 Welcome to JSA TV where we're covering the latest stories, trends, and innovations from leaders in global connectivity, real estate, the channel, and the networks within. Buffy Harakitas of JSA and joining me today is Mike Egbert. He is the VP of sales and real estate for Pilot Fiber. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's been a while since we had you here on JSA TV. We were just actually reminiscing about the time that we interviewed you from Philly, my hometown for Channel Partners Evolution, the fall show as we would say in the past, right? Yeah, absolutely. So welcome back to JSA TV. It's an honor to have you here in Las Vegas for Channel Partners 2024 on our live broadcast. So why don't you tell viewers what's new since we last spoke with Pilot Fiber? Yeah, absolutely. So we turned 10 actually this month and so Pilot's officially 10 years old. I've been with the company for the entirety of the 10 years. It's been fun to kind of watch us grow over that time. Our entire goal is always expanding our physical fiber network, expanding our building footprint in the New York City area as a regional fiber optic internet service provider. Our goal is to just make our services available consistently to more and more businesses in New York City. And so we've been at work doing that. We've expanded our physical network so that our fiber network covers all of Manhattan at this point and we've started to build a network in the Bronx as well so that we can start to service businesses in that borough as well. In terms of buildings that we're bringing onto our network, we're creeping up on 900 buildings that are on net for Pilot, which just means more amazing internet availability for customers in New York City that need those dedicated internet services. And so yeah, it's been exciting to kind of watch things grow and we're continuing to continue to do more of the same. Well, happy anniversary. Thank you very much. 10 years is no small feat in this industry, that's for sure. And speaking of the New York City market, we have over 3,000 customers, business customers, I believe, in that market. What are you seeing in the market? Yeah, over the last couple of years, we've really seen the demand for a greater than one gig bandwidth services increase. And I think that is companies are adopting cloud services more and more. They've got distributed workforces. They're doing just more bandwidth intensive things in their offices in New York. And so we've seen a lot of demand for two, five, 10 gig plus services in New York City. And we're keeping up with that. So one thing that we've always been excited about a pilot is that we're always rolling out new technology to support our customer base. And so with the increased bandwidth needs, right now in just about every building that we provide service in, you can get a 10 gigabit circuit for as little as five to 15 days. And as we see increased quotes that are being requested for 40 gig services, 100 gig services, although they're not a ton right now, we want to get ahead of that curve. And so we're layering on technology and different deployment styles that will allow us to meet those same lead times for ever increasing bandwidth tiers. Well, it's definitely so important in today's world, especially with the need for low latency and the fastest internet that's possible, right? Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And can you tell me a little bit more? I mean, you've been in the industry, you're a veteran for decade now. How has the telecom landscape evolved, changed, and where do you see it headed in the future? Yeah, that's a good question. If you go back 10 years ago, when we started, I'd say that there was less auditization around dedicated internet access. A lot of buildings in New York City were still very underserved from a fiber perspective. And when we entered the market, we really started to bring fiber to buildings that really didn't have the selection that a lot of other buildings in New York did. We started to close the gap with competitive pricing, making higher bandwidth services available to companies in New York. And now fast forward 10 years, there's been a huge commoditization of internet access to where you're seeing a lot more competition, a lot more fiber availability, and really a lot of a race to the bottom with pricing. And Pilots really been able to be consistent with driving value by focusing on the customer experience. So that's central to everything that we do. Every single team at Pilot, every function at Pilot is rallied around that one thing, which is the customer experience being paramount. And so we continue to deliver services with no annual contracts, incredibly fast lead times, very clear and competitive pricing, and just keeping the customer in mind at all times, I think, allows us to not necessarily play that pricing game, but really continue to drive value as we iterate. One thing that's big for us is adding additional reliability to our network. And so investing in things like active fiber monitoring across our backbone, protection groups that allow us to have diversity on our network, and just different ways that we're rolling it out technology to make services more resilient and more reliable for the end user, and just drive value continuously in that way. Well, the customer experience is everything, and it goes to show why Pilot Fiber has been in business for 10 years and growing, dedicated to investing into your network, and also into that customer experience. So, Mike, is there anything else you want to add today? No, listen, it's been a great experience to meet with our partners here in Las Vegas, and thank you for having me again, and look forward to the next time that we meet. Absolutely, it's been my pleasure to speak with you today. Congratulations to everyone at Pilot Fiber for 10 amazing, successful years in the New York City market, and thank you viewers for tuning in to another episode of JSA TV from Channel Partners 2024. Stay curious, stay connected, and happy networking.