 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Laura Nolan coming to you from ITW 2020. Joining me today is Mike Severit president of SouthReach Networks. Welcome to JSA TV Mike. Thanks for having me Laura. Appreciate it. For those who don't already know could you tell our viewers about SouthReach Networks? Sure. So SouthReach Networks is a Florida-based fiber infrastructure provider. Very unique in the sense that we actually own and operate both a long-haul and metro fiber backbone spanning the east coast of Florida but we also own and operate a few key data centers. Regen, Edge Pops and also a key data center based in Miami in the one of the carrier hotels at 36 North East Second. Wonderful, wonderful. So I understand that you have some exciting news, some exciting acquisition news. Sounds like that you've acquired a Florida-based fiber and co-location assets of resurgence infrastructure groups. So what does that mean for SouthReach? Yeah it's exciting times. Exciting times during a crazy time in our world to actually you know be working on an acquisition which we successfully completed and announced in early May. So SouthReach acquired the Florida based assets of resurgence infrastructure group which was the original former assets of allied fiber. So we acquired the Florida-based network from Jacksonville south to Miami with five of their co-location facilities which are Regen Hutz and Micro-Edge Pops. We're excited about it because now what it does it just really solidifies our network from a you know South Florida reach. So it gives us over 400 miles of network, 100% underground assets, new fiber, multiple on-net key data centers and subsea landing stations. So now we have a you know more robust infrastructure network and we're really excited about what you know we're able to do with this going forward. And coming off the heels of that announcement just in time for ITW, SouthReach announces more growth news this time the addition of an industry veteran Dexter Cartwright. Tell us about the new addition to your team and his role. Yes very excited to to have Dexter join the team at SouthReach as a key executive both handling financial, chief financial and chief strategy. You know both sides of the house Dexter has a as a you know his career speaks for itself in his long history with cable wireless and cable Bahamas very long list and not only does this Dexter bring magnitude of experience in from from cable landing to subsea to large cable operator experience but you know he's a South Florida resident for many years knows the landscape well knows our network well and really is you know we're excited to have him we're lucky and fortunate enough to have him to help us you know take our expansion and take our vision to you know kind of SouthReach networks 2.0. Well as you were saying earlier 2020 has surely thrown us for a loop but with everything going on it hasn't stopped SouthReach networks and our industry from growing and innovating so tell us what's on the horizon for SouthReach for the rest of the year. Yeah it's a great question or I mean obviously we've all you know everyone in the world has experienced some some very you know scary and you know crazy times and with all that everyone has adapted and in their own way to you know change the way they live and work and with that we we've happened to we're going through a middle of an acquisition during when COVID hit and we were locked down so very very interesting times to try to navigate to change the working landscape and also to complete an acquisition but with all that right what what's making the world you know continue to operate at a very efficient you know level capacity it's been telecommunications infrastructure you know fiber data center cloud right that's the tower able to communicate and it's been fantastic so with all that we've see a more of a important emphasis on infrastructure now more than ever with increased capacity bandwidth really a lot of customers now really looking at their business continuity plan more than ever so for us looking forward 2020 and 2020 on its continued growth I mean we are looking to be you know Florida East Coast Florida in general very specific niche nimble fiber infrastructure builder operator of dark fiber really focused on our Caribbean and Latin markets you know subsea our customers base there and in data center space when we own operate you know the data center Miami which is a global reach meeting room that we own operate and we also have you know multiple multiple facilities up and down the East Coast so we're looking at you know continued growth possible other bolt-ons and roll-ups if they make sense for us but now that we have over 400 miles of fiber network you know fully deployed we're excited about you know growing the team growing the product-based and letting everybody know that you know South Reach Networks 2.0 is ready for ready for business definitely more to come from South Reach Networks that's for sure we'll be watching appreciate that well thank you Mike thank you for joining us and sharing with us today we appreciate it now thank you appreciate the time and thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcast happy networking