FROM THE INDUSTRY
Looking back, is there anything you’d change about the decisions you’ve made? Paul’s sophisticated understanding of business risk and portfolio management is clear, and he told me that “As a business, we’re still 80% cable, but we’ve got a big imperative on fibre, and we’re developing mobile products for Open RAN.” The company’s expansion into new areas stems from customer demand and their core RF expertise. “Customers have asked us to do it because we’re experts in RF. Quite often our competitors doing these things are building reference designs, but we have capabilities some don’t have because we’re still engineering at a deep dive level on our products.” When it comes to managing risk, Paul added that “The only thing we’ve got to be very careful about as a company is to make sure we don’t allow too much customer concentration. I sort of compare it to a table—a three-legged or two-legged table isn’t very stable, but an eight-legged or ten-legged table, you can have an accident with one of the legs and you don’t notice much.” Paul was refreshingly honest about the realities of product development – it doesn’t always work. “A third of our investment has very good returns, a third we probably just about get back our investment, and a third is money down the drain. If only I knew which third was which. It’s just like marketing—if you knew which bit was a waste of money, you wouldn’t do it, but you don’t know.” That said, there are lessons to be learned even when things don’t go according to plan. “There’s no investment in product development that is a complete waste. The engineers learned about things, so when they do the next project, they will do it differently, better, faster.”
an increased monthly subscription.” Meanwhile, existing cable networks retain significant capability. “It’s very clear that the plans of customers we’re dealing with show they’re going to have networks still going in 15-20 years, with no plan on record to rip it all out, because they still have the capability of current performance requirements and up to 10 times the performance requirements without rewiring.” The broader economic environment has reinforced this pragmatic approach. “The cost of money has gone up significantly in the last two years, so for most alternative networks that are over-wiring the telecoms and cable companies, they’ve slowed right down to basically sweating their existing assets. That means there’s less imperative to rush cable to defend itself.”
Technology vs. Reality
There is a broader truth around the adoption of technology that Paul expanded on; something I have heard expressed a few times this summer. “We talk about technology all the time—technology is speed and latency—but actually, for customers, there’s a much more important thing: reliability. Speed isn’t the only thing that’s important.” This reminded me of the cinema industry, which was preoccupied with the latest digital projectors, premium large formats, surround sound and laser technologies to such an extent it forgot the audience generally neither know nor care about all that stuff. They are interested in a comfy seat, decent snacks that won’t break the bank and most of all, a great movie. Paul agreed, adding that even major sporting events like the 2024 Euros football tournament chose 2K HDR over 4K UHD picture resolution. “The main reason they did it was because, to be honest, 4K—you can only really see the difference between 4K and 2K if you’ve got a 75-inch screen. How many people actually have a 75-inch screen?” This disconnect between what the industry thinks customers need against what they actually want is reflected in broadband as well.
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SEPTEMBER 2025 Volume 47 No.3
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