 Welcome to JSA TV, the newsroom for telecom professionals. I'm Dean Perine, EVP at JSA, and joining me today is Mr. Brad Fox. Brad is the regional vice president of commercial and carrier sales at Vive Broadband. Brad, welcome to JSA TV. Thanks Dean, excited about being here. Outstanding. So Brad, I can't help but notice the credenza behind you. It's a little bare. You just moving in or just moving out? Well, we're getting ready to move out. So, you know, our kids are now adults and we're looking to downsize. And so in the process of that hecticness, so we're trying to balance work life at this point. I get it, I get it. Well, congratulations on becoming sort of the empty nesters and living your best lives. So I appreciate your being here today. Yes, sir. But Brad, let's go ahead and jump right in for our viewers that don't already know. Why don't you tell them a little bit about Vive Broadband? And more importantly, the commercial and carrier sales group. What does the group do and how does it ultimately fit into the Vive organization? Thanks, Dean. You know, Vive Broadband is a rural broadband cable internet provider that services a little over 300 communities in 16 states across the U.S. You know, we're really broken up into three segments from a commercial, from a customer perspective. You know, we got the consumer side, the commercial side, and then the carrier side. And so I'm obviously involved in both commercial and the carrier. You know, from a commercial perspective, we offer, you know, internet speeds up to 10 gigabit. On the residential side, it's up to one gig. So we're really beefing up, you know, our broadband capabilities in these underserved rural communities. As we're finding out, you know, those folks need more bandwidth in order to do business and live and work, you know, today. You know, in terms of the commercial, you know, we do things such as hosted voice as well as cloud services. So we're not just an internet cable company. So we're trying to expand our footprint. We're a little bit over 12,000 fiber miles and growing. And so that obviously helps us on the carrier side in terms of partnering with other carrier partners and getting our footprint expanded. I love it. So staying on that theme with the expansion and stuff. I understand that your carrier sales group has experienced some significant growth in recent years. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that growth and how, you know, how you might attribute it? Yeah, thank you. I think, you know, it's really broken up into four areas of focus. So when I took over the group in 2018 when I came aboard, you know, we had roughly 20 partners at that time, which is pretty solid. But, you know, in the carrier space, you know, you typically want to expand to as many as possible up to 100. So we're at that point where we have about growing close to 70 partnerships now over the last couple of years. And that's really done through, you know, trying to expand upon our existing relationships that we had, as well as really trying to onboard and recruit new partners and really get them to know who Vive is. So obviously we're in rural community so not a lot of folks know about us. And so really trying to promote us and our capabilities. The second area of focus was really around becoming more involved in the carrier community. And how you do that is really through a couple of angles, is obviously marketing, but also having a presence at these carrier events. So there's multiple carrier shows that go on, you know, in our industry. And a couple that were heavily involved in as ITW, that was just recently in Washington, DC. And then upcoming here in Denver at Encompass. Those are the two that we really focus in on and, you know, having a presence there, building relationships, meeting new partners, letting folks know about our capabilities. And so that's really helped, you know, grow though and expand those relationships. The third thing is, you know, there is a database out there in the carrier world called Connect Base and Master Stream. Those are two heavy, you know, platforms that allow really any carrier partner to find out where you're at. You know, what markets you service, what communities you service, what addresses are serviceable on-net, near-net. And so we've been able to expand our database and our presence on those platforms to allow, you know, carriers to go and see, you know, where they could offer service or where we can offer services and provide them quotes. And the last thing is when, you know, in 2019, we had literally one carrier pop and NNI in Dallas. And since then, we've expanded to six and soon to be seven. And really what a carrier pop is allows us to have an NNI or a network and network interface with our carrier partners. And that's how we do business with them. And so just allowing them more presence across our 16 states, being closer, you know, to where their connectivity is at and their needs are and really making it easier for them to do business with us. Yeah, I love it. You know, it really does sound like it's a win-win for you and your carrier partners. But really quickly, did you enjoy ITW being face-to-face this year? I did. And, you know, I got the gift of COVID. I was exposed to COVID. Luckily I haven't vaccinated. So I think I got my second booster naturally. But, you know, it was a great event. You know, last year was really difficult with being right in the pandemic. I think there was only about 700 participants. This year there was closer to four or 5,000. And it was just a hoppin' in place. And, you know, it was good to see folks again and getting back out, you know, traveling. Yeah, yeah. No, I felt exactly the same way with all those people. I didn't actually run into you, but, you know, it was nice to be there face-to-face. Again, fully backs, fully boosted. Everything went well for me. So that's good. Back to buy broadband. Let's talk a little bit about your network. I have read a great deal over really the last couple of months about your fiber access networks, the fan networks and some great builds and some things that are helping to bring meaningful, transformative broadband services to some of those rural, easy for me to say, right? Communities where you guys serve. So can you tell us a little bit about that network and ultimately, you know, it's an importance to the commercial and carrier customers? Yeah, so, you know, we were formed really through three companies, young Northwood communications, Vive broadband, as well as Eagle communications. And so, you know, we came together in forces and we found in particular, like our Eagle markets are highly penetrated with fiber, whereas the Northwood wasn't so much. And so we really identified 25 markets across the 16 states that were really poor in fiber. And so we've beeped up that infrastructure, gone ahead and proactively built out the networks. You know, obviously the pandemic taught us that more people need more bandwidth, both at home and at work. And so there was just a huge pinup demand for fiber and gigabit speeds. And so we were able to get those investments, you know, from our investors and we're knee deep into activating those fans as we speak. And that just allows us to offer more serviceable fiber addresses for both our commercial and carrier and our residential customers, as well as really help our rural communities thrive with their business and really grow. And that's really what they were hindered with was lack of bandwidth, being able to expand their business in a digital world. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. And then one of the reasons why I really wanted to speak with you today is that, you know, prior to the pandemic, you were still out there kind of fighting the good fight and making sure that some of those underserved communities were getting the bandwidth that they needed to, you know, to better their business and then just kind of bring their communities a bit more into the digital world. And then the pandemic happened and we were all working from home and a very, you know, kind of dispersed workforce. And so that reliable, truly robust bandwidth and connection was necessary all over the place. And so it probably kind of turbocharged your mission a little bit, which is why we were kind of, we had our fingers on kind of the pulse of what was happening there at Vive Broadband. So thank you for being with me today. I really appreciate it. And for our viewers that would like to know more about Vive Broadband, where can they go? Yeah, we have a website, much like everyone, at www.vivebroadband.com And we have a landing page for Carrier as well as Commercial and Residential. So you can get more detailed information there. And obviously you can connect with me on LinkedIn and I'll be more happy to have a conversation with you. Awesome, Brad, thank you so much for being here today. And we really appreciate it. And thank you viewers for watching JSA TV. We'll see you soon.