Rising above the pack: insight's Willner zeros in on advanced services. (Networking: advanced networking technology).(Michael Willner of Insight Communications)

While the rest of the industry spent the last five years clumping together through consolidation, Midwestern-oriented and Manhattan-based Insight Communications went through a similar size quintupling, organizing itself to serve 1.4 million subscribers in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Somehow, though, Insight managed to stay razor-focused on advanced services bundles that are yielding it appreciable new revenues. The somehow is someone: Michael Willner, Insight's president. This is a guy who doesn't mind answering his own phone-and his easy, talk-to-me style has made him a respected and well-liked industry leader. From a windowed wall in his Seventh Avenue office, Willner looked out at an altered downtown skyline and mused with CED analyst Leslie Ellis about cable's technological and strategic future.

CED: Have you ever seen a time when the intersection of business strategy and technology was as critical as it is now?

Willner: The two always go hand in hand. Sure, the world is more complicated today than ever, in options and technologies and services. But this all seemed pretty tricky to us in 1977, too, when we were trying to pick up the first satellite signals. The cost! We were basically mortgaging the cable systems for a business we knew nothing about: Pay TV. We did it and hoped. This is an industry of risk-takers and entrepreneurs, and that's precisely what's made it so strong. It'll always be complicated.

CED: Yet most MSOs have quintupled in size over the last five years. It's like going from 100 pounds to 500 pounds in five years, but still viewing yourself as an athlete. Is the industry getting too big to be entrepreneurial?

Willner: Interesting analogy. The 500-pound marathon runner. (laughs) We grew from 170,000 subscribers to 1.5 million subscribers over that kind of …