PHILADELPHIA -- The cable industry long ago widened its ambitions beyond video, addicting millions of customers to cable modems and more recently adding voice over internet protocol telephony to its menu. Insiders call this video-voice-data combo the "triple play" strategy.
So with a trifecta of moneymaking schemes on its plate, the cable guys must be pretty satisfied, right? Uh, no.
"We're all still waiting for that 'aha' moment in which we have a portable device that came from the cable company," said Dale Fox, vice president of digital phone at Time Warner Cable.
That's right. The cable industry wants you to chuck your cable -- at least when you're outside the house. The addition of a fourth wireless component to the cable package is now affectionately known as the "quadruple play."
At the annual meeting of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, or CTAM, the cable industry's top sales and marketing folks gathered in Philly this week to figure out new ways to get at your wallet.
And while the conference focused on many topics, including better customer service, VOIP, video on demand and improving cable-modem speeds, the big buzz was about mobility.
After all, customers now want to take their entertainment and communications with them everywhere they go. The last thing cable operators want is to be left out of that party.
"The winners and losers are going to be determined by issues like portability and mobility," said Lindsay Gardner, executive VP of affiliate sales and marketing at Fox Cable Networks.
Meanwhile, cable-industry vendors and partners are also pushing the industry to embrace the wireless culture.
"It's the return of the pocket protectors," said Peter Weedfald, senior VP of sales and marketing at Samsung's consumer electronics division, which has been working with the cable industry to create sleek new hardware. "You are no longer in control. The consumer has the power."
Weedfald said the "collision between wireless and the internet" has created "the new ADD (attention-deficit disorder) economy."
"We think the quadruple play is right there," he said, urging more cooperation between gadget makers and the cable industry. "We can't do it alone. Selling cold steel does nothing for us."
Cable operators are also discussing partnerships with traditional wireless firms to integrate mobile voice and data services into the bundle of cable services offered to consumers.
"The wireless phone is becoming the third screen of their life," said John Garcia, Sprint's senior VP of sales and distribution. "They want this phone to do everything that their TV does and everything that their PC does."
Part of the culture shift within the industry stems from the personal experiences of cable executives, who, like the rest of us, rely on wireless gadgets to function. Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, for example, referred to his BlackBerry device as his "crackberry," noting that he was addictively checking e-mail only moments before taking the stage.
Of course, while the addition of a wireless component to the cable bundle of services is primarily in the planning stages, execs are already fantasizing about potential features.
Ideas floating around CTAM included allowing customers to program their digital video recorders from a mobile phone and letting them access video content on their mobile device as seamlessly as they access "video on demand" programming at home.
After all, cable execs are well aware that telcos, many of which already have wireless subsidiaries, are uniquely positioned to offer a wireless component as they roll out their own video, voice and data packages.
"It's really going to be on any device anywhere," said Robert Ingalls, president of Verizon's retail markets group. "We talk about time shifting. It's going to be place shifting."
