John Sr. was involved in the business and his son Johhny is our president. It's like a tradition in the family. It's more so looking at being involved in a really fantastic business that is changing every day as opposed to looking at the dollar worth," said Capparell.

As Reinhard said, these guys are here to stay.

"I have a son and four nephews involved, and they're young tigers that think out of the box," he said. "They see a future in this business."

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