Digital goes
door-to-door

PHOENIX (May 22, 2000) — In the battle to steal each other's cable and phone customers in the Valley, high-tech giants Cox and US West are employing a decidedly low-tech tool: shoe leather.

Cox, formerly just a cable provider, is stepping into the phone business, assigning sales people to trudge through suburban neighborhoods in search of US West's 1.2 million cable customers.

US West has taken to the streets of west Chandler and other Valley communities, pushing to sign up some of the 615,000 households that pay Cox for their cable TV.

The high-tech oasis that is Chandler may be the center of the battle being waged in the Valley for the hearts — and pocketbooks — of households seeking superfast connections to the Internet and state-of-the-art access to entertainment programming. The Valley war between Cox and US West is the only one of its kind in the nation, largely because of the Valley's status as a fast-growing metropolitan areas.

The contest is paying dividends for phone and cable customers. In the quest for new business, each company is offering services such as digital cable, digital telephone and high-speed Internet access.

The foot soldiers on the front lines harken to another era, long before telemarketing or e-commerce.

They are door-to-door salespeople.

Frank Rummel hawks digital services for US West. One recent evening, he stepped through the streets of west Chandler in the hopes of catching potential new clients at home.

During one sales pitch, he told a Chandler resident: "We're here to replace Cox cable."

It won't be easy.

Cox salesman Michael Lamacchia rattled off the households he's sold on digital services as he navigated a company pickup truck along the meandering streets of southeast Chandler.

"Let's go steal some phone customers," Lamacchia said.

These are the trenches of the telecommunications war. And what happens here over the next few years could foreshadow what happens across the United States.

In the process, the two companies have blurred the lines of what they sell.

The combination of new houses, affluent households and tech-savvy residents has made Chandler a prime focus for the digital revolution. Parts of Peoria and Scottsdale are also heating up.

Mike Rheam, a locksmith wearing his Motorola employee ID tag, answered the door and listened to Rummel run down the list of features US West offers.

He was interested and asked a few questions, hoping for a package that would save him money.

"I'd have to talk to my wife before I commit to anything, even if it's free," he demurred.

Afterward, Rheam said he had heard good things about the new digital services.

"I've got a son-in-law that has the US West cable and has the voice messaging. They like it an awful lot," he said.

"Cox has been hitting us pretty hard, obviously, because this is their territory."

Rummel thanked him and handed over some literature before heading back to his red Geo Metro to look for cars in driveways, a telltale sign of who's home.

Both companies are giving away some services. Free installation, one to three months of free digital cable, long-distance phone rates of 7 cents a minute have been mentioned.

Competing campaigns to win a larger share of the market have consisted of skirmishes to capture one household at a time. And residents are getting caught in the marketing crossfire.

Michael Brittain stepped out his door, stopping to listen to a US West sales pitch as he took out the garbage. He listened, asks a few questions and said he'll think it over.

"I've got the other guys trying to take over my phone line," he said afterward. "With the calls, the mail, the visits, it gets a little old, you know?"

Perhaps an indicator that at least some residents are beginning to tire of the intensifying push for new customers, one taped a note to the front door that read: "No solicitations. No sales. Leave packages at the door."