 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Lauren Oland in sunny Miami, Florida for Metro Connect USA 2022. Joining me today is Mark Adams. He is the Chief Development Officer for 3RED8. Welcome to JSA TV, Mark. Thanks, Laura. It's great to be here. For our viewers, could you tell us about 3RED8 and the meaning behind the name 3RED8? I get asked that question a lot, but 3RED8 is a new national fiber optic network. Actually, we're digging a network from coast to coast and border to border. So ultimately when it's built, we'll be going from North Carolina to Los Angeles and from North Dakota down to the Gulf of Mexico. So very, very large new fiber optic network that we're building. And the name 3RED8, it actually refers to the holy grail of network design. When you want to build a network, it should be a triple redundant figure eight network. And that's eventually where we want to get to. Ah, very catchy. Well, thank you for sharing that, Mark. We appreciate it. I want to dig a little deeper about the network itself. So America really hasn't had an open access full fiber network in over 30 years. And that's caused some gaps that you've noticed. So what are you doing to fill those gaps and then have an impact on the industry? That's right. So the US hasn't had a network on this scale since really the early 90s constructed. And what it means is the demand hasn't gone away for this amount of fiber, right? So we saw a presentation today. There's in about eight years, they're talking about half a billion connected devices. That needs so much fiber and there just isn't that amount of fiber available today. So we plan to obviously fill that gap, but also we plan to support and enable communities along our routes because there's still it's a digital divide in the US I believe it or not. I mean, kids still don't have like the right amount of internet access to do online home home study and things like that. COVID's really exposed that. So we're super focused about enabling new ISPs and other people who want to build last and middle mile networks off our core network to hopefully close some of that gap. Wonderful. Well, tell us about some of the news coming out of three red eight and what we can expect to see even throughout 2022 and beyond. Yeah, so very exciting. So our phase one construction is starting very soon. So our phase one goes from Ashburn in Virginia down to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. It's a very popular route. We will start digging that in the next six to eight weeks. So very, very exciting and expected ready for service is the end of next year. So it's going to be a very fast build. A lot of construction going on will be very busy but hopefully the schedule sticks. Okay, we'll be watching for sure. Let me ask you about Metro Connect. Is this your first time here? It is. Yeah, fantastic. Really, really having a great, great show. Yeah. A lot of meeting of the minds, talking about industry trends. So is there one trend in particular that you're keeping your eye on? Well, look, obviously, you know, digital infrastructure is having its moment. I mean, COVID has really shown that. So obviously what we're doing is 100% validated and also things like the edge as well. Like people are trying to figure out or finally figuring out what that means. I think this year will be all about defining that. Maybe next year they'll start to make money from it but definitely the edge, very exciting stuff. Excellent. So where can our viewers keep up-to-date, follow along with your expansion news, with 3.8 and everything else that you have going on? Yeah, glad you asked. I think our website's getting refreshed overnight. So 3.8.com, brand new experience there from tomorrow. So looking forward to that. Go check that out. Well, thank you so much, Mark, for joining us. Thank you. Cheers. And thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA Podcast. Happy networking.