 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcast, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jamie Scott of Kataia of JSA coming to you from Virtual Metro Connect 2021. Joining me today, my good friend Jim Capuano, president and CEO of Horizon. Jim, welcome to JSA TV. Thank you for having me. Oh, we're so excited and it's a big day. Let's get right to it. First off, can you please tell our viewers just a little bit about Horizon? Sure, sure. So Horizon is a facilities based service provider in the Midwestern United States, primarily in Ohio and Indiana. We provide services to like the full spectrum of customers, if you will, I would say from large enterprise to all the way down through to residential services. We also support healthcare and education. So pretty much the full gamut of customer segments. And you have breaking news on the Virtual Metro Connect floor today. The acquisition of another fiber network. Tell us more. I don't want to spoil it. Right. All right. Well, obviously, this is a JSA TV exclusive then, right? So, yes, we do. We're announcing that we've acquired Infinity Fiber of Indiana. So we're pretty excited about this acquisition. Infinity Fiber was originally designed to interconnect the data centers throughout Indiana. And, you know, we see a great opportunity, obviously, just to in that alone to expand. But it also is incredibly complementary to our existing network of assets. You know, primarily today we have a pretty significant fiber presence in the Indianapolis market. So this will actually provide connectivity from there all the way up through Northern Indiana. And across into probably the other big news there is East Ceramics. So it will give us connectivity into, I guess, what I would call one of the nation's most important data centers as well. Oh, yeah. Very exciting. I can see how complementary the networks are. And of course, this is right in line with your aggressive strategy for expansion in the Midwest. So well done. Super exciting news. Also, I know you have continued growth planned in both rural and metro markets in Ohio and Indiana. Tell us a little bit more. Yeah. So, you know, we've, you know, obviously with that, it gives us the, you know, that the connectivity that we just spoke of. But I think it also opens up the door to additional metro markets throughout the region. You know, similar to the ones that we service today, you know, if you will, you know, the Columbus Indianapolis network, but also the Dayton's and Cincinnati's of the world that we have access to today. You know, we'll look for similar markets to continue to expand into. But I think the, you know, the other area that we're spending a lot of capital and effort is in the residential markets. So we're doing a significant fiber the home greenfield fiber, the home build in Circleville, Ohio today. And we see that as like the first of many, you know, we already have a plan to complete this one this fall, but also kick off at least another five this year as well. And so we're talking 100% pure fiber optic networks, of course, and unbelievable access, particularly in Ohio, Indiana, that Midwest region, that's so critical. Can you tell our viewers who might not already know what makes Horizon so unique? Right. Well, I mean, obviously, part of the uniqueness is the fact that we actually do support services into all of these different customer segments. So I guess, you know, in, in terms, it's a lot, right? We have a lot of different, different focuses, if you will. But I think that, you know, when you look at each of them, customer service is always, you know, the kind of the piece that we speak of that, you know, is kind of the foundation to all of it. But I think the other piece that that is important to us, and maybe it's, you know, because of my background in operations, that, you know, the network in the, you know, the components that make up the network are just as important, you know, best customer service is no customer service calls, right? So I think that when you look at the different segments, they all have a little bit of a different need, you know, we're looking at customers that are looking for mission critical networks, you know, they're looking for more consultative support on the front end, you know, it's very engineering centric, there's a lot of work that goes into, you know, the pre sale. And then on the back end of that, you know, they're looking for reporting and additional support. But I think the residential markets is really the other one is that we use technology there to be unique as well. Today, in the markets that we've, we're deploying fiber, you know, we're already trying to support the gig plus, if you will, you know, we believe that the gig standard is, you know, the symmetrical gig standard, I should say, is a real thing. But the future is going to be gig plus. So how do you get, you know, make sure that you have a network prepared to do that? So I think we're, we're, you know, we're well versed by one, making sure that we have direct connectivity wherever possible to customers. And then, you know, providing a more of a dedicated and an access service, as opposed to a best effort product. I think that the one thing that come out that has come out of the pandemic that might actually help our industry is, especially in residential services, people can actually see the quality of their bandwidth for once. So I don't, I think the average consumer now understands that when we say that, you know, why, why symmetrical bandwidth matters, you know, they can see it in their video conferencing and so forth. So, you know, if any one good thing came out of the pandemic, it would be, you know, the, the understanding of the quality of the services that they receive now. Yeah, well said, well said. And so looking at 2021 and beyond, what can we expect from horizon? Right. Well, we already spoke about the plans to leverage the infinity acquisition. And we'll look to use that also to expand it to other metro markets, similar to the ones that we're in today, you know, maybe that look a lot like Columbus or Indianapolis, Cincinnati Dayton, you know, metro markets that we have access into today, to today. But I would also say that we're, we're always looking for additional tuck ins, if you will, you know, acquisitions that give us kind of a, you know, a leap forward, if you will, and deployment. But maybe the most important piece is that we're working on right now is our fiber to the home expansion. So today, we're working on a Greenfield build in Circleville, Ohio, which is a community just south of Columbus, that we expect to complete sometime in the fall. But we've already queued up at least another five markets that will launch this year. So exciting. So many amazing headlines still to come even, not just today, for Horizon. So for our viewers who want to learn more, where can they go? Yeah, you can go to our website at horizonconnects.com. HorizonConnects.com. Thank you, Jim, so much for your time as always. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcasts, our special virtual Metro Connect 2021 edition. Happy networking.