Hi, and welcome to Power the Network.
I'm your host, Tim Locker, vice President of Broadband here at CBM.
I've been looking forward to this one for a while now, and I finally convinced him to come on the show.
And I'm super proud to be able to highlight my local telco, Huxley Communications.
So I'm super excited to have on mister Levi.
Bappy, let's hear what he's got to say.
Levi, thank you so much for joining us today.
I'm glad you made the trip down for us.
Before we get too far ahead, I'm really excited about having you in here today because you know, I'm actually a customer of yours, You're not just a customer of ours, So I think that's awesome.
It's great to be able to talk about our local telco here for a little while today, So I'm happy you made it.
Appreciate the invite.
The you know, your your your phone company, your business really does kind of encompass, you know, small town living.
You know, not a huge company, but serve a lot of good small town communities and and we're glad we can highlight you.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we got a little video that we uh, we came across and I just it couldn't be ignored.
So we're gonna start We're gonna start right off with this video and get some get some thoughts from you.
That's pretty awesome.
Yeah, And so that bike and I have some history.
How I had no idea you were.
I guess my my word would be rad.
That's rat.
That was a great movie.
Yeah.
So I have had that bike since high school.
Uh and uh and had taken the job at Huxifications.
Uh.
One of the gentlemen there, Mike leads, yep has kids, younger kids, and I no longer needed this bike, and so it needed somel and so I hate you know, Mike, do you want this bike?
And so he took it, and he took it to a bike shop kind of had it all tuned up and brought it in the office.
And that was the day he brought it to the office.
And I did that a couple of times on the on the bike and just successfully did it once and uhtically in front of the security camera.
Right.
Yeah.
And so I had brought it off the security cameras and and and the guys at the office put it on Facebook.
So I was assuming that's how you found it, that's how we found it.
Yep.
Funny.
Well that's pretty that's pretty cool.
I had a it was an old predator.
It was pink with white tires.
Uh.
I couldn't do a trick to save my tail on that thing.
I could spin the handlebars around, but I couldn't have I couldn't have done that.
That was a yep yep.
So seriously though, Uh, you know, I'd asked you about your philosophy on leadership and you sent me a note back.
I want to make make sure I get this right, says act like an adult, get treated like an adult.
Yeah, act like a child, and you'd better at least make me laugh.
Yeah.
So you know, when you're talking about leadership and when and whatnot, I don't think I've ever really written down my leadership philosophy before, and so you know when you ask that, I just kind of typed it and that's just kind of what came out right.
But that makes sense.
I think that video shows that you had some you had some onlookers in the background cheering you on.
So yeah, you know, I'd like to have fun, right.
The job can get kind of stressful from time to time, right, and so trying to find something to kind of lighten the environment and have some fun.
That's that's a good thing the job, right, you know, want to make sure that everybody has what they need to be successful, and if they're having issues from time to time, you know, you want to maybe sometimes bring some humor into it.
Yeah, that's kind of what I like to do.
And so try not to be stressed out all the time.
You know, there's kind of a model at our office.
Can't panic.
Don't panic.
You know, it'll take care of itself.
So yeah, I think that's strong advice.
I kind of I kind of leaned towards the humor side of things as well, sometimes to a fault.
Maybe I go too far sometimes, but yeah, I can do the same with that.
With that said, I wanted to ask you, not really, I'm wanted to word it different, not what do you want from your employees?
But what do you want for your employees?
I want them to be successful.
I want them to retire at Huxy Communications.
I don't want to have to replace anybody at at all possible, and so whatever tools they need to to get the job done to be successful.
Hopefully I'm supplying those that need help.
Hopefully I'm there to help.
And because they are all great at if I need help, they're all there from you too.
So yeah, I just want to make sure that they have what they need.
Yeah.
Well, like I said, I know, you know, being part of your actually you know part of the co op.
You know, last year we did some work for you.
It was kind of fun because I got to walk into the office and and get a check from you co operative Jack, and I thought that was that was pretty cool, the little the guys that you know, we're working with us, like what do you?
What do you?
What's going on here?
But uh, so that that's definitely unique.
Uh, everybody loves those co op checks.
But yep, yep, so you started You've actually been at Huxley twice.
You started right out of school, Yep, right out of DMAC when Eric in the college.
Uh took well after high school.
Uh, I hung drywall for a year and decided to do something different the future father in law, I think, uh uh one of his future son in law to do something other than hanging drywall.
Life right, Yeah, so I just honestly got the community college d Max catalog out and started looking through what programs and what they had, uh and had it narrowed down between autobad repair and telecom and I chose telecoms solely because it was cheaper to get into.
UH didn't have a good plan.
Yeah right, I didn't have to spend you know, your daughter body.
It's like it's fifteen, sixteen hundred dollars tools I had to buy, right, Telecom was five hundred bucks, and so yeah, that was that was way better.
And yeah, it was it was.
It was fun industry.
It's been a fun industry.
Yeah.
No, it's certainly a tight knit group, you know, all the way across the country.
It's such a small, small network of folks.
But who was the instructor back then?
Gordon Hotchkiss.
Gordon Hotchkiss, okay, yep, yep.
Which is kind of strange because when I was going through school there, the general manager of Uxy Communications at the time was Bill Hotchkiss.
No relation, and so really I recognize the name, That's what I was about to ask.
Yeah, yeah, no relations.
So that was kind of strange how that all kind of worked out.
But yeah, I started there before I even graduated de Mac.
I was an intern working through the student site, plant stuff construction mainly.
Yeah.
Yeah, so you were there in two thousand and two.
Yeah, so I started in ninety four and went to two thousand.
Okay, okay, I've told this story before, but and I'll tell it again.
It's my age.
Apparently I've my age coming out.
But you know, for us and Slater, you guys, Huxley built the first Fire of the Home network in the state back in two thousand and two.
So you know today that we're all talking about the shortage of broadband and I'm like, well, where's that.
I mean, it's been, right, you know, it's been It's We've been spoiled there for sure.
What do you think, though, in the twenty plus years of Fire of the Home, what's been the biggest change, you know since that first first project back then.
It's just not this is how the speed's changed, you know, the customer's needs have changed, right, faster and faster bronze band.
And then I think it's easier to deploy to a certain extent because of all the past mistakes people have made in the past.
You know, you kind of know what to do going forward.
You know, there's there's technicians in our office that have been five to home against again since the beginning, right yeah, uh and uh just a wealth and knowledge with those guys.
Uh, and so it's it's it's great, right, you know, we don't have to lean on too many engineering consulting firms to do what we need to do.
So uh, it's all about and also building those personal local relationships like with the contractors and you guys like CBM, and so it sure sure eases things.
You know, technology changes, right, all of the products change, and it all should make our jobs easier right as as time goes on.
And for the most part, I think it does so good good services wise, what uh what challenges or I guess what new things are your customers asking for.
I can remember back the old you know, the old team line days, you know, right, Yeah, we phone is not something landline phone is not something that we do a lot of anymore.
You know, we do have our our hardcore customers that can continue to keep their landline phones.
Businesses.
I think businesses will always be somebody that takes landline phones.
Uh.
And so that's that's good.
Right.
Well, back when some of this kind of all started, they were some companies were requiring you to keep the phone and some of this, and you guys opted not to do that, correct.
Can you speak to that a little bit of why?
Uh, you know, it's it's uh, you know that the customers don't want the phone as much anymore, right, Yeah, And the way some settlements work in different things, it made it okay not to offer phone, and so uh it felt like, you know, if the customer just wanted broadband, great, we can just offer broadband.
We don't make them have to have them have all these other services that they don't want, Okay, and so and then broadband has just continued to change.
Yeah, TV, you guys still doing TV services.
We are doing TV still kind of transitioning from one EV product to in the next kind of moving toward and over the top platform.
And that will be kind of an interesting, uh transition to see how some of our customers who I don't want to say technology challenge, but a little bit more technology challenged, right, folks like my dad maybe right to transition to to watching TV over the top.
And so that'll be interesting how that checks out.
Okay, So back then when Fire of the Home was kind of first coming out, uh.
You know a lot of companies would require you know, the customers to still keep a landline uh in order to get broadband.
You guys, you guys want a different route.
Uh what did what was behind that decision?
Yeah?
The biggest reason not to have our customers uh continue to uh require required to have a phone line is to uh uh you know, we're kind of a community based provider, right, and we're all about the community, and in not requiring our customers to pay for services that they don't want or don't need.
Uh, I think is not something that we wanted to continue to do.
And so we just if if they just wanted broadman, great, that's that's what we did for our customers.
Okay.
And then and you guys are doing some television offering, yes, yeah, uh.
Huxy Communications way back in the day had their own cable TV head end, you know, and they transitioned from that to this other platform where they resold a video product from another company, and that individual company has kind of evolved into a new over the top platform, and so we're going to be off where we are offering that program our platform service, and so as customers transition from that old platform, to the new platform being over the top.
We have to kind of help direct that.
We've had.
We've held a couple of sessions for our customers on to try to communicate and teach our customers what over the top is now it's used and our first session we did that at our office.
And what's your biggest challenge there?
Is?
It just people not understanding the technology.
It's change, right, and so you're going from turning your TV on and your TV's on right, bringing up a guide, find what you want to watch, and go into what you want to watch.
Right with this new platform, it's like, you know, TV's are our computers, right, they come up with their operating system.
You have to choose what you want to do, whether it's the Netflix or Amazon Prime or whatever.
Now pick your app.
Yep, now we are an app, and so you have to pick that app and that app passed the load and whatnot, and so once it all lows and everything, it's very similar to normal linear TV and that's great, but it is just some steps to get to watch your TV right.
So that's a learning curve with that.
Okay, yeah, my dad just went through that and I think he lasted about less than twenty four hours he's switched from his dish and and they brought in the over the top and he just was too much.
Yeah, it's kind of funny, you know that the customers, they continued to talk about a la carte TV.
We only watch extra one number of channels, right, and so why do we have to pay for all these channels?
And so that's kind of a fun conversation.
And there was many years ago we went to a session.
It was I one Network Services at the time.
They had their their video product manager said, hey, you guys have Alacarte.
You're just not how you wanted it back and when you can go to Apple TV and spend ninety nine cents for an episode, you know, how more Alacarte can you get?
Right?
And that's not really what our customers are asking for.
But that he had a point.
It's and it's been a while since I've really heard you know, that discussion.
But do you think that'll come back again or no?
You know the fact that there's my belief is that more and more of these programmers are trying to go directly to the customer, just kind of bypass us and in to sell their services.
You know, there there, uh what and things like that, right, yeah, and so I think that's probably gonna just happen more and more.
It will really interesting as content gets more and more expensive, you know it.
So I went through and created a spreadsheet one day of all the applications that I pay for that that I stream and and uh it was well over one hundred dollars a month that I paid for for all the different streaming applications, right and so yeah, I mean I myself personally watched less and less than what I call normal linear cable TV, you know, and it's it's more of the the Netflix shows and whatnot.
And so it'll be I think that'll be to see more of that.
Yeah, okay.
Uh.
A while back, we had Seth Thompson on from KLYX.
Yes, and uh he you know if you watch his daily talks and stuff, he really yeah, Seth dogs he really preaches about, you know, setting yourself apart from your competitors.
Now, you do have competition in your area.
I don't look at it as much competition, but you know there is competition there.
What what is it that you guys do that set yourself apart from your competitors there Oh.
I think it's the fact that we're a locally operated uh C company right where where you can call our office and if you have a trouble ticket, we're hours out instead of days out.
Yeah.
And then when we make out appointments, we're there.
Uh.
And we're not making eight hour appointment schedules.
You know, we're you know, we're on time appointments.
You know, we say we're going to be there at ten, we're there at ten.
Uh.
And so you guys are trained that they're you know, they're the face of the company and their their customer representatives as much as they are if they are a technician yep, yep, uh, salesperson all that stuff.
Right.
They all know the services that we offer and they can up self they need to.
But again, very community minded, community focused uh individuals right, and so uh it won't oversell, uh, which is good I think too.
You know, just just just being honest with our customers I think is a great thing to And then uh, what percentage of their time is just training the end user?
Oh h it could be a couple of hours per per install.
Yeah, you know, if we have a couple of guys go out, you know, like some community on the inside work some of the outside work, and then uh it then like with our TV product, right, you're you're setting up the Amazon fire six of the Roku's and all that, and then you're instructing the customer how to do that.
Are our expert wife, are our resold and managed Wi Fi product?
You can really take the time to nail down.
You get done into the weeds, right, naming it to each individual device that's that's on the network and whatnot.
And so then if they were to have a trouble call, call into our office, if you're on our managed Wi Fi Extra WiFi product, you can we would then be able to see, well, it's this device, you know, it's this old iPhone that's that's dragging your whole network down.
Or it's this Amazon fire sticklet's too far away from the router, It's that's dragging your network down.
We can see that kind of thing.
And so it's if you don't go through the process of the install and don't name these devices.
Sometimes you know, the factory name on that device is not very it's legible.
You know, you don't know exactly what that device is, and so that can be kind of a struggle.
So the install is pretty important, going through naming the devices, understanding having teaching the customer how to use the app things like prontal control and quality service and all that stuff that's built within that app, which is a Collex product, right, and so it's very simple to h to kind of get through that.
And you know, the more the customers get into that app, see are our name on things, it's just it's just better, right, and so hopefully that just sets us apart.
You know, if we're going to communicate or to compete with a company that's providing fiber loan as well, that can make it tougher.
So we you know, we try to, you know, have our customer service be what sets us apart, even if it's not fiber.
You know, in theory gigabits gigabit, you know, if you're get gigabit from the cable TV company, you know, we still think our product is superior obviously, But do you still have a little copper left in the network?
We're zero copper zero we I should I'm sorry, should take that back.
We do have a a chunk of copper for a block coming out of our CEO that goes to a local church does some church service stuff, so it happens to be a six hundred pair cable with like eight pairs being used on it for for church services.
But yeah, everything else, all the normal services are all fiber than home.
I wanted to take a second and explain what is a manufacturer's rep.
You know, it's still funny to me sometimes our role is is often misunderstood.
But in a nutshell, what a rep does is we are a subcontracted sales force for multiple manufacturers.
Are our lines are complementary to each other and not competitive.
And what this does is, you know, it often gives us the opportunity to to sell a full line solution.
So it really brings value to our customer when we can you know, represent product from one end to the other.
We're not a distributor, you know, we work with distributors to get our product to market.
We're really an extension of those factories.
So, just in a nutshell, if you're looking for a great manufacturer rep with years of experiencing great folks, look us up at cbmrep dot com.
What are your customers asking for?
Is there any theme going on now that the you get from anybody or is it pretty you know, I think the fact that Huxley Communications has been doing five with home for so long and has been a law for the higher speeds for so long, I think it's I don't know if there really is that much of it going on.
We're obviously, as a technology evolves, we're looking at beyond gigabit service and so when the customers start asking for that, we'll be able to go two and a half gig, five gig, ten gig, and all the equipment that we're actually installing now moving forward is all the next gen gpon, ten gig, jeepon, and so we'll be able to offer those services now.
In fact, we're looking at in some of our communities just offering the two and nap gig instead of the gig, just to kind of set ourselves apart from the other fiber zone providers.
So we're kind of looking at doing that now too.
Okay, let's take a little minute and brag.
You guys built just an awesome new facility last year office, new central office, you know, big shop, warehouse, the whole deal.
I don't we've had the opportunity to do a little work for you, and I mean the place is beautiful.
Thanks, Yeah, tell us about pulling your hair out through that process.
Well, so, you know, I came back to hux Communications as the general manager just at the end of twenty nineteen and December sixteenth of twenty nineteen to be exact, and you know, I just kind of get in my bearings and seeing what's going on.
And we were in five different buildings, uh in in Huxley.
Yeah, which is you know, I know Huxy is not a huge town, but it you know, there's some efficiencies being under one roof, right, mainly with the employees having the customer care and operations all under one roof.
Is the communication yes, very much so, very much so and so and then in our old office, and again we would have made it work right, but in our old office, the customer care it can get kind of loud.
Eve moved three or four individuals on the phone at one time.
That was you know, you're kind of talking over each other to make sure you hear everything.
And so in our new office, all our customer care actually have offices, which is great, you know, so they can close the door.
It's helpful when you have like private conversations, you know, talking about bills and different things like that, you know, and so it's been great for that and then the technicians.
If you remember our old office, it was that old house, the old house that used to be the city Hall bank fire department.
Clean.
I'm gonna tell you it was.
It was always clean.
Yeah, there's uh.
We were.
We had small offices.
One even had like a vault in it, and there was people using card tables, you know, it was their desk table and whatnot.
And so to be able to give all the technicians around office and get them all under one roof, it's been been a great thing.
Having the storage space for all the equipment and electronics and supplies has been great.
We still have it.
We kept a main street, Main Avenue address, which was important to us because we're just it's just three or four blocks south of our old office in a business park.
And and I think it'll set us up, you know, for the future.
We you know, I was talking about that streaming platform work session we did.
In our new office.
We have an event room.
It's like fifteen hundred square feet with four large displays on the wall.
And then you I think you hosted an event for us.
They're not too long ago, yep.
And so it's been great, different ic A events, we've held, different other community events.
Uh.
Working with the Aims Chamber of Commerce, we've had some events for scheduling for those guys, and so that's great.
Yeah, that's what it's for, right, And so we've had the Huxley Fire Department use it for an evening for dinner, some graduations things you know that we can we can lease the space out to the community as well.
So so that's good.
Yeah, have plenty of room for the annual barbecue now.
Yes, yes, in October co Op Appreciation month.
Uh we uh in our old office, Uh, it was pretty crazy to get you know, parking was everywhere.
Uh, COVID was a lot of fun.
We did a drive through uh barbecue for our customers and uh, the the parking and the and the traffic was crazy.
The new facility we have more space uh and more space inside uh and in order for the people to sit down and we held to uh.
So that was that was great, kind of show the membership what we're doing with the building and whatnot.
Had our annual meeting there twice now.
So it's because we moved in March eighth, had our annual meeting and then we just had our second annual meeting there.
So it's great.
So yeah, it's been it's been great.
Yeah, awesome.
You know your people.
I can't say enough about the people.
Obviously, I've got friends that work there, and you know, I know several people there and several people on your board.
One one thing I was curious though, I noticed you have two separate boards.
Yes, one for business and one for the co op.
Yes, is explain the difference there.
So we have our co op board, which is our traditional, uh where most of our our business is done, kind of thinking, is most of our regulated business.
And then uh, the corporate board, the huxeat Nigation's court board oversees our cable TV and so that's kind of how that was and is just so yeah, we have we kind of hold them the same time.
So we just kind of rolled out the gas board meetings.
But will the need for that second board go away as you do different services or no, you know, I don't think sell out your board members, but I'm just curious of that.
The dynamic kind of caught my attention.
The conversations have been had, but I think it's good to have kind of a separate entity that's for non regulated type business and we've got some things in the works.
I think that we might continue to use that business that that at that company for and so yeah, it well it'll be around for a while, Okay.
Yeah, I just thought that was kind of kind of interesting when you see that that dynamics.
Yeah, the board has been great, you know, that was that's been one of the fun things coming back toward for HUX Communications and working with the board.
Very growth focused and minded and uh, because we've been been doing working on the growth we're at the same time we were building this building.
I also applied for four separate grants for fiber to the home and other locations, right, and was award at all four you know, and outside of your tradition, outside of our traditional territory.
Yeah, and so but all kind of adjacent to our existing boundaries, right, and so just growing our boundaries out and so yeah, that's that's been great.
Well.
Through the empower roll in power roll, I would broadband grant.
Yeah, the NOFA number seven is what we were awarded it.
It's going to get us like fourteen hundred more locations about almost six hundred miles of fiber that we're putting in and then just really sets us up for future growth, you know, kind of around the northern part of Ancony and the southern part of Ames areas that will be growing over through the future.
And so yeah, if you look at you know, just the land you know, in between Anconny to Aims, at some point that's all going to get developed, right, they keep growing and growing.
So yeah, if you're in that position now, it's fourteen hundred new customers now, but I mean it could be countless down the road.
Yeah, yeah, so little bit good.
Yeah, that's a great step.
So one last thing, you drove down here, so we're taping this in Kansas City.
You drove down here in a new electric vehicle.
Yes, tell me a little bit about your experience.
Yeah, So we have two eb vehicles in our office now.
It's kind of like an experiment to kind of see if it's good, you know, good for for operations, operational costs to keep those down on a new building, an old building too.
We actually with solar on the building, right, and so free energy right for the most part.
Uh.
So we have a couple of level two charges in our office and so then for our day to day stuff.
It's great.
We can we could just pull these vehicles in the office, charge them and once a week you know, we're good, you know, charge for six seven hours and we can drive all week long and for pennies, you know.
Right, So this was my first road trip coming down here.
And so ure you the app.
I've a couple of different apps.
You know, you can kind of route plan and it'll tell you where all the ed chargers are.
It'll tell you if you if you if you leave your house at X number on charge on your battery, you can make this charger.
You should have this percentage of battery left, charge to this percentage and then go on to your next destination.
And so I left the house with ninety eight percent charge this morning, made it to Bethany, Missouri with nineteen percent left, about forty miles left on of driving and so arranged anxiety is a little bit of a real thing.
And it's like having your fuelight on all the time, right, and then plug the charger in.
It was was really pretty slick.
I walk up and tap my phone on there because I already set up the account and the charger recognized it right away and staid to start charging.
So I just plugged it in.
Does the app tell you if it's available too, yes, yep, coming up on it yep, yeah.
And so they are both available.
There's two at this particular spot, and so it started charging.
Took forty two minutes to charge.
I think some of the other, like Tesla's, are maybe a little bit faster, which if you get a slow pump sometimes it seems like forty two right, right, So it's a seventy two kilo op battery.
You know more about batteries than I do, and in your line of work, right, but seventy two kilo lot battery.
It was charging at about seventy four kilo what an hour.
A normal level two charger in our office charges is about eleven kilo what an hour, So it takes about could take seven hours to charge a battery from empty.
So it went from nineteen to eighty percent in forty two minutes, and it costs like fourteen dollars for that charge, and then made it to here.
And this facility has as a needy charger out in the parking lot, so that's great.
So it's sitting out there charging right now.
It's a slower charge, like six kilo a lot, so it'll probably only add about, I don't know, twenty twenty five miles to it, but that'll be enough to get me, I think, to Liberty and then I'll probably stop back in Bethany again and then I can make it all the way home from Bethany.
Well, the good news is there's a wind advisory and it's out of the south, so it probably you're I guess it wouldn't be fuel economy, but your your battery economy should be a lot better on the way home.
So yeap, yeah it was.
It has like it tells you what you're getting, and so probably average about two to two point one kill two point one miles per kill a lot, and so I need to be probably at two point eight to get the range that the windowsticker said it was at.
Yeah, So obviously I didn't get the efficiency out of it on the way down here, i'd hope, but still enough to get to where I needed to get to.
When you look at the map and you're driving down the road and it shows all the gas stations and we'll have a different icon for a Nevy charger.
There were not very many of those on between here and Bethany, for sure.
I don't think we have quite the infrastructure yet.
You know, we've talked a bottom on the show quite a bit, and so I was just curious.
I'm glad you.
I'm glad you brought that up and we're able to get a little bit of insight on.
Yes, it's interesting.
It's interesting.
I've I've sat in on I serve for the Iowa Institute of Cooperatives Board as the telephone representative, telecom representative, and there's a couple of representatives on there and they're in the RC MART world, and so to hear them talk about the infrastructure and in what they need to do yet to continue to grow, to be able to support a number of chargers that the government mandate or the I believe is still government mandate to have so many chargers by twenty thirty and so many evs on the road by twenty thirty.
It'll be interesting to see where that even ends up.
Yeah, I doubt we'll get to the percentages that they're wanting, but still some work to do there for sure, and very much so, what what percentage of your day would you say you spend working on the funding.
So during the application process for the seventh round of funding, it was quite a bit.
It was easily more than half of my day working on that.
Right now, in the middle of all the construction, not as much, right so you spend more time just looking at the future rounds of funding to see how they may kind of fit into our network and whatnot.
And so the fact that we're in the middle of our project and looking at BEAD coming out in the future, it's I want more Obviously, independent phone companies applying for that money.
We kind of need the dust to settle, I think in our network a little bit timing and whatnot.
And we are going to get quite a few individual customers through our funding that we got, so in order for us to go after BEAD, We're probably talking less than one hundred customers that I'd be interested in, and even then a lot of those customers.
The way our round of funding was was built on census blocks, and so there's census blocks that we're building to be required to build too, and then there's locations right across the street from that census block that we will build anyway that weren't eligible when we applied for the round of funding that we were we did get awarded that are eligible now for forbid.
We will a probably just build those anyway because it's just put a service drop across underneath the road, right, So infrastructure is there, yeah, right, And so that fourteen hundred locations that NOVA seven is getting us to is actually more than fourteen hundred, right, And so yeah, I just need I need the dust to settle to see what next round of funding to be.
Butter so in your area, though, I got to assume we're probably lower down the scale in terms of priority, you know, from there one to one hundred ranking.
Maybe it could be.
It's it's when you look at the maps the state of Iowa.
You know, maps have changed every round of funding, and they've gotten better every round, which is great, right, But to continue to move forward, and as rules changed, broadband, the definition of broadband changes, you really have to keep those maps up to date, right, And so the State of Iowa, the different organizations and I would have done a great job putting those maps together and working through the challenge process.
I think Iowa was in the whole bad part of it.
In the second step, I think jade on one of your previous podcasts, we're talking about where the Kansas is at with that, you know, they went through their first step and then they're on their second step.
I always I think in about that same boat kind of working through that so we can understand what the challenge processes and stuff are.
And so I think a lot of the locations in our territory that are unserved or underserved are getting closer to being served.
The who was going to be left are going to be the more expensive customers to get to, right, And so that's ultimately the whole problem, right right, Yeah, as that list get smaller and smaller, you know, they get more they get harder to serve.
H it'll it will be interesting when you will you look at those maps and you look at the fact that we're in a pretty populated area you know for for Huxy communications between anc any names.
Uh, there still are quite a few dots on that map that are that are underserved, and so I think it's hard to prioritize one part of the state over the other.
But it's nice, you know when you love be able to look at the map and zoom out.
It's it is.
It can be a little frustrating.
There are quite a few dots they are up on that map, and so the policymakers have a lot of work left to do.
Now, my assumption would be, and I think your philosophy would probably match, but like you're not looking to go to the other side of the state and cherry pick you know, other areas.
No, we're trying to serve your community and things that are you know, touching or surrounding that community.
Do you think there will be somebody that that does go out on a branch and starts buying you know, these we're building networks in all these random places.
Does it make sense as a business.
It's very possible you could possibly lease fiber from other providers to maybe to get to these other areas that you couldn't get to building that middle mile, right, you know, to go from where your network is to wherever you're going to.
I think for us, it's important to continue to have that high quality customer service, and so if we start ranching out so far beyond our boundaries, that quality of service, that customer service might start to degrade.
And so, uh, it's a it's a balance of and I would think most of the independence in our area would probably agree with that, right, probably probably, Yeah, Iowa is you know, it is unique, you know the amount of independent owned companies are in Iowa.
But yeah, it's great.
Uh.
I think we all pretty much have the same philosophy to serve our customer the best we can and with the best services we can.
So well, that's why you guys are tough to beat, so we try.
Yeah.
So we talked about bead funding and you mentioned letting the dust settle.
But you know, you guys have always been forward thinking.
I've said it before, but you know you you did one of the first five of the home projects in the state.
You've been ahead of the curve.
You know what's next.
So the beauty of having fiber in the ground right that that medium is going to be able to grow as long as the equipment can control can grow to go beyond the one gigs up to two and a half gig, five gig, ten gig as our customers needs demands grow, but also assests us apart from the larger wireless carriers.
Once uh, one of those carriers get to a gigabit, we'll already be at the two and a half gig once or beyond right, and so it's important for us to uh not play catch up but always kind of and not necessarily be on the bleeding edge as well either.
Yeah, but uh just always just be what our customers need when they need it.
That's a great way to put it.
Well, awesome, h once again.
I you know, I just want to thank you for making the trip, coming down and being on the show.
And uh, you know, it's great to be part of your cooperative and you know, we got nothing but good to say about about Huxley, so I appreciate it and we we enjoy the partnership with CBM as well.
So awesome, thank you, thank you, thanks again for joining us today.
I really appreciate Levi joining us on the show.
I hope he makes it all the way back up to the Morn with his electric vehicle.
If not, I'll be running a generator up to save him.
But nonetheless, thanks again Levi for joining us.
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