Craig Corbin:
Welcome to another edition of the Broadband Bunch along with my colleague, Brad Hine. I’m Craig Corbin. Thanks so much for joining us today. For nearly seven decades Adams Telephone Co-Operative has maintained its status as a preferred provider of communications services by adhering to a core mission that’s been in place since day.
Commitment to customer service. Fiber Optic Services became part of Adam’s portfolio during the past decade and their innovation led to the creation of a platform specifically designed to meet the needs of Broadband providers providing next-generation services from initial planning, through designing, building, selling, managing, and driving growth. CheckPoint Solutions serves as a single point of operational coordination. Our guest today has been part of the team at Adams since 1993, and also has served on numerous boards and committees at the local regional state and national levels. Joining us today to talk about this transformational platform, the CEO of Adams Telephone Co-Operative Mr. Jim Broemmer. Jim, welcome to the Broadband Bunch.
Jim Broemmer:
Well thank you for having me, Craig, and I’m excited to join you and Brad today to talk about what we’ve got going on.
Craig Corbin:
Absolutely. And it is such a success story for so long and a phenomenal tradition and legacy that’s in place. Before we launch into more specifics on today’s topic for those that don’t know the Adams Telephone Co-Operative story. Take us through that if you would please sir.
Jim Broemmer:
Adam’s Electric Co-Op has been around for 69 years. So it’s been fun seeing how it’s evolved over the years, but we were founded back in 1952, actually March 20th, 1952 by a neighboring electric co-op called Adams Electric Co-Op. And from the early beginnings, they moved around five employees into this organization, we’re now close to 120 employees, so a lot of change over the years, and that number’s come down, gone up and it evolves. But back in the early days, we had multiple regional, very small telephone companies around our area here. And early on we started taking those telephone companies and ended up joining to become who we are today, a 13 exchange I luck telephone cooperative and that was early beginnings.
And you look back in the days when copper was put in those, that copper facility lasted for 50 plus years it was a tremendous necessity and boom for our area, getting that those services in place for our neighbors and our co-op members. And we had that for many years and then all of a sudden other things started happening, becoming available to us as a telecommunications company than just a telephone company, but eventually telecommunications all the way around. But in 1983 we started looking at cable TV services in our area that was the up and coming service and there was a big need there. And so we looked at that wind upbringing cable TV service to Tink communities in our service area. And that was a part of our operation for many years.
And then in 1995, we saw the opportunity with divestiture in our industry. I think all of us look at how we serve our customers better in our case members. And we got in the long-distance business. So it became an etc started doing those types of things and went in and contacted. All of our current members, got over a 90% of them take our long-distance service. And as we all know, they used to be a big part of how we communicated, not so much today, but times change, but that was a big part of our business back then. But when the exciting things, as we got to our etc status, we could be eligible telecommunications carrier to give us other capabilities as we looked forward to the future. And with that, we ended up in 1995 getting in the internet business for the first time.
Craig Corbin:
And that’s a big jump.
Jim Broemmer:
Oh yeah, big jump. We kept scratching our heads, how we get into this new thing coming out? Exciting thing is we were the first one to bring it to our region, even to, the biggest city next to us that was another carrier’s community. But we brought the service there but we started looking how we do this. And you guys were always funny when you go in these CEOs, a city stack of modems, and how the lions were set up and the whole dialogue started. And I couldn’t even tell you how many modems we had and all the different central offices throughout our region for people to dial into that.
But it was an exciting time which is figuring out who’s going to take the lead on that project. Our marketing lead at that time got involved. And all of a sudden she became the lead on this project. And we just worked our way through the process. It was a learning process for all of us and it was quite interesting but it’s amazing where that whole broadband has gone and what we’ll talk about that era shortly. But in our prime, we got up to over 13,000 dial-up customers. And we were the top dial-up provider in the area and it was all great. And whoever would imagine would need more bandwidth than that down the road. But it was a great service at the time. And then in 2000 many companies, different incumbent telephone companies to be part of different cellular partnerships and things we actually got out of our partnership.
And we really thought at that time that the future was wireless period. And that’s how we were going to serve our deep rural areas for Adams. And so we started up our own cellular business. It’s called several different things. The last thing our company is we did our last branding was the Cemetery Wireless. And that really took off for us, went great. We were the premier cellular provider here in the region but of course, you had to rely on all the other carriers for roaming needs and those types of things we’ve got out of your network. And we knew we had a certain number that we needed to hit to make that business plan successful. I tell you, we got all the way up to that number, and all of sudden this thing called the iPhone came out and we know the history of the iPhone and how that was locked down to one particular carrier.
And we it stymied the business. And so we hit the threshold that we really needed to sustain for the term to stay in that business. And if you guys remember the old Motorola Razr phones, they were sleek at the time. Cool looking fun colors. And we were getting these phones from all over, even Europe. And they were the rage, was funny to see the kids back then they’d have their regular phones comparing this one.
Craig Corbin:
I still got one in a box somewhere.
Jim Broemmer:
I think I have two or three at home. I just couldn’t part with them. I had to have them for historic reasons. But no, it’s it was a crazy business. It was a fast-growing, that’s where we really saw, we thought we were going to be for the long term. And with that you look back at that time we knew that we saw the demand for broadband changing, and we decided to really focus in zero in, on fixed wireless broadband.
And we got to a place we had over 30 plus fixed wireless sites throughout the region. And from dial-up to that, that was the next big jump. And we use licensed spectrum. We use an unlicensed spectrum to deal with interference issues. I tell you it was fun. It was just fun but it was interesting as back in the day, I remember one time there was a carnival that came into a community and they parked their campers. And all of a sudden somebody throws on a baby monitor and it happened to be on the same frequency as one of those sites. So we had unhappy customers. And I think we became really more private investigators in that business sometimes. And we’d go out and try to figure out where that signal is coming from. And then we got to a point some of our staff would have cash in their paint in their pocket and have to figure. And so they finally find the location it was coming from. They knock on the door say, wait buy your baby monitor. So we were in the baby monitor business.
Brad Hine:
That’s hilarious. Jim, one of the challenges that a lot of the folks on the Broadband Bunch describe as the revolving between different services that they’re aware that their community needs and the technologies to run them, especially brand new services. So you talked about getting in the cellular business, which obviously leads to having equipment on towers and then fixed wireless broadband, probably TV in there somewhere. It sounded like you’re setting yourself up for the long haul in the wireless business, in a rural area, which is fabulous. Tell me some of the challenges that you had trying to get over that hump into that wireless business there, technologically.
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. One of the things being involved in that cellular partnership back in the day, I mean, we saw the fruits of those I’ll say investments back then and I really saw what licensed broadband could do. But of course, back then it was pretty tough to get into a license platform. So, we really dove headfirst into the unlicensed spectrum and we dabbled a little bit everything. I think the challenge was where was the technology and how fast was it moving to make it last enough. And we know that the bigger carriers are the ones that drove that technology in a lot of cases. So it was a lot of trial and error, I think when we were in the fixed wireless business and we just shut down our last site, I think early this year. We probably changed even that equipment out three to four times over the years, we had it up.
So you’re talking over probably a 10 or probably longer than that, 13 year period. And so that was the challenge is you could put back in the day, a lot of customers on a sector, on a site. And we were making good money back then. All they were doing was checking emails and just basic browsing. And as time evolved through as that product aged with this, I shouldn’t say streaming at that point, but early on, it was just all the videos popping up on general websites. People showcase their products and services and so forth. And we started to see the challenge because of the capacity issues. So I think back in the day, we’d load up on one sector, a hundred customers today or a hundred plus. And today you’d be lucky to load up 25 that are doing any streaming and it’s still not be happy.
Craig Corbin:
Wow. I remember that you guys mentioned the Razr phone. I was so proud of my razor phone because you can flip it up and there are some graphics on the front I would tell you who would call. And then when the iPhone came out, the video that we could share on our iPhone over, I think at the time, I think my first iPhone, was it 2G? Maybe it was 2G. And so as we evolve through the different networks, clearly, there’s more of a demand for just a tiny device like that, that you guys were saying.
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. So, I mean, that’s of their business, no question, you couldn’t keep up fast enough with the phones and the network upgrades you had to go through from 2G, 3G, LTE, now 5G. It’s just never-ending stories with that cap-ex and that business.
Brad Hine:
You were creating broadband services for all this. And then of course, years ago the streaming stuff started to happen. So over wireless how did you account for that?
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah, so when that started happening, we realized we’d had to put up more sites, which created a challenge from interference on the spectrum channels on this wireless equipment, whether you’re talking licensed or unlicensed. One of the things we did is we got in the 700 megahertz auction and went picked up spectrum there. So we started moving some of our customers over that platform to try to manage some of that bandwidth demand. But as we kept looking at this whole fixed wireless broadband solution, we found out real quick at early on, we used to be the white knight, if you will, in our communities and provide service where nobody could get.
Anything and all said we changed from a white Knight to the day gone internet company that surfaces that good anymore. And that was very frustrating because it changed overnight, not because of us but because of the usage of consumers, which was understandable. That’s where we really started zeroing on us, you know what? We need to rethink this thing. What is the future to try to get in front of this bandwidth consumption challenge? That’s where we really started diving in or focusing on fiber and trying to start serving areas with fiber.
Brad Hine:
Yeah. It sounds like you’re always trying to be on the leading edge there. And obviously, we have a lot of stories out there today with Hybrid Networks with fiber to the X, fiber to the home, some fixed wireless here and there. So you guys made a commitment to go fiber to the home at that point and shift off of the broadband wireless technology?
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah, as a co-op, we’re here for the long term, not just the short term. And so one is we got to take care of our members, but we also live in and have our daily lives in these communities around us as well. So it was, how do we take our cooperative values for our members but also try not to leave anybody behind the other areas that we serve? So we’ve tried to really balance that issue from a purpose and then a financial component to the financial side of the business. But 2006 was our first true jump in fiber to the home. We actually did a partnership with Corning back in the day. They had a flex snap platform or product where you go and put cable up on poles, telephone poles, cable poles, et cetera.
And then you just, basically, it’s a connector ISE system. You plug in the drop all the way to the house. You have to measure it, and they run it to the house. And we did that pilot project to communities. We did one to 2006 and the other 2007. And that was really a great experience for us, just to see how the technology worked, the robustness of it. Because before that, the only fiber we had in our network, was a four fiber count fiber that had been basically connecting all of our telephone central offices and all of our shades. And it was fun about that is that happened back, I can’t remember the exact date, but it’s many years before this. And back then the US, we weren’t getting a loan to build assets.
You don’t need any more fiber that’ll take care of you for the rest of your life. You’re good. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” Because it was very costly back then and I know you don’t know what the future necessarily brings. So, 2006 was our first jump, 2007 was Clayton. Those were outside of our co-op territory. And that went very well. And then we decided that we really need to zero in, that fixed wireless was not going to be our end all be all for our co-op members for business. And so that’s when we started jumping in and really getting after trying to fix or put a long-term solution in, for our co-op members. And that’s when we started our fiber build in our co-op or in our eyelet territory.
Craig Corbin:
That’s awesome. You’re listening to the Broadband Bunch, our guest, Jim Broemmer, CEO of Adams Telephone Co-Operative. Broadband Bunch brought to you by Utopia fiber DX Tel, Calex, ITK, and by ETI Software Solutions. Jim, you were just on the cusp of talking about one of the next innovations in that transformational process. And when we made mention earlier in the conversation about CheckPoint Solutions and what that does, obviously there was a need for a lot of what it now provides, but what was the Genesis for what is now that CheckPoint Solutions platform?
Jim Broemmer:
And it’s perfect timing with what I just finished talking about our co-op. So we completed our co-op and due to, the regulations that are out there and how we have to operate within this regulated business and the high-cost side of it, as an organization strategically, we’re thinking, where do we go next? What do we do next? And our whole thought was, we got to look for longevity for this organization. How do we continue this business going forward, make sure our members are staying current for the long term? And so we decided we needed to continue to expand on that edge outside of our business as we call it outside of our ILEC. And one of the things that we realized guys is, the days of trying to move fiber forward into other areas we couldn’t do it based on gut.
We couldn’t do it based on a conversation at the grocery store or at wherever we’re at the hardware store and the community. We need to start recognizing and realizing where our data points are and where the real opportunities are. So that’s where the checkpoint really got started. We actually built this for ourselves to manage our business. We were done managing by spreadsheets, got all those other pieces. And so we thought we got, we got to have solid data points to operate our business going forward. And so the first thing we did is we realized a lot of people don’t know their address and we need an address to know exactly where they’re at. So if I’m at a grocery store and I got 10 people walk up to me, so I’d love to have your service. I come back to you, I’ll say, “Hey, we’ve got 10 people. Great. Where are they? Oh, crap. They’re 20 miles between each of them. How are we going to make that happen? We’re done with wireless. So we decided we needed data points, GIS data. So we loaded up our system with all the areas we were looking at and even not the areas we’re looking at but just the area of the region in general because you don’t know where those opportunities are. So we started using that in the areas that we wanted to really zero in on. We started marketing in those areas. And before we even go there, I guess the thing is, is our first testbed of this is we had an area, we were actually taking fiber to a cell site, went back past the small subdivision going to it. And so we started really testing that market there, finding out what, what the demand is, what the need is, figuring out our business plan, how we’re going to market, how we’re going to go after this?
But we developed checkpoint that to actually start being on the front end, to collect that data who hasn’t got the data points, we develop, what the cost is for that region or that area fiber hood, as we call them to get the data points there, promote to those data points and have them sign up. And then if we got a nice enough signup, then we start the process of having actually first interest was what we collected. And then we did signups to find out what services do they want? What’s, what’s the real revenue opportunity for us. And then we put that revenue against the cost to build the infrastructure and formulate a business plan. And we wanted to automate all this stuff. And so we went through that process and a lot of tweaks. It’s like the mad scientist. You’re looking at this like, yep, that looks good but I really need to know this and we need to change this on our marketing approach. And it really transformed our business and how we operate.
Craig Corbin:
Wow. That’s awesome.
Brad Hine:
Wow. Jim, you mentioned 911 data. So I’m familiar, you’re speaking my language because I’ve spent the last 10 years analyzing location data and GIS data for telecommunications and electric co-ops in the industry. But it’s interesting that first step starts with a location point, a physical address that you can get in a spreadsheet, maybe an X and a Y coordinate, which gives it a physical place on a map that you can look at. Tell me how important that is in that process because I think what you’re talking about is moving away from a spreadsheet format into potentially a more visual format. Once you get a digital location you start using 911 data and maps.
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. There’s no question that Brad, we looked at how we’re going to tackle business. There were really two key pieces. One is having solid locations and even just capturing those locations also understanding what are realizable which are real homes that are there versus not, those types of things, but that data is critical to know if you have a business plan or not. Because we go to our banker and say, “Hey, we’d like to borrow some money to go build fiber.” Their first thing is how what’s your payback, what’s that model look like? And without those data points to know exactly, we want to go build that fiber hood and get funding to go do that. Without that, our bank’s not going to give us money on a wing and a prayer.
And so we would need to have that solid data. So that GIS enables us to pin that individual location down, know what that revenue looks like for that location. It truly put it against a cost and the other big investment besides the GIS data and capture location is designing what that fiber build is going to look like in that area. And that fiber hood, we got to have the hard cost, what that looks like for the, I’ll call it distribution fiber and that fiber hood, and then the drop costs with that and then put formulas together to calculate what that cost looks like. So the two in tandem is what enables us to truly understand what a business opportunity is.
Brad Hine:
Well, you’re starting to define. So as we define all this digital location data looking at in a GIS world. You’re starting to get into a world of platforms then. So of course we have to overlay things like subscriber data because we’re always dealing with subscriber data, contact info, the services, even the devices in their home. So how did you wrap all this together in a system and are using a platform for this today?
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. We’ve got some very talented individuals and organizations that I’m very proud of and we develop something like this from scratch. I think the answer without question is yes, but we understood that we really needed a solid base and we didn’t want all of that, all sitting on a platform we developed and having to have some of that core stuff in-house and have concerns about what happens to somebody, gets hit by the bus if you will. Those types of issues, it’s traditional business concerns. So we looked searched and we found a base platform to put our CRM on that we’ve developed. And when you look at it’s, I think the world’s leading CMR platform and that Salesforce. We did a partnership with salesforce.com to leverage all the features that it has and its platform.
And we actually stripped down their CRM rebuilt it and repurposed it for our industry and the needs we have for the growth of our business itself. And that was the base of how we got started on this. And the interesting thing is for us kills is critical for our longevity. And we got to get a customer base that we can have for the long term and we try to work with vendors and they couldn’t get there fast enough, specifically in our industry. And so we felt like we had to take our future into our own hands because of times of the essence. And as more people build fiber infrastructure so costly, it’s almost going to be impossible to build it in the future against competitors doing the same thing.
Brad Hine:
You mentioned an interesting thing. You said future a couple of times. So the strategy to future proof what you’re creating today and it lives a long time and decades into the future, and you don’t have to go through any maybe painful conversions or projects in the future for that. So you’re clearly setting yourselves up for the future with more open software, integrating it to a platform. It’s going to be around for a long time. Talk a little bit about vendors that come in, you deal with. Partnering is so huge in this space but you clearly know everything that’s going on in your footprint now because you’ve started to develop this. How do you see vendors fitting into that and starting to collaborate with you?
Jim Broemmer:
Collaboration is a big part of this. The thing that with the platform we’ve developed, that’s now used by several companies throughout the US because they saw the same need. We’ve moved forward and trying to figure out how we work with different companies. And so there are different billing platforms out there that we’ve integrated with because data is one of the core arteries of our business. You’ve got your infrastructure, you’ve got your billing system which has all your data in it. Those are the two key arteries for the business. And then how do you integrate that in to become more efficient? So the thing we’ve done with this platform, we’ve plugged it into scheduling systems. We’ve plugged it into things such as automated signatures for contracts.
There are multiple vendors out there DocuSign’s example. There are different ones that are out there that we do work with as well. So the integration of this platform with other vendors is important because we want to make our operations as efficient as possible. And frankly, we want our customers to be able to be engaged and do business with us the way they want to do business, not the way we want to do business. So there’s a lot of integrations, whether on the customer-facing side of it or on the backside, back into our systems with our different vendors we work with internally. So integration’s a big part of this. And our team spends quite a bit of time focused on that.
Brad Hine:
You, make a great point in that you do business the way your customers want you to do business, which speaks to all your great reviews on customer service that I know. It’s clear that you saw the future and you saw a vision for data for tracking data in a remote fashion. So you can see your footprint through a GIS platform, use a popular CRM. This data train is taking off. I mean, people just have to get on board and you saw that vision.
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah, no question, with our businesses today, not that we had this ability, we could do this in the past, but we can’t afford mistakes with the type of money we’re talking about with this fiber investment. And we’ve got to have a solid investment as we can. So we’re always trying to figure out how do we align ourselves with organizations, vendors, et cetera, that is planning for the future that can help us keep driving our business? And this is no different than what we’ve done here with our data points. Without data, I don’t think we can run our business in the future years and especially with our industry, as things change, especially for the incumbent telephone companies. If the funding process has changed dramatically we’ve got to evolve. And I think we have evolved from a traditional monopoly to a true business operation inside of our company.
Brad Hine:
That’s so fascinating to hear your evolution into this and that. This software now has been reshaping your organization but other organizations in terms of what staff you need to run a business. It sounds like you’re allowing other companies now, other ISP you’ve sold CheckPoint Solutions to be a bit more effective and efficient in their own businesses.
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. we’ve got over 50 plus companies across 21 states now using the platform because they saw what we were doing. We’d have conversations in the hallways at meetings, things such as that. And I’m like, “How did you do what you’ve done so quickly?” And it’s because, we went through blood, sweat, and tears developing systems and a platform for ourselves to use. And so we’re an operator trying to operate a business. So we’ve got another little special insight into what we’re doing. And the thing is we can tweak it and adjust it as we go. So we’ve done that.
And when you talk about working with ISPs we worked with ISPs trying to grow existing territories, new markets, self-funded bills, grant-funded builds, and in a way, they can utilize this platform for whether it’s deploying fiber traditional cable networks where those have upgrades in them and capabilities and even wireless when you’re looking at propagation. So some really cool things that we’ve been able to utilize this platform for other companies as well as ourselves. And it was interesting is I actually run two telephone companies. So I didn’t have anything to do at Adams. So I thought I’d get involved in another one.
Craig Corbin:
Needs something else to do.
Jim Broemmer:
That’s right. And what was running us is, when we developed this platform and being engaged with the second co-op we took this same system and that organization is growing by leaps and bounds as well using it. So, we really were able to have two real-time experiences with what the capabilities of the platform is, which is really helped us work with other companies and we can tweak other business. Every company has a different size of staff, their approach to markets, how they market, these types of things. And I think everybody has their areas that operate differently from how their consumers react and act. So, very, very exciting as we see the success stories of companies using this as well.
Brad Hine:
I was drawn to one thing that you said in terms of your customer service and in trying to define your business model in terms of automating and a lot of the remote management you do to be more efficient. But you mentioned locking in one of your subscribers’ prices for life. Now, is that a long-term strategy for you, and how is that even achieved?
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah, so again, trying to forecast be forward-thinking and strategic organization. Our approach on this is because of the cost of the infrastructure because of how robust it is and how confident we are in what we’re doing. When we go in our markets as Adams, one of the things we do is encourage people to take the leap of faith. Come join us, utilize our service. We think it’s a great service. And what we’ll do is we’ll go and say, here’s the deal. If we want to do business with you like we would want to be done with us as individuals. We’re not going to have a contract on your broadband. We’ll lock in your price for life, as long as you live at that location. And all we ask is if you do want to leave our service, at least have a conversation with us. Let us see what the issue is.
If it’s an issue on ours, of course, we’re going to fix it. But when we find it in a lot of cases, guys is because of the nuances and challenges with devices, old devices in the house, and so forth, a lot of times it’s just Wi-Fi issues. It’s not the service side of it. And so we don’t want to do anything to create a bad experience with our customers. We feel so strong. It’s that good that we’re willing to go that far with it. And I can tell you since we’ve started that, which goes back several years now, our churn is little to nothing. And it’s usually a 90 plus percent of it is somebody moving out of the area.
So we have very little churn and we stand by our product. And on that forward-thinking side, we’ve also made a point to have multiple connections to the outside world that we control that we get to, in our case, being in West Central, Illinois, St. Louis, Chicago, there are other metropolitan areas we’re looking for more connections. We have multiple routes to all those core data center locations. We peer directly with the big boys. Some of them have servers in our network to make sure that the customer experience is spot on. So, we’ve really tried to be in front of this to be successful in the long run.
Craig Corbin:
Well, and it’s obvious Jim, that you guys are doing a phenomenal job with that effort and the transformational difference that the CheckPoint Solutions platform is making not just for Adams but for so many other providers across the country. As we wind down our visit this has been phenomenal. I know that Brad you’d agree. We definitely need a second opportunity to visit with Jim and talk about so much but one of the questions we like to ask of all our guests is the one we refer to as the back to the future question where if you could hop in the DeLorean, pop yourself back X number of years, is there anything that you would whisper in your own ear that would perhaps change the timeline or trajectory of what has been done there at Adams?
Broadband Lessons Learned
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah, guys, that’s a great question. Going back, I honestly can say, I don’t know if I would change anything. As being a progressive company we’ve gone through the evolution it’s been great for me. I came to the organization when we were just a plain old telephone service provider and we were in the cable TV business. And I’ve been blessed to be engaged and part of this organization through all these other iterations we’ve been involved in. And frankly, they’ve made us who we are. And when you go back and you look at the talent that’s been involved in this organization which, whether it’s been those who have moved on or retirees and you look at the talent, the team we have today, I don’t know if I change anything. It’s part of what makes you who you are and has set us up for great success in the future. And our goal is to, of course, make sure this organization is strong and is here when we all go. And I don’t think I’d change anything.
Craig Corbin:
That’s awesome. And Jim, you just answered my next question, the flip side of that, looking into the crystal ball for the future anything you would add to that?
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. I think as you look at the future. I think we just need to stay in front of this thing. We want to stay on the leading edge but not the bleeding edge and not the bleeding edge that you’ve heard in other times. But our business is going to continue to evolve, I think faster than it has in the last five years. And it’s been crazy the last five years. When you look at devices you look at how things continue to evolve. There are things we can’t even imagine today that we’re going to be seen our grandchildren and so forth in the future. So just trying to put those networks in place to support that, it was fun. A couple of years ago at our annual meeting, once things are brought up for show to our membership was a piece about the Jetsons. And when you look at the technologies, and I remember being a youngster watching that, and I thought, oh, those are cool. That’d be nice to be able to do that. And you look at how many things that we have today that really tied back to what they were showing on that TV show. It’s like, holy crap what’s the Jetsons today and where’s that technology’s going to be tomorrow. And so I think we’ve got exciting times in front of us and our crystal ball is making sure that we’re prepared for those things. And I think we’re doing great things to be there.
Craig Corbin:
That’s fantastic. Jim Broemmer, CEO of Adams Telephone Co-Operative. So glad to have had you as a guest here on the Broadband Bunch, a fantastic visit. Thanks so much for sharing what has been done there with Adams and also the CheckPoint Solutions platform. Can’t wait for the next visit.
Jim Broemmer:
Yeah. Craig, Brad. Thank you. Truly appreciate it.
Brad Hine:
Thank you, Jim. Absolutely. On behalf of Jim and Brad, I’m Craig, thanks for letting us be a part of your day. Thanks to our sponsors, Utopia Fiber DX Tel, Calex, ITK, and ETI Software Solutions. So long everybody. We’ll see you next time right here on the Broadband Brunch. (silence)
