 Welcome to the RF Elements unlicensed podcast. I am Caleb Nour and this is Tossos Galifianakis. What's going on Tossos? What's happening Caleb? Hi everybody. I'm Tossos. I'm gonna I want to keep doing this until you get visibly angry with I'm curious. I'm curious though. I mean Galifianakis sounds Greek. Is he Greek? I have no idea. I mean it sounds like it could be you know Bonapolis, you know Galifianakis and all this other stuff. So maybe he's Greek who knows that that'd be interesting Maybe maybe one of our listeners can look it up and let us know if I'm right or not I don't know. I know he lives on a farm in North Carolina, which is close enough to being topical for me, so What's gotten what's going on this week man, what's happening? Ah, you know Actually been pretty busy this week a lot of planning going on right now You know whisper Palooza's right around the corner, you know, so I'm getting excited for Vegas hotels booked airline tickets booked We're getting our cool booth Set up and all the fun things that we're gonna do once in Vegas So yeah whisper Palooza's definitely taking up the majority of of my week with work related stuff Yeah, it's an affair for sure now. We'll be on the back wall So when you guys get in just go ahead and stream on pass all those other folks from that back wall We'll be real hard to miss you'll you'll know we're there. I promise you so you'll definitely know you'll definitely know like I said Yeah, you can miss all those other vendors and just come straight back to the RF elements booth for sure So well cool. Cool. Yeah, I just been busy here doing normal and with day-to-day stuff. I'm just trying to live my life, man so Got it meant. I am a little bit agitated Now we're right at all just like I mean I'm that's my normal sort of state half a time Anyways as anyone who knows me will testify to you, but yeah, dude. I got the grocery store late last night I'm like, all right. I got to get my weekend. Biddle squared away. So and I like to do it by myself So I don't have somebody going. We don't need all this. So It's definitely a different shopping experience with yourself, you know or with other people Yeah, so if I have to make three loops around the store by myself, no problem If I have to do it in tow. I'm just in like pure rage mode. So totally Totally just bogus. But anyways, no, so I fill up my basket With my meats and all this stuff. I'm gonna do some experimenting this weekend on some things got my beverages all loaded up Roll into the cart and I'm already agitated one because there's just like nothing there The meat is hard to find everything is way expensive and like random stuff I couldn't hardly find any mustard Like there's just so many shortages and all these shenanigans going on with all this pandemic nonsense and the after effects Then a check out. Well, first of all, I get agitated checking out because the little girl's like, oh Oh, you having a party this weekend? And I'm looking back at the beverages and meat. I'm like party one Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm a bunch of fox come over this weekend. Totally not sad and miserable at all. So it's all good This 12 pound brisket's not for me. You know, and I was like eight people coming over So then I see the amount and I was like stutter and I'm like I like why and then, you know, I was studying it more because I've always been that sort of asshole that just buys whatever You know, I don't really care because you know, it's what I do for the meat and everything and I start looking at the prices I'm like, hmm. Yeah, all this stuff's like twice what it used to call. So there's just yeah It's it's agitating but we'll persevere. Hopefully something's looking a little better around the corner And we get through all this doom and gloom that that we're seeing with all this nonsense, but the doom Doom actually that leads into our segway segway segway So Anyone on the popular whist sort of channels whist talking stuff like that You've probably noticed there's a lot of doom talk going on and not your normal day-to-day catastrophe that we're dealing with Equipment shortage of storm season. I mean hurricanes, you know, these are all super serious things But you know, we're used to this sort of thing. It just seems like there's just so much doom doom Uh in the industry with the whist going y'all whisper done. We're gonna die and The the whole conversation is just kind of bananas You know, whether it be 5g or starlink starlink being the big the big doom and gloom Don't get me started on the 5g thing. Yeah I'm literally going to get you started on the 5g thing here in the sex I just like making you mad on a friday, but uh Or it's the fiber whether it be people putting in their own fiber or you know The government's putting all this fiber in the ground and it's going to kill everybody's industry or wisdoms like Y'all calm down. Yeah I've definitely definitely seen lately not just this week specifically But yeah, you could definitely see it building up and there's been a lot of chatter and talk back and forth You know, there's people in multiple camps as far as yeah We're we're definitely in for it and we're done and then there's the people like us Right now that feel like we're just getting started, you know, so I'm definitely not in the doom and gloom camp at all. I'm not really worried about it much at all I mean, you know in the last what 15 20 years we've been doing this. I mean, we had let's see. It was ymax That was doom Yeah, um a dsl before then, you know early 2000s man big bell is going to roll dsl everywhere to every Everywhere everywhere Every pudunk shack. Yeah, that didn't work out. Um, we had ymax, uh, the cable companies You know and cable companies started pushing internet big and then when doc's history came out and you know Hell my connection at the house went from 30 megs to 300 You know and they're like, oh the what's industries? And it is stronger than ever and competing with these cable companies in a lot of places So we've absolutely we've been down this road and we've seen this So I thought it'd be fun to kind of talk about the current Uh end of industry doom articles happening right now and get your take on us. Who would you think so Let's start with 5g. I know how much 5g you've had recently. How much fun? So a lot of love. I got a lot of love for 5g I think there's one of the wrong fingers you threw up so So and it's it's not really, you know, it's not Verizon It's not AT&T or the smaller providers saying we're going to deliver rural 5g internet to the house and sort of all the world's problems Right. It's you know, the tech media the tech media is absolutely awful And then, you know, everyone's got to post all their stuff on LinkedIn and all these articles driving clicks I mean, it's the bane of our existence right now Is this click driven media presence that we live through all marketing. It is all marketing fluff all marketing fluff, man But yeah, if you you know, you ask somebody, I mean, it's always in the next two to five years, which is a rolling thing rural 5g ignoring all the cancer mind control Zombies and lizard people You know, you're going to have gigabit ultra wide band 5g to every house at anthill And every podunk street ever so let's kind of break that down a little bit You know, some of the claims and how things actually work in the real world Yeah, so I mean, I mean like my biggest thing with 5g is, you know, a the speeds that they claim, right are just not there Now let me preface that obviously it is in very very very very let me get smaller small segments Of the, you know, national footprint for 5g, right? So I live in the austin area, right? So we're a tech savvy town You would think, you know, million people in the the surrounding area that that's pretty well populated And you know, I drive into austin And first, you know, never mind the speeds the connectivity sucks, right? So it's like the latency is down or the network is just not robust enough where if i'm in 5g mode Most of the time I, you know, open up facebook or whatever app i'm using and it just it just sits there like there's I have five bars, right? I mean everything should be great, but nothing loads I'm like, what the hell is going on and this happens Everywhere, I mean honestly since I've had it. I've had t-mobile now for How long how long have I been bitching about this now like a month and a half two months? Yeah something like that Yeah, so for literally the last Month and a half maybe two months that I've had t-mobile the fastest 5g speeds that I've gotten was like 50 megs Right, and this is in austin. This is in round rock. Oh, shit. I went up to dallas, right? We were just in dallas I had when I first got it same crap, right? So, you know 50 100 meg maybe and it's a whole another story Do you really need 100 meg to your phone anyway, right? But I just don't see it. The stability is Horrible horrible, right? So again the connections are not there I basically had to go into my phone and turn 5g off, right? So I basically run my phone in 4g lte mode and it is fantastic. It is fantastic I get 30 megs consistently Sometimes up to 50 megs depending on where I'm going the connections always there The latency is you know fairly low And I really don't have any problems so 5g. I mean, I understand the fanboys that are out there They're talking purely based on the the white paper technology itself Sure, like you said, you're an ultra wide band, you know, you run these ultra high frequencies really, you know Wide, you know wide channel widths. Yeah, you're gonna get a gig. I've seen some posts a gig two gig It's you know retarded anyway, but yeah, sure it's possible, but it's not gonna happen everywhere I mean, it's just it's it's a freaking joke, man Yeah, it's it's definitely overblown and I can I can hear the quick clickbait warriors right now just twitching But you know, well, I got two and a half gigs in the the airport I'm like, that's cool because that's where they deploy that because that's the like warrior people are Going to check it out and see it and stuff like that. Exactly. It's again, it's it's marketing That was actually a great point. You made theirs, right? They strategically put it in places to get people when they're not really thinking they're just passing through They see it. I mean when they when the 5g kicks in and it's working boom That's just marketing right there. They just sold somebody, right? And somebody's gonna be like, well, this is amazing You know, but they'll never come on later when it doesn't work They just forget about it move on and their life goes on So so you see all this positive stuff and and you really don't see the negative stuff That's why I've taken it, you know upon myself To go out there and kind of push what I've been seeing as I travel and I travel a lot, you know Where I'm at Put up that speed test and show how horrible it is in most cases the 4g lte supersedes the speeds and reliability of the 5g connection So 5g for me is The top says official things there I mean and a lot of us now, I mean they're deploying like mad anybody that's on these tower groups Or knows anyone in the tower industry knows what the deployments are and you know what? There's probably going to be a lot of backfill and it's going to work a lot better I mean the transition from 3g to 4g definitely took a bit but you know for most places Especially in the city is it was relatively ubiquitous. So, you know, you're going to see a lot more stable But my whole point is like, okay. Yeah with enough money and time It's probably going to work and you'll have microcells on lamp poles and stuff in the city and ultra wideband kind of everywhere You know, that's fantastic But that does not solve the issue of the rural broadband, you know, sort of dilemma because It's still in the end a physics problem and a money problem So even though that funny money definitely exists everywhere right now And we'll just kind of wavy hand that for the time being but you know, it's a physics problem. I'm Three, I don't know. I forget how far I am from my tower and I'm just on the outskirts of charlotte So I'm not that far away and you know, they bumped up, you know Our speeds and stuff here. I can get a pretty decent connection But I go 10 20 miles down the road on some of these drives we go on and there's nothing and there's still plenty of people living there So, you know, whether they they boost up the capacities of the 4g which I've seen here, you know Or they they get quote unquote 5g there and a sort of the marketing fluff like in the end You know, it's it's too far away. There's not enough spectrum And like they're not going to want to load the capacity because those rural big cells the same way we talk about You know using our sectors in these rural areas where your clients are spread out. It makes sense Well, that's what they're doing. They're doing a very similar thing They're not putting the same architecture in that they're putting an ultra wideband thing in the heart of the Atlanta airport So two completely different worlds And you're just never going to have the capacity out there, uh, and they're not going to spend the money for the load So, you know in terms of doom for the wisp industry not going to happen Now is it something they should consider and think about? Yeah, and we'll we'll sort of Get to that at the very end so and honestly like Let's just look at from this perspective too, which is something that recently happened to me. I mean Just because let's say 5g does have some penetration into The rural areas. It's not the end of the world, right? I mean, I know many wisps who are deploying for glte who are Buying, you know a wholesale bandwidth from at&t whatever and they're still making money on it Right. So you can also resell that service, right? So, I mean just because it comes down the area Doesn't mean that you should just throw up your arms and forget about it It's like, you know, see what you can do. I mean you could resell that service as well And still make some money out of it and let at&t worry about provisioning the network or whoever it is You know, you know when when the service goes down and they have to you know, worry about building out all that capacity So it's really it's about, you know turning those lemons into lemonade. I always talk about that You know, there's there's still a silver lining there There's a way to work that into your business model if in your particular area and it's going to happen Where it comes in and it actually starts to cause some problems for you potentially You know, I said make some lemonade out of it, man Because there's there's something to be done with it, you know, no matter what no matter what Exactly staying flexible and adaptable and that's how you survive. That's it's called business there All right. So that's 5g. Uh, listen now talk about starling kind of a kind of a hot topic I'd say I don't know. I don't know if it's starling specifically or if it's Elon musk, you know, it's like This is like a double-edged sword. I mean, there's nobody's particular You know that I want to punch, you know in the 5g side of things Starling I'm like, you know, I'm I'm not I'm not a huge fan. I'm not a huge fan of the man And uh, so maybe that's that drives my other thing, but let's let's put that let's put that aside We're not going to be biased. Let's talk about the technology. Go ahead. I mean Where's that going? So it's it's funny though because you know, I'm doing I'm like, I should catch up on some data points Like I keep aware, but I don't track it There's some folks that straight up live for this stuff. Whether it be the pure fanboys or the anti fanboys I don't haters. I guess whatever the kids are calling it nowadays Charles. Yeah, I don't know either side is equally annoying in my book And it's very difficult to find relatively unbiased information. There's just so much spin spin spin on everything But there is there is I was looking at this and I figured let's talk quick about the tech and then we'll talk about the economic side Maybe quick impacts, uh, and then just height beast in general. So Easiest to look at is the tech so You know, there's not a lot of public information out there But there are some things that we know right now. There's about 1600 some live satellites in the constellation They've got clearance for 4000 satellites to get their worldwide coverage I think the they're saying is something any like 42 000 satellites to get more ridiculous ridiculous amounts. Yes So from a technical perspective, let's just wave your hand the trillion dollars is going to cost Let's just say they get it up and going okay And even though like now they can't launch because they're moving to laser backhaul instead of focusing so much on ground control But they can't get it done because of the chipset shortage to die to die to die the same little story But let's just say we get the birds and let's say we get a full constellation running in the states, right? We'll just focus on our area, you know The last set of numbers I looked at was showing that with the current phased array setup that they're using You're going to have about four gigs of capacity and a five mile radius or something like that Which sounds like a lot Until you look in a high density area How many houses that could cover even a medium density area, you know and now with You know that that butter gets spread a little thin there So, you know this it's not like they're gonna drop a gig again to every house in the whole world Like it doesn't physically scale like that. Yeah, they'll be taking advances and everything but It ain't gonna work. So and this is why I mean and they say that too. They're not focusing on the density They're not focusing on the city is there they're focusing mainly on rural but Even in a relatively rural area, I mean, there's a lot of folks that you can split in that radius Now my my numbers may be off a factor here and there's been a little bit but I mean, especially if everyone thinks oh, you know, I went to red it and look at the the star lake sub And you know, all these people are getting 250 mags and I'm like, yeah, because they're the first one on that that area But they're the only one on that In some cases, you know, I mean a lot of it you look at the ukla test and stuff I mean, and it's not terrible. I mean, you know, they're averaging 40 50 mags or whatever it may be Which is certainly not terrible. But I mean, this is still early beta Well, they're not letting anybody I think they got 90,000 some odd people on now. They have 500,000 backlogged waiting to get birds in the air, but you know, it's It's not the doom and gloom from a pure tech perspective. A lot of people think that it is you got to look at the math You got to look at the coverage and the capacity because You know, it hadn't didn't didn't look fly out Yeah, and even those capacity numbers. I'm sure it's like everything and it probably You know goes with like what we see here, right? You know, we we see a lot of the kind of, you know, on paper You know white paper purely technical in a vacuum, although they are in a vacuum in space, right? But Yeah, but you're only 550 kilometers up and there's still parts on travel Like this is the shit you run into in these these in your research But the numbers that you're seeing is is, you know, again the theoretical Optimal everything is perfect number. So yeah, it may have four gigs. Let's say Bandwidth available per bird, right? But I mean, it's not always going to work that way It's not always going to work that way and I would imagine that there's there's a lot of the You know besides the new technical issues that they have to overcome Weather and whatever might be there as well You probably still have some of the other problems we deal with as well where you have some customers who Maybe don't have a great connection and it throws off, you know speeds and you know the different transponders and different parts of the arrays and it, you know One bad customer starts affecting the performance of the other customers and and let's talk about a blackout, right? So if that bird goes down what happens, right? If it stops working Then you have a five mile area that has no service when another one comes in it picks up and that bad one Goes somewhere else. I mean, there's just there's just so much that can happen in space That it's just it's just I just don't see I mean at least as a wisp they can pick up the phone They can call you and you can roll out to their house and get them a new cpe And you can get them, you know up and running again If you're you know an ap goes down on your tower you can roll out to that tower You can get that ap back up and running, right? And you don't really get that When you're in space, you don't have the truck rolls to space to fix that stuff, right? So I mean service I think service is really You know where it wisps come in and how we're going to dominate dominate starlink because there's no way they can perform or provide The service the customer service that we as wisps can do and they'll have You know no way of doing that, you know no no way of you know keeping up with that and customers appreciate that I mean, I know I know I do I've had service with some providers And the service wasn't always great But you know the fact that I knew that when I picked up the phone they called they knew who I was right When they said hey, I'm sorry. I knew they meant it, right? That's a big thing And I'm willing to deal with it and and and when I said look dude, you really need to bail me out I have some mission critical whatever conference something going on I need this to happen, you know, they're able to Put me at the head of the list and get me taken care of before some other people when that happens So you're not going to get that with starlink. So No, not at all. I mean in the service side of thing I mean, this is how wisps were competing in dense suburban and even urban areas against the big cable companies, you know, it's That that that local business that service the fact that you can actually talk to a human and stuff I mean carry so much weight. So That I mean, that's huge. Now, I mean, there's also so many other issues at play So you have to have what 120 degree clear view of the southern sky or whatever like, you know, okay I just have to see the sky well in these rural areas at least in my part of the country We got these things called trees and they keep really high and like I mean, and definitely an issue that with phase two But now you have to have it not just in one direction You don't have to clever a clear shot to a tower. You have to have a clear shot across, you know Pretty much the whole sky. So you've got those considerations. You've got dishy McFlat phase So the cpe in and of itself is pretty freaking sweet. Like I'm not gonna argue that It is auto lining. I mean the tech the tech is there. I mean, it's cool. Shit. No doubt. It's cool But it's $500 that you don't have to pay you own it and you install it So what happens when your dog eats the cable that oh, it's permanently hard wired in or somebody You know, you put it out in your yard because you can't get service anywhere close to the house So you drag this thing out in the yard and your kid runs over with the lawnmower Lightning hits it floods it overheats because apparently that's been an issue. Like that's a thing That's a thing and then like what do you do? You get this $500 door weight now this $500 door weight also costs You know space or starlink probably two to three grand of actual cost and we've been seeing a lot about that lately and How does it work when you have a how's it work when you have a foot of snow and ice on your roof? And that thing is just encrusted in it. You know, I'm just like Yeah, I think it's got a heater and it auto tracks. I mean, there's some pretty cool stuff So I think the heat the heat has been what I think has been the main main physical issue line of sight Funny enough And heat have been the big thing. So I mean and again, it's not like you lease it or anything you buy it and it's yours and what happens when it does like, you know, there's This is definitely a big factor to consider. So are you familiar? Are you familiar with the the connection interface? Man, I know that it's like hardwired in. I mean, is it is it like an ethernet cat5 run? Is it like a proprietary usb or something like this? I mean, what's the interface like pretty sure it's cat5 runs in the house ties into the router Poe kind of thing too. So yeah, exactly. So I mean, it's a pretty slick setup and like the interface and stuff is simple You can track and see like I don't know you can track and see how much downtime you're having I'm like, well, that's cool. If you're tinkering terrifying if you're not, right? Like, you know, that interface is going to go away here pretty soon I mean, there's a lot of complaints. Well, it's beta. I'm like, okay. Let's think of being beta for the next 10 20 years We don't really know so I mean You got that the tech the tech issues are kind of what I think about because I mean money I mean money's kind of fake especially when we're just kind of Making it rain, you know from the federal level throw money out there Yeah, they recently picked up a bill from an easy billion from art off and everything But I mean at some point the money doesn't last forever and yeah, they got starling or uh, space x Yeah, this is supposed to be paying for space x because space x can't sustain itself with just doing NASA d&d launches and you end up with this weird like snake eating this tail way of paying for things and you look at To put up 42,000 satellites. What's that cost when you can only pop up 60 at a time, right? They don't have the heavy pushing them yet. You know, they're they're running the Falcon 9 Which is a great rig, but I mean it's not you know 60 million dollars to pop that joker up there and carry 60 satellites are like, well, let's care the one Oh, yeah, that's a million dollars piece to get them up in the air Uh, they got a five-year lifespan So you got to pay to basically rebuild the whole thing every five years give or take You've got normal attrition of three percent a year. You got you know All the space junk and all this other stuff like there's just a lot of factors to play now My personal opinion. I think the military is probably sort of darkly feeding this They're and it's my my belief that the military is going to take it over. He's not building this for The u.s. Citizens broadband this is going to turn into a military Military apparatus and that's what it's going to be used for that's just my putting it out there early on We'll see if i'm right in five six years from now, but I've seen a few pictures of the dishes that like like dod installs and or Installations and stuff like that and people just lose their mind and i'm like well Maybe or maybe it's just some guy that wants some internet out in podunk, alaska on this lonely Air Force base or something wants to play so that one guy. Yeah, yeah one guy Example man, so yeah, but and and and beyond like the the actual physical cost because like you said money's being printed these days So I don't I don't find it very difficult to believe that he will find and get the money Whether it's from the government governments around the world, whatever it is. I think that will happen Right, but if you look at the cost like you mentioned earlier, right? So the device costs 500 bucks itself So, you know, you're a rural customer. You got to pay that and what's the monthly? The the monthly subscription fee, right? What's it cost every month to have the internet? It's like 100 and something bucks a month, right? So I think 99 bucks which is yeah I mean still I mean there's the wisps can highly compete on price as well as on service. I mean I mean, I don't know There's only so much opinion and feedback that I can give because i'm not a wisp, right? You know, so we're not doing it every day. Obviously. We're not out there feeling the grind But I mean for what I do know, I I think I at least I can give a really good perspective because I know what it's like to be a customer for internet, right? And I've been in rule at my ranch, right? I have it in the suburbs at my house So from that perspective, I know what I'm willing to pay and what I'm willing to deal with and Like I said the the only way that I would get starlink, you know out in let's say my ranch, right? Where its rule is if I had no other choice, right? So Um, I just I'm just not seeing it man. I don't know. I don't know about the doom I think I think we as an industry really need to focus on what the hell we're doing We've done so good over the last 10 15 years Just keep pushing forward Keep building out go to those areas before they go to those areas and I think you're going to be just fine I think you're going to be just fine Yeah, I think it's it's not going to crash and burn like every you know a lot of the haters think I think it's going to be around. I think it's going to be a thing I think it'll always be the meh kind of choice or the okay choice Right, right. I mean, yeah They do it with three satellites. So not 42,000 Exactly So, you know, I think it will be an option But yeah, if you're running a wisp and can serve with these areas and you've got a good solid business You know, it's definitely something you want to watch and keep keep your eyes on but it's not doom It's more like I don't know lowercase doom with the question mark No, it's like doom or like, I don't know A little shrug and motor kind of like, we'll see So lowercase doom. Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm not I'm not worried for the wisps that are out there Based on all all the things that I know and uh, and we'll see like I said, you know Don't forget our industry is evolving too, right? So speeds are getting faster radios are getting better Spectrum is opening up. I mean there's there's really You're much better off with the half glass The glass half full than half empty. So just pay attention to what's happening the good things that are happening In our industry and just push ahead then push ahead because we've been there We've been there twice three times now and at least my experience. So You're good to go. You're good to go. No no need. No need to get a taco truck. That's Yeah, it's more of a more of a doom with a yawn. So my my last point on that is You know, it's really funny. You look at the biggest doomers about star link and the biggest, you know Oh, it's going to destroy everything. I'm like, okay. Let me look at your pose. Mr. Whistalk dude, let me see what kind of whistle you're running Oh, there's oh, you don't oh, okay. Cool. Cool star, bro. So, you know gone So all right, so now getting back to earth Oh Sorry, that's that's pretty good. It's not not even like to earth, but like we're going below earth in some places right here Right, right. We're going underground underground time for a little underground talk from the life's podcast It's friday afternoon. Can you tell sir? We should start shooting these on like a thursday so we can actually get through them So, yeah, maybe yeah All right, so fiber into the world or one of the best things that you can also do Yeah, I mean definitely one of the best things that you could also do right so definitely fiber is not the end Again, uh, there's there's a lot of land out there A lot of customers out there and it's becoming, you know cheaper and easier to do it As time goes on so for me fiber gets a ching ching two thumbs up I think some of the biggest concerns, I mean and I get it to you know, you're uh, even a big operator It's not remotely funded, you know, like some of these big National companies are and you know, some of these big national companies even the really terrible ones Like how does a bank like a company is listed on the grant winning with their bankruptcy name? Like how do you even do that? Right, so I don't know I don't know good grant writers. I guess right exactly like grant winners dba like Bankruptcy holding corporate whatever but anyways, so there's a bunch of these big crappy companies getting a lot of my money for fiber and you know, a lot of folks are afraid they're just going to over build everything and You know, whether or not that's true is super dependent on your location. You know, if you're a wisp and You're in a dense area and you know, there's a high quality provider coming in or even a big fiber wisp or Just a regular fiber isp coming in and they're about to lay a bunch of stuff down You know what? Maybe it's not the best place to deploy right now but if you're worried about some of these sketchy operators not gonna throw a lot of names out there, but You know the ones that are failed a lot but still keep getting propped up You know, if they're talking about maybe coming out there somewhere Hey, that's fair game like get after it whether you're doing wireless or even your own fiber Especially if you're doing your own fiber, you know So because not only can you get it done in a reasonable amount of time because you know exactly how long it's gonna take But then you've got all the benefits of that local support Local relationships we talked about this on an earlier episode, you know Forming relationships with your local government whether it be the city level the mini level the county the state You know, even federal if you can like, you know build those relationships because those pop up And they want to put that name out there before the the big evil corp and stuff too Definitely and you know a lot of that fiber that's going out there isn't you know to the home I mean fiber is is kind of a generic term right as far as what they're trying to do a lot of it is Maybe going down some of those, you know county roads or farm to market roads in some of the rural areas But it's not really necessary to to bring it to those homes that are there right So these are great opportunities for a whisk to be able to wholesale by fiber Right and beam it to their towers and get more bandwidth there, right? So, you know, there's there's there's other opportunities and other things that you can do where you know This might actually benefit you more than than it'll actually hurt you. So it's things to look at as well For sure. I think one I can't remember if we talked about this the other week or not Because i'm getting old Uh and getting kind of that friday feeling but um, you know There's a lot of these like electrical co-ops and stuff that are running a ton of aerial because for them It doesn't really cost, you know hardly anything other than the material But a lot of those are running a bunch of dark fibers and they want to partner for that last mile Yep, and lease out stuff and use them for transport Um, even a lot of the big carriers big tower companies are bringing a lot of their own fiber into sites too And then you can either tie in or you know do your wireless the the hybrid model looks really good So, you know fiber in existence if you have the opportunity to deploy it You should really be looking down that path and there's a lot of places to learn. Um, we mentioned wispa The, uh, vegas show wispa palooza. You know, there's a ton of fiber talk at that show. So go check that out There's a fispa show specifically for fiber isps as well. Actually it's now in september It just got I think because of covet. Yeah, but still there's a fispa show and group That you can look into as well. So yeah Yeah, so we brought this up a few times lately, but it's not the doom It's that a lot of people spell it out to be but you gotta take it contextually and look and say You know sometimes you got a zig sometimes you got a zag Yeah, I mean, I I I think like, you know, I said earlier about the 5g thing It's like look guys, you know, let's let's make some lemonade right out of these lemons There's a lot of benefit for you Out of that and it doesn't have to be the the end of the world, you know Yeah, I mean as a way it's like any other company or business out there Like you've got to evolve So if you're just kind of lean them, you know up against the fence post and Not upgrading and not bringing in capacity and running these sort of five meg rule janky connections and stuff like that Then you know what there's a really good chance that a star link or you know Even a rural 5g link or something it could really wipe you out from a competition perspective So you can't wrestling or laurels. You got to get up there and get moving But there's so much out there now for the wisp provider to to utilize from a tech perspective Between the radio stuff our stuff, you know, enable to build these massively scalable networks that you couldn't do years ago The fiber transports never been cheaper the radios Like I said, you know, now we're talking next year and whether a x and medusas and things like that like you can Get a high number of high bandwidth plans on there and be super competitive, you know against the big guys So you got to stay most in motion. You got to stay positive You got to stay focused but and offer that service and you're gonna be fun Definitely 100% totally agree with you. Totally agree with you And there's way like there's so many other things that are terrible that you got to deal with too Like taxes and lightning and everything else. Yeah, plenty of other things to worry about And those are more real and things that you you really should focus about dealing with I think I think if you really, you know think back about all that stuff It's really think about what you have going on and what you can do to make your service better Uh to make your customer service better if you really focus on yourself and your company You're gonna be fine. Don't don't waste time thinking about what the other people are doing Just focus on what you got going on focus on making that better growing your wisp, you know growing your company And providing a better service than any of these big box Providers can ever ever do ever do 100% man. So look at us. We don't positive and vibe Yeah, I wasn't you know, I was I was all like, you know, all I got y'all worked out over time But then you started just mellowed out. No, I'm just kind of like love is in the air Let's make some lemonade, you know, so yeah, I mean really it gets me pumped up, right? And it's something that I'm really passionate about like I always say this industry I definitely don't want to see it fall apart and I'm willing to fight and help whoever I have to help in order to keep it going So for me, uh, you know, I think we got things going on. We're good. We're good Yeah, it's super exciting was coming up. So Well, all right. Well speaking of what's coming up what you got We wrapped this up here. What you got going on this weekend, man So so yeah, so I'm actually going to Houston not my favorite city In Texas, but going out to Houston, especially well, you know, there's a hurricane coming into the Gulf, right? So my luck, you know, maybe maybe this will be good because the people in Louisiana were supposed to go Would be happy if it went to Galveston, you know in the area I'm going but uh, my daughter has a Soccer tournament as you can see I'm wearing my soccer shirt here Representing Austin, but obviously it's not her league or anything like that But I'm kind of in a soccer dad mood, you know So yeah, so driving up to Houston for the weekend She's got a couple games on saturday a game on sunday and we'll be back So I'm excited lots of lots of good food in Houston though. Lots of good food So I'm excited about you know going out to eat Uh checking out some uh some new spots that are probably out there and uh, like I said, eating some good food At least so that's I'm pretty excited All I can think of is, hmm, Houston in August, September No, I was doing work. I was I had to do a lot of work out that way on the last couple years And I'm like, I am going to die like I was talking to my buddy the other day. I was like, he's like what are you doing this weekend? There's a birthday party and I'm like, I'm going to Houston. He's like, oof He's like, all right, so you're gonna bring like, you know, a gallon of talcan powder and About, you know, about five towels with you because you're gonna be sweating like everywhere I'm like, yeah, I know and you go to Houston. You're sweat sweats, you know, so, you know, I'm a big boy I don't like sweating but uh, you know, I'm gonna take one for the team. I'll take one for the team love my daughter I love her playing soccer. So I gotta just to get dad things man. I gotta do it. You gotta do dad things, you know Yeah, yeah, so I've gotten if it starts raining watch out I've been stuck in that airport because it had the audacity to rain because I mean Why would it ever rain on the the Gulf Coast, right? Dude, it was a nightmare that place floods that you spill a coke and that place is gonna flood So it starts raining. You need to get out of there. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm familiar enough with it. So yeah We're having our fingers crossed fingers crossed Well, cool, cool, man. Yeah, not a lot going on around here going to do a little Uh, grilling kitchen tanker in this weekend. Uh, just trying to stay chill and around here Luckily, I think we back at summertime heat. We're close. We got a few more weeks and then maybe we'll cool off We'll have a little bit of fake fall. I get very excited around fake fall season We get that week where it's like crisp and cool. Then it hits like Like swamp season again for a few weeks and drops down. So But it's coming soon. So I gotta start prepping. I gotta start digging up some firewood and and tapping some old sources and stuff So I'm working on some some fall preparation. You can say nice. Nice. Nice All right, man. Well, this has been fun. Uh, but that said it is friday. It is time to go So let's wrap this up now anybody out there We want to hear from you. Give us some input About what you guys want to hear about. There's a lot of ways you can find us Toss us and I are all over facebook and social media platforms. I'm sure you've seen Toss us more than me because I let him do his thing. I kind of hide in the shadows where I can But uh, we've got the rf elements facebook group. We have our The rf elements english rf elements espanol asia now africa is about to turn up So we got a lot of rf elements pages. You can find us on our websites You can find us on our personal profile YouTube channel a ton of good information there Check out the link calculator and the stock locator. Dingley. I know we need a little bell every time I say link calculator I need a ring a little bell. We need oh, we should take a shot every time every time he says link calculator Everybody out there. Take a shot. Oh god We'd be dead so Yeah, there are plenty of ways to find us. Um Again, we'll we'll post this up when these new episodes post and you want to hey guys You don't let us know what you want to talk about We're looking for guests here in the very near future Like to you know have some conversations with you guys and we're super excited about that So and don't forget to like listen or subscribe to our channels to make sure you get the latest updates as well So I guess until next time everybody stay horny. Stay horny y'all Bye