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Looking Back and Looking Forward with Rocco Commisso – #Summit23
It could be argued that the broadband we enjoy today rests on a foundation largely built by the original cable television pioneers. Those pioneers and their hustle that built an industry from scratch are heroes to Rocco Commisso. The first half of Commisso’s career was spent learning from those entrepreneurs, especially Alan Gerry, founder of…
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Creating a Culture of Integrity #Summit26
“It’s living your life the right way, so that others follow,” is how Patricia Boyers, president and CEO of Boycom Cablevision describes how one creates a culture of integrity. Although her comments are made in the context of creating a business that serves its customers and community, she is quick to point out that this…
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Tom Olson on Cable TV Pioneer Phil Hamlin
Hamlin and converter were synonymous in the early days of set-top boxes that extended the capability of cable television beyond the limits of broadcast TV. Tom Olson talks of his relationship with this cable pioneer and how he preemptively helped him identify and fix a problem that would have been a serious issue. As a…
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A Classic Silicon Valley Story – The Tomco Odyssey Begins
Filmed in December, 2016, Tom Olson discusses how he made his way from upstate New York to Santa Clara Valley and the contributions he and his cohorts made throughout the decades to the cable and telecommunications’ industries. The three plus hours of video that follows below touches upon a number of topics from discrimination in…
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Jerry Laufer – A Perspective on the Cable Industry – from 1960 to the Early 1980s
Jerry Laufer describes his career from the early days in Oregon repairing televisions and building tube amplifiers for an early cable system to his days at Tomco, where he developed some of the first frequency modulation systems used for video transmission in cable television. Along the way, he worked with some cable luminaries, including Monty…
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Advertising Partnership Drives New Revenue for Existing Networks
Many years ago, a wise marketer suggested that the value from cross-promoting different parts of his triple play would, by itself, justify ad insertion in his channel line-up. His challenge was that there were higher priorities for his company’s staff and ad insertion was way down the list of priorities for his IPTV network. Fast-forward…
