Connecting With Others In The Industry ·
This has been a busy week with a lot of key interactions. After having the chance to meet with the AT&T folks on Monday in Atlanta, we had the team from NetAmerica fly up to Arlington today to meet with a number of us and walk through their thoughts and business plan for bringing a 4G play for rural telcos. NTCA would like to see an opportunity in the road ahead for those telcos with spectrum–and those without–to find some mobility services to add to their mix. The one piece that is clear to me is that the independent industry will have to really be willing to find ways to work together and partner together in this effort. I also had the opportunity to head out to Dulles, Virginia yesterday to meet with the board of directors for RTFC, along with Scott Lively and Tammie Logan from our legislative team. The RTFC board has always been so supportive of our efforts and I was thrilled when they surprised me with another generous contribution to the Save Rural Broadband Campaign. They are trying to figure out what their telco lending will look like given the regulatory uncertainty facing the RLEC industry. I also met with some of Verizon’s leadership late yesterday and will be meeting with Frontier tomorrow. This certainly has been a week for touching base with others in the telecom industry and comparing notes on next steps.
Congressman Terry’s Birthday Bash ·
NTCA was a sponsor of Congressman Lee Terry’s birthday bash fundraiser this evening so Leif Oveson and I went to give our best wishes to the Congressman (my gift was to NOT sing to him…trust me, that’s a gift!). The celebration included a “roast” of Congressman Terry from his colleagues on the House Energy and Commerce Committee including Chairman Fred Upton (MI) and Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (OR)…who said that Members of Congress couldn’t be funny? I have greatly appreciated Congressman Terry’s leadership on rural telecom issues so it was nice for us to celebrate with him. Also, it was great to see Montana telecommunications executive Geoff Feiss at the event. Geoff has been great about building and maintaining key congressional relationships out here in Washington, DC. In the spirit of NTCA members really going the distance back in the congressional districts, before the event started, Congressman Terry noted that he had seen the folks from Great Plains three times last week. Leif and I were simply pleased to carry the banner for our Nebraska companies inside the Washington beltway!
Field Trip to Atlanta ·
A number of folks have reached out to see how the discussions with AT&T went on Monday as we journeyed to Atlanta to talk through some potential ways that the independent industry can work with them on getting a 4G build out in rural America. The discussions were relatively productive, although I will say that it was very clear that AT&T’s preference would certainly be to simply buy the spectrum held by RLECs instead of figuring out a business case for partnering. However, we did leave the door open to pull together some models that might be mutually beneficial. To that end, we concluded the day with a meeting of a number of engaged telcos in Georgia to start sharing ideas on what a partnership might look like. We will be looking to have many more of those discussions with NTCA members in the weeks ahead.
Adventure Day in Atlanta ·
I am enroute back to DC after spending the day in Atlanta with my friends at NRTC. We had an interesting meeting with a top official at ATT talking about potential collaboration on LTE. We have some work to do on potential models of how a collaboration, joint venture or partnership might work. Many rural carriers have the spectrum that could be valuable to ATT as they move to pick up their pace on their build out requirements. We also had the opportunity to meet with several Georgia telecommunications providers, with spectrum and without, who feel strongly about the future and the role that wireless will play in their ability to build services for their communities. A ton of food for thought, but my Delta wifi is cutting off for landing!
Walking the Walk With Technology ·
One of our big initiatives over the past year has really been to embrace technology at NTCA. We’ve embraced it internally with a move to Outlook, holding sessions for staff to share their favorite IPad apps and even more with a significant IT reorganization that will focus more on how we get data, use data and update our internal processes. We’ve also been finding ways to use technology better when working with our membership. We’ve been using live webstreaming events to “talk” with our members about some of the more pressing policy issues and to talk about industry priorities. We’ve also had staff connect with NTCA member boards of directors for their monthly meetings by joining through online video chat. This allows us to engage real time, hear what boards are thinking about, answer questions and save a plane ticket! The NTCA board of directors has even pushed us to really step up our technology and we’ve had an online board meeting with video access to everyone…it was like The Hollywood Squares version of a board meeting on all of our computers! Being able to see one another certainly added far more depth to the discussion than just a conference call and didn’t allow any of us to cheat and be doing emails on the computer at the same time – so it kept the discussion focused and more personal. It was really fun for me to see my Board members where they work while conferencing.
