CABL Forum - Re: genral info on the industry

Well, let me take a differant approach.

Yes, the CABLE industry has changed. When the contractors, in which I once was for many a year, were making great money, the MSOs were concerned with getting all of the customers they could without much regard for for cost or the bottom line.

Now the focus is the bottom line and both the Contractors and lower level employees are feeling it. The contractors are treated with disregard and expected to take it in the shorts. The Inhouse employees take it in the shorts with low rate raises and excuses like, "it's not in the budget" or "sometimes you have to take one for the team".

It may change in the future, when and how and if you can hang on, it's up to the individual. Keep in mind, there are worse jobs out there.

Me, I am keeping my eye on the Fiber to the Premise projects starting up throughout the U.S. These are being run by phone companies following the same business models the cable industry followed a decade ago. They are going to build plant, lots of it. They are paying and going to pay lots of money to people to build the plant, install to the customers home and to service the equipment. Primarily this will be contract work. Why, because they know it is cheaper overall to get contractors to do the work right the first time. Once they level off, they won't have to worry about layoffs or "trimming the fat" of all the inhouse techs because they can, at the same point the cable industry did, fluff off the contract companies. By that time, another technology will come along and require this to go around full circle again.

This may be long, but this is the truth. All in all, the real moral of the story is, the real thing you need to e concerned with is "Can I roll with the puches, and can I be flexible enough to apply what I have learned in the past, to guide what comes to me in the future?"

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Re: genral info on the industry