Speaker Ken Johnson, from panel called Big Enough to Succeed: small carriers at the leading edge — entrepreneurial (non-Municipal) carriers show a fourth way (after Telco, Cable and Muni) to the future of connectivity. Video of panel is here: http://youtu.be/YSeXinuwBgU
Freedom to Connect 2012
2. Founded in 1897
Reorganized and incorporated in 1926 – same
stock still circulating today
I am only 6th Chief Executive of the Company
~ $8 million in annual revenue
3. 39 Employees
About half Union
Two administrators
Five Primary departments
Two professional managers (HR/Billing)
Six (6) I.T. field techs
In-house construction and tech support
Everyone multi-functional and interdisciplinary
Few contracted services
4. Regulated Telephone/calling features/LD/Key Sys.
Cable TV and related products
Communications construction/structured cabling
Outsourced I.T. Consulting/business/residential
Broadband Internet access:
In territory-service available today to every customer
Out of territory by wholesale agreement (WS & CL)
Service types: ADSL, Cable Modem, FTTH, and WI-FI
Speeds: FTTH-Up to 30/30, Cable Modem-Up to
18/1, ADSL-Up to 24/1
5. Telephone ~ 4,200 lines (75% ms)
Internet ~ 3,200 accounts (ADSL, Cable
Modem, Fiber, T-1)
Cable TV ~ 2,200 subs (48% ms)
Over 40 I.T. customers with over 30 on
monthly retainer
CLEC coming online later in ‘12 and FTTH to
expand territory started
6. Since early 90’s company believed local competition
was coming and that ICC would erode
Worked to diversify with investments in
Cellular, Internet, and CATV services
Realize that we must diversify geographical market
in addition to diversifying services
Lean work force and small administrative layer
All employees working to create revenue
Offer all related services customers want
Make smallest investments possible to get into a
product line, then expand with demand
Use Gray market where prudent
7. $2M in fiber trunk outside area to increase
bandwidth and lower costs
Doubled Cable Modem speeds by adding DS
Rebuilt all ADSL footprint 3 years ago
Launched first FTTH system to over build
ADSL footprint in coming years (1st regional
provider to launch FTTH)
Keep pushing upper limits of bandwidth to
customers while watching capacity
Strive to be the best Cost/Mb provider
8. Why?
Wages are calibrated to area cost of living
CEO pay ~ $125K for SLEC
Windstream (Morning Star) $9.7M (77x)
Verizon (Bloomberg) $23.1M (1,848x)
Time Warner Cable (Fox Bus.) $16.4M (131x)
Extrapolate that for CFO, COO, HR, etc.
New products added to meet demand not as
speculative
Multi-functional workforce
Not slaves to Wall St.
9. USF and ICC Changes – Can we replace
revenue as fast as change takes it away?
Political ideologies against small telcos
Anticompetitive practices of competitors
(Feel like the eldest child)