Delivering High-Speed Broadband to Remote Communities in Rural Canada - ETI
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November 23, 2021

Delivering High-Speed Broadband to Remote Communities in Rural Canada

The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.

In this episode, we chat with Johann Reimer, Canadian Fiber Optics, and Northern Lights Fiber. Johan is a broadband storyteller and an important voice in the telco space.

  • Johan’s Broadband Backstory
  • Fiber Deployment in Rural Canada
  • Creating Commercially Viable Broadband Networks in Rural Areas
  • Broadband Marketing Restoring the Faith
  • Broadband Ambassador Program – Thinking Local to Rebuild the Trust
  • Rural Broadband Marketplace – Building Fiber. Building Trust.
  • High-Speed Rural Broadband Speed – Future Proofing for Rural Canada

Kaleigh Cox:

Welcome to The Broadband Bunch, a podcast about broadband and how it impacts all of us. Join us to learn about the state of the industry and the latest innovation and trends. Connect with the thought leaders, pioneers, and policymakers helping to shape your future through broadband.

Kaleigh Cox:

This episode of The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software, your zero-touch automation experts. By Calix, simplify, excite, grow. By DxTell, creators of the Harper Broadband Marketing Library. By ITK Solutions Group, process first, technology second. And by UTOPIA Fiber, building a more connected nation.

Kaleigh Cox:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Broadband Bunch. I’m your host today, Kaleigh Cox, and I have the honor of interviewing Johann Reimer of Canadian Fiber Optics and Northern Lights Fiber. Today, we’re going to talk about the challenges of laying fiber and delivering service in rocky remote areas. We’re going to talk about the process of gaining people’s trust, especially after incumbents have maybe broken that trust. And we’re going to hear about how Johann’s company uses an MVP program to more proactively partner with their company’s biggest fans. Johann, thank you so much for being here today.

Johann Reimer:

It’s so great, Kaleigh. Thanks for having me.

Kaleigh Cox:

So can you start by just introducing yourself a little bit and telling our audience a little bit about Canadian Fiber Optics and Northern Lights Fiber?

Fiber Deployment in Rural Canada

Johann Reimer:

Yeah, absolutely. I love telling the story of our company, but Canadian Fiber Optics, I very simply will say we are primarily two things where we’re not only a rural internet service provider but one that only looks at serving people and businesses and the economy using and building fiber infrastructure. So typically the combination of rural and fiber is a little bit unique, but I feel like it’s an egg that we’ve cracked and we’re happily and successfully deploying fiber in places where I’ll say the entire marketplace has said was impossible.

Kaleigh Cox:

And how does Northern Lights Fiber play in as a brand?

Johann Reimer:

That’s a good question. So it’s primarily our retail fronting sales channel. So when we build fiber to the home network to residents, we wanted a slightly more playful brand, something that those in Canada and specifically, and some of the more Northern provinces, a brand and an image that they could relate to. And so we came up with Northern Lights Fiber.

Kaleigh Cox:

And from what I understand, your company history started as a construction company before becoming this ISP that came later. How has that played into your approach to building networks? And how has it maybe helped with laying fiber in these specific communities?

Johann Reimer:

Yeah, it’s a good question. And I’ll say not entirely unique in the marketplace, but in the areas we serve is. So whether you’re a wireless internet service provider or a facility-based one, I’ll say most people know, especially with fiber infrastructure that the capital cost of engineering, designing, permitting, procuring, and building the network and on the low-end cost, 50% of the capital investment and to a high end, possibly up to 80%.

Johann Reimer:

And so when you have the construction comp, which is a term we use a lot, but when you have the construction competence in-house, you gain all sorts of efficiencies. Obviously, with our incumbent friends, a large portion of their work is contracted out. And so we gain all sorts of efficiencies, not only pricing-wise but just how our business functions when we control and can manipulate construction.

Johann Reimer:

So it’s been a huge advantage for us. Yeah, and I’ll say we started off as a construction company and it’s, it’s still a company we all own and operate today. It’s called Canadian Fiber Construction, but we started off building fiber to the home networks and long-haul fiber for who is a lot of our competitors now in the Canadian marketplace.

Creating Commercially Viable Broadband Networks in Rural Areas

Kaleigh Cox:

Speaking of competitors, I know some of those companies, maybe, especially the bigger ones, look at these communities you’re connecting and they see, okay, they’re rocky, they’re remote, they’re covered in snow half the year and they say, “It’s just not feasible. We’re not coming.” But you guys keep connecting and building fiber networks. How have you conquered those challenges? How are you making that work?

Johann Reimer:

Our in-house construction capacity is a huge piece. And there’s a saying in the industry that is certainly not one eye coin, but it’s a motto that we do agree with, but he who fibers first win. And so trying to find a way to make networks commercially viable is what we do. And our efficiencies are in construction because I really do believe our instructors are world-class, but the fact that they’re also in-house and we have all sorts of pricing efficiencies and just from a workload perspective efficiencies, but how can we look at the community differently to actually build fiber infrastructure? And so we not only construct differently. We design differently and we’re financing differently and we’re selling differently as you know and we’re marketing differently.

Johann Reimer:

But specifically on the construction site, we’re not shy to build and construct in the wintertime. And that’s something that does make us a little bit unique, but the retention of our world-class employees is a huge, huge, huge priority. And the easiest and best way to do that is to keep them busy, be around. And so although our efficiencies obviously decrease when that’s minus 30 outside where we continue to get fiber in the ground and ultimately that’s good for our employees and that’s good for our customers.

Johann Reimer:

We also have just a ton of train challenges as well. We’ve built right at the doorstep of the rocky mountains a 250-kilometer fiber network to connect the community of grand cash. And that was a multi-year project and a project that everybody said was impossible because of the terrain. And so almost everything we do in our business is done differently, not necessarily for the sake of being different, but because it has to be done differently. And it’s a full business effort to make these networks commercially viable. And as I’ve said before, we’re just having a ton of fun doing it.

Kaleigh Cox:

And I love the point you said there about how building year-round, even if it’s a bit slower in the winter, helps you retain your employees because I know that’s a big focus in our industry right now is how do you attract talent? And maybe we should be having more conversations about how to retain that talent. And I think there’s really something too there as far as keeping them on year-round, even if it means slightly less efficient build, it’s saving you efficiencies come spring when you don’t have to go hire a whole new crew. So that’s a great point.

Johann Reimer:

Yeah, you’ve probably heard me say before Kaleigh, no one grows up wanting to want to be the cable guy and our industry does ourselves a real disservice in not promoting what we do. We no longer have to justify to the marketplace at the work we do is important and how important connection is to the average household, the average coffee shop, small, medium business, to the economy. And it’s time that we started having a lot of pride in what we do. And part of that is in a marketplace where it is hard to find good laborers, good drillers, good plow operators, good splicers. And then outside of that, good accountants and good marketers that want to serve the industry is a big challenge because it’s just not the instructors and that’s a big piece, but how do we attract good professionals to help us sell network and to market network?

Johann Reimer:

And we’re having a lot of fun doing that. And for us, a big piece of it is just ensuring that we’re on a winning team that every meter of fiber we get into the ground, our team is wildly proud of. And so we’ve had a lot of fun with that. But I’ll say the work that we do in our industry, every salesperson, every market, or every splicer, every installer has a wildly important job.

Broadband Marketing Restoring the Faith

Kaleigh Cox:

And that kind of office employees, the marketers, and salespeople, have an uphill battle too because some of these commute have really lost trust in internet providers. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what you do to smooth that over and build stronger relationships with prospects and customers?

Johann Reimer:

Yeah, it’s a wickedly what seems like sometimes an impossible task, but with it comes an interesting challenge. There’s no secret that internet service providers are some of the most disliked companies in Canada and it’s probably the same in the US. And so how do we as a relatively in every market we go into, we’re at this stage in the game for the unknown company. So how do we change that? And for us, we’ve just turned it into a grassroots movement. And the best way I can describe it is we’re wickedly focused on rural Canada and we’re only interested in building fiber infrastructure. But that in itself, and as awesome as that sounds, it’s truly not enough. And so we’ve adjusted everything in our business, our HR practices, our hiring practices, and marketing and sales to laser focus on being a local company.

Johann Reimer:

So we’ve decentralized our entire structure that is every community we’re in, we’re hiring local sales folks, we’re hiring local marketing folks, local instructors, installers. Everything we have to do, we’re building from the ground up. We are training new technicians because they just don’t exist in these rural communities. And so we’re not only rural, but we’re also local, and there’s a big difference between the two. And when we recruit local ambassadors, people that the local community knows and then thus trusts, we’ve learned that we’re very successful.

Broadband Ambassador Program – Thinking Local to Rebuild the Trust

Kaleigh Cox:

So one of those ways you establish yourself as a local company is with a real interest ambassador program? I’ve seen you post about that on LinkedIn before. Can you tell us what that is and how you find these ambassadors and what they do with you?

Johann Reimer:

Yeah, so I wish I’d found a way to profile and recruit what I would define as a perfect ambassador, but I’ll say I’ve not yet done that. But we have a number of local hires that act perfectly as ambassadors and there’s no rhyme or reason to it, an ambassador is an ambassador. And we’ve really shaped the way our company stretcher looks based on the capabilities of our local employees.

Johann Reimer:

And so the local ambassador is the local customer service person, or could be the local technician or could be the local social media marketer. And what that means is, we’ve essentially, decentralized our entire corporate structure to be local. And it’s worked out wildly successfully. And is by far the best way to rebuild the trust that our industry deserves in the marketplace that our predecessors have failed in keeping.

Johann Reimer:

So it’s worked out well and it’s simple. And maybe I’m giving some trade secrets out here to some. But hopefully, I can help the marketplace, but it’s wildly important to regain that trust to be successful. The dislike for internet service providers is so prevalent that they will not switch service providers again unless they trust you. And I think I’ve shared these stories with you, Kaleigh, but I’ve really enjoyed door-to-door knocking in the communities that we serve. And the number one comment or response that I get in talking to people and trying to sell them services is, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Johann Reimer:

Many rural Canadian communities have been promised fiber often more than once from more than one service provider and they just simply don’t believe it. We could have construction crews in the street next to them and they still don’t believe that it’s coming to them. And so we’ve learned that having locals, not just rural, but locals in the community, sending that messaging off is the most effective way. And we know that we don’t have to be perfect, but our message has to be very clear and upfront, and honest. And our ambassadors are tasked solely with that.

Rural Broadband Marketplace – Building Fiber. Building Trust.

Kaleigh Cox:

Yeah, you actually told me something interesting recently in full disclosure for our listeners, the company I work with, DxTell provides some marketing support to Northern Lights Fiber. And so in one of our conversations recently, you were talking about one of your newer communities where you tried to do some surveys, some interest registrations. And one particular pocket of the neighborhood, you got just no responses. And then went to your crews were actually in the area building fiber, and they trusted that you were really coming, your presales shot up, right?

Johann Reimer:

Yeah, yeah. That’s one thing we’ve learned in the rural marketplace is, from a marketing perspective, I’m tasked with providing the data to ensure that these communities and neighborhoods are a worthwhile investment. And the best way to do that is to pre-survey the community, but the rural marketplace is tired of doing these surveys. We’re certainly not the first to suggest that we want to build fiber infrastructure in the community. And so the markets just stopped doing them.

Johann Reimer:

And it’s interesting in the communities or the specifically targeted neighborhoods where the surveys have the least amount of penetration or take our actual sales, penetration is actually the highest. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s now the data that we have. And there are a lot of nuances to it. I wouldn’t take this information just at the surface because there’s certainly when you look at the data, there are a lot of nuances, but it’s very interesting. And it’s not that people don’t want it. They’re just… And like I said, and it’s every second house says, “Yeah, I will believe it when I see it.” So it’s not until the technicians are actually in their house installing service that it becomes real for them.

High-Speed Rural Broadband Speed – Future Proofing for Rural Canada

Kaleigh Cox:

And there’s another interesting layer to all of this for me as well because first, you’ve got these challenges with, do they actually want the service? They aren’t filling out the surveys, but then you also hear people say, “Rural communities don’t need all of that speed. They don’t need symmetrical service.” And you guys are providing some of the fastest residential speeds. You’ll have to remind me here just how fast some of your residential internet packages are. What have been the take rates on those? And what’re some of the feedback you’re getting on those really high speeds?

Johann Reimer:

Yeah. Well, there are so many ways you can… There are all sorts of metaphors that could describe consumer behavior and the internet and how it relates to government policy. The Canadian universal service objective is a 50 megabit download and a 10 megabit upload. And we’re providing internet speeds that are way faster than that. So in Valleyview, Alberta, we’re providing and selling services up to 10 gigabits.

Johann Reimer:

And so the question is like, well, why would you do that? And for us, part of making these networks commercially viable is to not only futureproof them for the community but futureproof it for our own business. That’s a really, really important piece for us. But the idea, and we find it very presumptuous because our company is made up of rural Canadians as well is not to provide a service because people don’t need it. We are more than happy to provide a service if people want it.

Johann Reimer:

And so there are lots to unpack there. And when we look at our sales data, but contrary to popular belief, over 50% of our clients are actually buying faster tier above our lowest package. So we find it very presumptuous to assume that rural Canadians use less internet than urban ones. And knowing that a majority of our customers are more than happy to buy something, whether they need it or want is none of our business, but we’re just happy to provide them the service.

Kaleigh Cox:

It’s really interesting to hear about your experiences and see your company proving so many assumptions wrong about rural communities, rocky communities, the speeds they want, the service they can get. It’s really inspiring stuff. So I want to wrap up today with two final questions that we like to ask all our guests. The first is what we call our back to the future question. So if you could hop in the DeLorean, go back five or 10 years maybe to the start of the current iteration of Canadian Fiber Optics, what would you say to yourself to make this journey even a little bit easier for yourself?

Johann Reimer:

Oh, yeah. I’ll say this is a good entrepreneurial question in the sense of, how would you do things differently? And I really feel that we’ve just been having so much fun as a company and having a lot of success surrounding it. I feel like we’re too early to be able to suggest that we would do things wildly differently. But we’ve built to thousands of homes this year already and I’m not even sure that the marketplace would’ve had the capacity for us to build more.

Johann Reimer:

And so it’s a good question, but if I had a DeLorean, Kaleigh, I might go to the future instead. Because trying to make networks commercially viable is, we’re just not competing against Starlink and wireless internet service providers. We do have some really good competitors in the marketplace, but as a company, we fundamentally believe that our residents, our businesses and our economy need this fiber infrastructure. And so we’re always balancing our investments and our activity with what other broadband technologies are doing. And that is a crystal ball that I would love to see and understand, but right now we’re confident that fiber is right now the only viable broadband method to futureproof communities. And so we’re just going to keep putting it in the ground.

Kaleigh Cox:

Well, then let’s pretend you get to hop in that DeLorean and go into the future 10 years, what do you think rural Canada’s going to look like, and where do you think your company’s going to play into that future?

Johann Reimer:

Well, that’s a good question. We’re positioning ourselves to be the rural alternative. And we’re a new company. We’re four years old and we already have hundreds of clients and it’s great, but our company is growing quickly. And if I went to the future, I would expect that we’re going to be in multiple provinces across Canada. And I’d be lying to you if I haven’t checked out if the domain American Fiber Optics is available or not.

Johann Reimer:

But we really believe that. And we’ve proven in the marketplace now that you can invest and build fiber infrastructure in small rural communities and make a viable business from it, even competing against some other broadband technologies that might be even a needing current universal service objective. So we’re very happy about it. Yeah.

Kaleigh Cox:

And we can only hope that those objectives continue to raise both in Canada and the US. So thank you so much, Johann, for your time today in sharing some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. I know you’ve got lots of great nuggets in there that are going to help our audience as they seek to connect their own rural and remote communities. Thank you so much for joining us.

Johann Reimer:

Thanks, Kaleigh. And I like to be known as sometimes a collaborator. And so I encourage if anyone wants to bounce some ideas off of me to please do so and just expect that I might bounce some ideas off of them also.

Kaleigh Cox:

Yeah, take him up on that listeners. You can find Johann Reimer on LinkedIn and he is worth adding. Thank you all for listening to another episode of The Broadband Bunch. We’ll see you next time.