Do you remember many years ago when Burger King positioned itself against McDonald's as offering a hamburger made just the way you like it? It was still fast food, but you could get it with "pickles and onions", or "lettuce and tomato" or "with ketchup, mustard and cheese."

At McDonald's, it was the same way every time, and if you asked for a special order, it was like a siren would go off in the back of the kitchen, and the special order police would escort you to the back of the line to wait another fifteen minutes.

The McDonald's system was such that it couldn't handle a "special order," while Burger King laid out the entire back of the kitchen to support and efficiently handle each and every special order. I think you get the picture- McDonald's is consistent with the franchise cable operator approach, and Burger King is more in line with private broadband providers' operational philosophy.

Our entire business is about preparing the "special order." We should have the whole back of the kitchen set up to handle the uniqueness of each and every cable system we build. Just as Burger King has designed a process to let their customer pick and choose condiments and hamburger toppings, we should allow our real estate clients the same benefits- to pick and choose programming options, services, features, pricing schedules and packages.

At the end of the day, the ability to customize each cable system we build is the single greatest advantage private broadband can deliver over franchise cable. Franchise operators build and deliver one mass-market product to everyone in the same geographic area. I hope you like mayonnaise on your burger, because you're going to get it with McFranchise.

I have seen the power of customization many times in this business. We recently took over a property (that was largely Hispanic) from a franchise operator. The cable operator's penetration rate was a very low 50%. Within two weeks of our launch, we added over seven Spanish channels (Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Espanol, etc.) to our Basic package. We sent all of our marketing materials in English and Spanish. We had two Spanish-speaking reps set up in the leasing office to handle order taking. And we made outbound telemarketing calls with a bilingual service representative.

In short order, we saw our sign-up rate jump to almost 70% from the level experienced by the prior operator. Our customization efforts to meet the needs of this demographic group was met with delight and quick appreciation. This "special order" was immediately satisfied!

The "have it your way" approach makes sense in every instance. Each community or building you serve has unique needs and circumstances, and a "one size fits all" mentality will not win in this competitive environment. The franchise guys design one package for a very large service area, which attempts to meet the needs of everyone. But by doing so, they fail to offer extra sports channels, or business news, or classic movie channels which would be of great interest to a targeted customer profile. Customization doesn't mean offering fewer channels; it means offering the right mix of channels.

After the unfortunate events of September 11, we received a tremendous amount of calls about adding FOX News on systems that did not carry this channel. We quickly added this important programming channel to many of our properties to satisfy this heightened demand. It was another example of utilizing the "have-it-your-way" approach in this business. Our franchise operator competitors still don't carry this channel in many key areas.

This "special order" strategy can be accomplished with broadband services too. Some of your clients may want various price points for high-speed Internet service with accompanying speed levels. We have clients that only want the fastest Internet access we can deliver, while other properties are interested in offering a more entry-level high-speed solution (such as 128K) for a lower price. And others are interested in bulk arrangements for broadband service. One day we will customize content on the Internet too by property we serve, just as we do video programming.

If private operators abandon the willingness to customize, we will be no better than our competition, and therefore give property owners no real reason to select us as their provider of choice.

I strongly believe in the "have-it-your-way" approach in private broadband. It's worked for so many providers because it's a "whopper" of a strategy.