5 Qs for Cedar Point's George Kassas, founder/evp, operations and business development

Why was 6 years ago a good time to start Cedar Point? At that time, I had a burning fire to get an entrepreneurial venture going, and a team of smart individuals was amassed to launch Cedar Point. I’ve always said there will be no one or no obstacle to prevent Cedar Point from succeeding, and operating on that premise I think we have demonstrated success all along. You recently delivered your one-millionth telephony line. What are the key reasons for this and other successes? You always have to offer the simplest and most compelling solutions to customers. You have to think the way they do, about what their headaches might be and the business opportunities they are after. We visited with as many companies as we could in the early stages to understand their needs. How much growth is left in VoIP arena? So much I can’t even quantify for you. The cable industry has a lot of room to expand VoIP and multi services beyond the current network. The first time you’re going to see a penny made out of IMS in cable is probably 36 months out. There’s a lot to take care of before that grounded architecture is in place. Who has the upper hand in the telco/cable war? Despite of all the VoIP success in cable, you still have [telcos] with over 90% of their sub base that is contiguous. This provides for economies of scale that cable operators are not afforded. That said, it’s going to come down to regulatory and content ownership issues. Cable needs to show more value and more offerings for not much more money. What is the provenance of the Cedar Point name? CP’s co-founder used to spend time on Martha’s Vineyard, and had a house at Hines Point. He also had lobster pots at Cedar Neck, so we sort of combined the two. Also, cedar is the national tree of Lebanon, where we’re both from. It signifies durability.