LAS VEGAS--The launch of the event that is supposed to answer the question about where the industry goes from here, TelecomNext, provided an answer in two hours of keynote speeches yesterday, when almost 20% of allotted time for hearing directly from the industry’s foremost leaders was consumed by music videos.

There was very little telecom in the keynote presentations. U.S. Telecom Association President and CEO Walter McCormick said this was the night the world begins again. If that’s so, then the world belongs to entertainment and content.

“When technology makes quantum leaps forward, we have to prove we can expand the capability of the network to remain vital,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon.

Using Norfolk Southern railroad as one company that adapted to its changing environment, Seidenberg said, “Staying relevant in a time of change is an important lesson.”

With the digital era now upon us, Seidenberg said the industry needs a transformational mindset, one that would allow it to take control of its own future.

That mindset would better appreciate that the next generation of broadband experience will be neither textual nor verbal, he said. It will be people looking at Star Wars-like holograms and doctors seeing their patients remotely, or handicapped people going to work virtually and grandparents blowing out their grandchildrens’ birthday candles from anywhere.

“As an industry we have consistently underestimated how quickly the public accepts new technology,” Seidenberg said. “The marketplace is telling us there is a great opportunity out there.”

That opportunity is for those who recognize that the rules that once governed how content is accessed is being challenged, said Robert Iger, president and CEO of Disney.

Urging networking companies to stay ahead of consumer trends and lead the industry rather than following it, Iger said, “By maintaining the status quo, the world will pass us by.”

Iger emphasized the big challenge ahead in changing the distribution model for content and entertainment—digital piracy—and urged the industry to work together on solving it.

“It’s in the best interest of our mutual industries to find ways to fight piracy and protect intellectual property around the world,” Iger said. “Unfortunately, we live in a world that doesn’t think that’s the case.” Without adequate content protection, however, Iger said that the platform for developing content couldn’t be supported. He added that a secure distribution platform or environment would be an incentive for companies like Disney to put more content on those platforms.

Not all that was said by keynoters was in the spirit of cooperation. After all, much is yet to be determined how all this content will be delivered, by whom and under what business arrangements.

Glenn Britt, president and CEO of Time Warner Cable said his company supports “light regulation to ensure important social ends and real competition,” however he said he would oppose any efforts to tilt the playing field by regulation.

“People who feel threatened by change often run to the government in [the] hope of creating barriers to those changes,” Britt said.

Iger also said the government should stay out of programming such as supporting ala carte services. “Ala carte, no matter how appealing this may be, will be bad for our business, your business and bad for the consumers who would pay more for less choice,” he said. “There is no economic or policy justification for the government to dictate how TV programming should be.”