Stringtown, MO Gets Connected: How Local Partnerships Are Closing the Rural Broadband Gap - Episode 644 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast

Patty Boyers (00:07):
The average homes per mile passed out there in Stringtown is 11. And the big guys, what I'm saying, the three Cs, Comcast, Charter, and Cox, they want to see 150 homes per mile pass before they'll even go into an area.

Christopher Mitchell (00:22):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell. I'm at the [00:00:30] Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm back in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm excited to have a new episode after a lot of travel lately, and today I'm bringing you Patty Boyers, who is President and CEO of BOYCOM. Welcome to the show, Patty.

Patty Boyers (00:45):
Thank you, Chris, it is a pleasure. I am humbled and honored to be here.

Christopher Mitchell (00:49):
Thank you. I appreciate your time and I'm excited to dig into what you've all been doing. But first, let's introduce our other guests. Robbie Myers is the Butler County [00:01:00] EMA Director. Welcome to the show, Robbie.

Robbie Myers (01:02):
Well thank you. It's good to be here.

Christopher Mitchell (01:04):
Alright, so we're going to jump into it and I'm going to ask Patty, what is BOYCOM?

Patty Boyers (01:09):
BOYCOM is a small, independent rural operator, MSO. That means we are a multi-system operator of broadband cable TV and phone services in a Fort County area, southeast Missouri. We've been in business for 33 years now in this business. [00:01:30] My husband and I have been in business for 47 years in the underground cable construction business. So my roots in cable run deep.

Christopher Mitchell (01:39):
I was going to say 33 years is an odd time. I feel like often the companies are either younger or much older, so you must have found some good traction and hung on.

Patty Boyers (01:48):
Well, we are a first generation broadband provider, which means we literally built our own systems ourselves, which is a relatively young industry [00:02:00] anyway. Cable TV's only been around since the late fifties, and then we've morphed into broadband and in the telephone service as well. Most of the companies that are even still family owned will be second, third, and sometimes fourth generations and we're still first generation.

Christopher Mitchell (02:21):
That's wonderful. And you're serving the area that Robbie works in there in Butler County. It sounds like in the pre-show you're well familiar with each other. What do you do? [00:02:30] What is an EMA director?

Robbie Myers (02:31):
So EMA is an emergency management agency. So just think of FEMA of what year, when they come in with tornadoes and floods and storms. We're the local government component of that. So we work on those disasters on the local level and try to help people recover from them and prepare for them best we can.

Christopher Mitchell (02:51):
So that means that you need not only to figure out how to make sure that telecom is restored, but in the process of doing that you need telecom.

Robbie Myers (02:58):
Absolutely. Public [00:03:00] safety is dependent on good communication, whether it is in preparation, if it's getting out emergency notices, if it is getting first responders to come after a disaster, then the whole component and then we're in rebuilding. If you're trying to rebuild a community, if they don't have good communication, particularly broadband in today's world, there's not going to be the investment to rebuild a subdivision, a neighborhood, an area if it doesn't have [00:03:30] good broadband.

Christopher Mitchell (03:31):
One of the things that I think we've seen is when there's a disaster like that, people might choose to move away rather than come back. And that's a real problem.

Robbie Myers (03:41):
Absolutely. If they're going to have to go through the whole process of starting from scratch, they take a look at is this part of the country they want to live in? Is this the part of this city, the county they want to live in? And broadband increasingly is a big component of that decision making.

Christopher Mitchell (03:59):
So we're going to talk about Stringtown [00:04:00] and Patty, I want to ask you, what was their situation and how is it changing right now?

Patty Boyers (04:06):
Number one, we are located in the Boot hill of Missouri, not in the actual boot hill, but we're like the sole right before that Hill drops down. It's the best way I explain it to folks. We are 32 miles from Arkansas, but we are not in Arkansas and we are in the southeast corner. So Butler County, we've served the biggest part of the whole county, [00:04:30] but the Stringtown area is a very remote, unincorporated bedroom community of folks that settled there years and years and years ago during the logging days when all the Virgin Timber was being cut in this part of the country making way from the farm lands and all that sort of thing. And so that's what separates Stringtown from Pop Bluff proper is a vast amount of ranch land. [00:05:00] And so it was never economically feasible for anybody to be there.

(05:05):
Their cell service sucks if they have any. And all the head that they could have utilized in recent days has been Starlink or HughesNet or BlueSky or some of those satellite types of broadband because their phones didn't work. I mean even their at t, everybody says, oh, I got 5G [00:05:30] on my cell phone. No, no, no, 5G just says it on your cell phone. Doesn't mean that's what you have. And so you might be able to download, might be able to see things, but you can't upload things. It's really very difficult to have a two-way system in an area whether your cell service is sparse and unreliable. And so strain time was just one of those areas that we're a small provider. You have about 5,000 customers in a four county area. So we're incredibly [00:06:00] independent and incredibly rural and it just wasn't feasible for us to go across all of that farmland to get out there to strain town to build it. The return on the investment for our company out of pocket was too great and nobody else wanted to go out there. I mean, not even cell tower, people are putting their cell towers out there, the low to moderate income in that part of the country, that part of the county is low and they have one little convenience store, they have three Baptist churches and [00:06:30] lots of raccoons and deer and dogs.

Christopher Mitchell (06:34):
If those animals would subscribe to wireless services, maybe there'd be a better business case.

Patty Boyers (06:38):
Well, you know what? There'd be more homes per mile pass if you count the dog out. The whole deal was we've tried and tried. We've tried to apply for, state of Missouri has a wonderful grant program, 50 50 where they'll come in and if you get to some of these areas, I call 'em Chris, I call 'em, but for [00:07:00] areas but for a public private partnership, they're not going to be built

(07:05):
Because there's just absolutely no way in the world that anybody could ever build it and recoup their investment much less make a profit at the end of the day. And so we were able to, through the state of Missouri, God bless their souls, BJ Tanksley with the state broadband office and the NTIA had a grant through the ARPA program that we applied [00:07:30] for Stringtown and we were able to procure that for our area. And we have built Stringtown and those folks are absolutely tickled to death. We're sitting today, we're not even finished with the project completely till the end of August, but we're sitting today at 64% penetration for those folks.

Christopher Mitchell (07:53):
And to be clear, that's a wonderful penetration. And even if you had a hundred percent, you'd still need that public private [00:08:00] partnership with the support to make it all work.

Patty Boyers (08:02):
Oh yeah. Because the average homes per mile passed out there in Stringtown is 11. And the big guys, what I'm saying, the three Cs, Comcast, Charter and Cox, they want to see 150 homes per mile pass before they'll even go into an area. So when you think about in contrast to that, then you've got maybe the cable ones of the world and there's Spark Lights or even smaller companies, [00:08:30] the phone companies that have gotten into Windstream, CenturyLink, those companies, they like to see 80 to 85 homes from EL past before they'll go in and build. So 11 homes from mile past is very, very rural and the terrain is rocky. You're in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains right there. You're just getting into some of the rougher areas. And then the other component is it costs just as for me to build a mile of cable as it does for our fiber optics [00:09:00] as it does for Comcast when they have 150 homes for Mile Pass. So where there lies the crux, I only got 11 homes and their low to moderate income is $19,500 or $23,000 a year annually per household. And so when you think about that, you think about accessibility, but you also think about affordability and the affordability component out there is just as important if not so [00:09:30] if we didn't learn that during COVID, we didn't learn anything. And so Stringtown was the poster child for a grant project.

Christopher Mitchell (09:37):
Now I want to ask Robbie, how does this make a difference from your perspective? Obviously it's great for property values and people being able to do education and things like that. How does it change things for you?

Robbie Myers (09:48):
Yes. Well, all of those things. Stringtown is I believe our largest named unincorporated community you will in the county. And so having access to that broadband was [00:10:00] important to get that even though it's remote as it is, but those kids couldn't do alternative methods of instruction when schools, when there's snow days or we've had days of flooding or whatever that was established during COVID, some ways where kids could still do learning using the Internet, but that's almost impossible for those students out there. And I report directly to the county commission and economic development is vitally important to the county commission [00:10:30] in our county. And knowing that this is out there now, you could actually see those numbers of houses per mile increased dramatically over the next few years.

Patty Boyers (10:40):
Robbie's absolutely right. It's the whole adage of the Kevin Costner movie, if you build it, they will come.

Christopher Mitchell (10:46):
Now that was in Iowa. It doesn't work south of there.

Patty Boyers (10:49):
No. Yeah, it does. It just takes us longer to say it. That's when you get down here where we are. It just takes us longer. Just because we talk slow does not mean [00:11:00] we are slow. Chris, I'm just saying you're in redneck hillbilly country when you get where we are and what we are finding, the component that Robbie was probably getting ready to touch on is telemedicine.

Robbie Myers (11:15):
Yes,

Patty Boyers (11:16):
We have some folks out there, three customers specifically that I can bring to mind right now that are on supports that they have to have broadband Wi-Fi hookup to be able to [00:11:30] run ventilators. And if you have dialysis at home, what is that called? Peritoneal dialysis?

Robbie Myers (11:37):
Yes.

Patty Boyers (11:38):
We have two folks that are now able with boy to do peritoneal dialysis at home, which really cuts down on the crowded in the clinic dialysis plus it's less expensive. Plus they can do it in the comfort of their own home. Plus [00:12:00] there is plus plus for the telemedicine side of it.

Robbie Myers (12:05):
Yes. And now less apt, you have to use the ambulance services, the emergency room if the more that they can get done there at home. So all of those things, the public safety aspect and the telemedicine, telehealth, and then education components, even if it did not increase the number of houses over the next few years, it's a worthwhile project to get done because it enhances the quality of life [00:12:30] for the citizens there. But we're very confident it's also going to have the added impact of economic development.

Christopher Mitchell (12:37):
And Robbie, I have to assume that, I mean a lot of times when we think about public safety and telecommunications, we think about after the fact, right after the heart attack, after something, you want to be able to get in touch. I have to think there's also being from Minnesota, depending on how the storms fall in any given year we are or not tornado alley. And so you all know about really rough [00:13:00] weather, but just making sure people are aware of it and can get out of harm's way I assume is a pretty big deal. And so that's often more of a mobile, but I'm guessing that your services are then allowing for improved mobile services too.

Robbie Myers (13:13):
Correct. I mean if they have the Wi-Fi turned on their phone, it's just that much easier for things to be pushed out for 'em on notifications in their home and just all the way around. It just increases the ability to get them alerts while they still have time to do something.

Christopher Mitchell (13:30):
[00:13:30] And Patty, are you seeing any interest from the cell phone companies to improve their service when they have so many more options of where they can put towers or upgrade towers?

Patty Boyers (13:39):
Well, one of the most intriguing facts that most folks don't know or don't understand is that all wireless products, whether it be a cell phone, it be a fixed wireless, a point to multiply, a point to point, everything comes back to a wire [00:14:00] at some point you're bringing it at cell tower. The cell tower that's submitting is just a massive wireless system popping out to your device and your hand. But at that tower, it's connected to an Internet connection and that Internet connection, those lines are owned by companies like me and companies like at t and companies like T-Mobile and Comcast [00:14:30] and Cox and Charter. Everybody has plant in the ground or in the air. And eventually to reach those Internet hotels in St. Louis in Little Rock in Dallas, Texas and New York City and Chicago and Nashville, Tennessee, all those great big worldwide webby places that they all come back to, I'll get there on a wire.

(14:53):
And today those wires are fiber optic. And [00:15:00] it's interesting. You think about it really is a web, that's why they call it that. I have a friend that calls it that, oh, I'm going to get on the interweb and I'm going to search that. I'm going to get on Dr. Google on the innerweb because it really is. That really is what it is. It's a web. It's just a big intricate weaving of lines to then a place where you can pump it out on a wireless signal. So yeah, the cell phone tower people, if they can get to a line, [00:15:30] they'll put up more towers,

(15:32):
Which will enhance their ability to have their service in those areas. But the problem a lot of the time with those, that's why if you pull up a map of where they say all the cell phone towers are today, number one, I don't know that I believe all of them because I had driven the biggest part of this country pulling a trailer at one point in time. Our son's in the military and we've helped him move from sea to shining sea, and [00:16:00] there are lots of places your cell phone will not work or not work very well, and you certainly can't get on the Internet without the latency and the spend. And so there's a lot still yet to be done, which is what the federal government's been trying to do for the last four years with the bead, the broadband equity and affordability, whatever that, well, you want to call that acronym and now it looks like we're going to move forward [00:16:30] with that program even though we were kind of sitting there a little puckered up that the Trump administration was going to cut that as well.

(16:39):
I don't think so. I think we're moving forward because there's enough support to revamp it and run it on out. That will help tremendously to get that last mile, those folks that truly are Chris out there on that drop it off place of that great chasm, they call it Digital Divide. I served as the chairman of the board [00:17:00] for the American Communications Association, which is a nationwide organization that represents about 700 companies like us. We have a unique voice in DC that because all things are not equal in this industry, my demographics are much more rural. Our socioeconomic is much less. Robbie knows this as well because we've been deep in abiding [00:17:30] friends for decades that we have done so much for so long with so little, we're qualified do everything, nothing at all.

Robbie Myers (17:37):
That's facts.

Patty Boyers (17:38):
And that's what we're doing is we're sitting out here really doing it all. And to be able to partner with the state of Missouri, which has been very state of Missouri, is very aggressive with the dollars that the taxpayers have given them. I'm looking forward to everything else that we can do because [00:18:00] we are poised in position to even go out further.

Christopher Mitchell (18:05):
I want to talk about some of that technologically, and I know you've been, as you said, I don't think you were talking specifically about the technology, but when you said about being forced to do a lot with a little, but I know now you're using the Calix platform. I've gotten to know a fair amount about the Calix platform from the tribal broadband bootcamps that I've helped to work on, and [00:18:30] we have found a great partner in them, and it's fascinating to me all the things that the platform is starting to be able to do. And so I'm curious as you go, and I'm assuming that you're probably building an XGS pond, but I'm curious, what are some of the new gadgets that are helping you out or that are interesting that make things easier than they used to be?

Patty Boyers (18:53):
Well, I could tell you that from the technological side of the house, I am not the expert. I have those [00:19:00] people in my organization that are the gurus, but three, well, two years ago in February, I met Michael weaning

Christopher Mitchell (19:11):
The CEO of Calix now,

Patty Boyers (19:12):
And he came and did a presentation to RACA group, our board of directors in Washington dc. And I was very impressed. We've been in business for a long time, and Calix had always just been just another one of those hardware people. [00:19:30] And every time our engineering sat down and looked, yeah, well, Calix is a little bit more expensive than some of the other companies out there. And so we always went with what my pocketbook could afford. And whenever I learned what Michael was doing with the Calix cloud-based product and in the gigaspire, the opportunity to get involved in the smart home, the smart business, smart town, they are [00:20:00] right now beginning to do a little out in the field with a smart ranch that's game changer folks out there. And for the first time in our industry, we had a comprehensive company that's not just hardware. They are meeting every operator like me where we are and saying, okay, we have these smart modems and we have this smart gear. We can back into what you've got where you are,

Christopher Mitchell (20:28):
But what's an example of what [00:20:30] they've done? That's what I'm really curious about. How have you used it?

Patty Boyers (20:32):
We signed an agreement with them that we would do our dead level best to become a Calix shop. And what that meant was all the technology that we deployed today or then that we would, every time we had the opportunity, we would upgrade to them, upgrade to them. And that's the beauty of theirs is that it wasn't an all or nothing. I didn't have to wreck out my whole system. I could do it as I could afford it. [00:21:00] And then the other thing is we bid on Stringtown and then we got received the bid on Stringtown with the Calix bid for all of the technology and CommScope fiber and Calix technology, all the electronics, all the housings, all of the, and I don't even know the names for so much of it, Chris. So we were allowed Calix to do a cradle to grave. They came in less expensive and their back room, which has been [00:21:30] the lifesaver of that company, they saw that small companies like me, we don't have engineering, big departments of engineering, we don't have huge departments of legal. You're looking at legal and the other thing, we didn't have marketing and advertising and web development and all of those things. They have backgrounds for all of that. So they come alongside you comprehensively with all of it, not just, oh, here's an amplifier, here's a node, [00:22:00] here's a housing or a vault.

(22:05):
And they were right there intricately with us in the engineering of what they were doing, what we were doing as well. And then we got the bid, we got the grant, and we've built it on time and under budget, and we are serving the citizens of Stringtown today with a Calix system that will expand and grow as the Stringtown system expands [00:22:30] and grows. I'm a big believer in Calix because I've deployed it and I have it in my system and we are utilizing it today.

Christopher Mitchell (22:38):
Well, it's great to hear you say that. I want to bring my own kind of analogy to that, but it's kind of funny. I thought we'd talk more about Bark or something like that, but this is a show for people that are interested in community and how to solve these issues. And I just want to say I get into situations and for people who haven't run a network you have for all of these [00:23:00] years, just think about when you're using your computer and something goes wrong and you're trying to figure out how to fix it, and you're thinking that, oh, maybe I have to order this thing off of a online shopping site. I'm going to try and put it in and maybe that'll resolve it and maybe it won't. You just have all this uncertainty. And it's similar when you're running a network except you have thousands of people that are waiting for you to fix it, right? Yeah. And so it sounds like what you're describing is just like this feels like you were able to do this at a lower price, but what I hear from you is the relief of not being on [00:23:30] your own.

Patty Boyers (23:31):
That's exactly right. They come alongside you. The only thing I can say is they come alongside you and it is a 24-7 kind of thing. Their technology is cloud-based, which allows if I still have customers in my legacy plant that are running Aris modems or they have a Netgear or they've got some other name brand or something or other that they've gone to Walmart or bought Best Buy or whatever and they brought it to the house. And [00:24:00] so if there is a chip in that modem, Calix can talk to it. And so if Calix technology is hanging on the pole in an amplifier or a node or whatever out there in the middle of County Road four 70 dash one off of Emma Highway. Yeah, yeah, I know right where that's at, chicken Ranch, what we always called it all my life, but there used to be a chicken farm out there and [00:24:30] it's all houses now, but it can talk to that modem as long as it's a smart modem. Nobody else is doing that, Chris. Nobody is meeting anybody right where they are. You have to just rip it all out and start from scratch if you want to go. And you've

Christopher Mitchell (24:50):
Been down that road before. This isn't hypothetical. I'm sure you've done that for past.

Patty Boyers (24:53):
Oh, well, the short answer to that is correct. And the long answer [00:25:00] to that as Senator Kennedu would say is Hell yes, we've been down that road. So yeah, we've done tried just about everything because it's really hard to provide in these areas where you do not have a big margin. And margin is important because you'd rather go to bed at night just hungry than tired and hungry. You've got to at least make [00:25:30] enough to keep the pay your Ozark border bill, our REA and pay your people and keep the trucks rolling.

Christopher Mitchell (25:37):
So I want to come back to you, Robbie, and then Patty. I'm sure you're going to have a perspective on this, but one of the things, I mean, I just came from an event in a rural area of New Mexico and there was this question about Starlink, and I feel like Starlink for, I'm sure most people know who are listening here, but it's really great Internet access for satellite. There might be some competitors [00:26:00] soon. The old satellite was terrible, so we don't have to waste our time talking about that, but it's like this double-edged sword where for you in emergency management, anywhere you go, in theory you could have decent service, and yet we always worry that Starlink is going to be a competitor that will take enough people away from Patty's margin that then people won't be able to have a higher quality terrestrial service that will lead to economic development and things like that. But I'm just curious, as you think about Starlink in the impact, [00:26:30] what is different about Stringtown having good Internet access throughout as opposed to individual homes? Just relying on Starlink and getting by

Robbie Myers (26:40):
For a variety of reasons, just having that local aspect of it that if something goes wrong, they're calling, one of their neighbors is going to come out there and fix it. And a company Rocom just gets involved in the community, one of the most patriotic companies we have in our community. And so they're able to [00:27:00] be a local company and reach out and give back. And so it's vitally important. Are there places in the middle of March Twain National Forest where someone lives that satellite would be the best option? Absolutely. But when you got a community like Stringtown with a private public partnership, it just makes sense because everyone can win in that scenario.

Christopher Mitchell (27:23):
And I'm curious, I mean, I've heard you had recent bad weather, but can you just give us a sense if you reflect on that, the importance [00:27:30] of telecommunications and responding?

Robbie Myers (27:32):
So it was a month ago today that we had an F-3 tornado to go through our community cut all the way across of it, but as it was leading up to it, we knew it was going to be a bad evening. And so we have our local storm spotter team, they do a live feed watching all the satellites, and we have storm team members out in the community so the public can watch that if they have enough broadband to get it on their devices. Then [00:28:00] also one of our local radio stations also goes live whenever there's storms, again, streaming video, and then the regional TV station, besides just being on the cable package, you can stream it on your devices as well. So just you have perspective of how you want to be informed on that. Plus sending out notices. It's vital and it saves lives that people can have time to make a plan or get in a basement or [00:28:30] go to the most secure room in their house, but they won't know that without things like this.

(28:37):
We have a series of outdoor warning sirens throughout our county. The name says it all, outdoor warning sirens. They're designed to be heard when you're outside. I'm convinced if they were created today that it never make it to market, but now that we all have them, we got to keep them up. People expect them and want them to work, but someone says, I didn't hear it. I was inside. [00:29:00] Well, you shouldn't hear it. So if you're outside farming or outside doing sporting events or having a picnic, that might help you do it. And if you can hear it in your house, that's great too. But we need a redundancy of ways to be warned. And the best chance of success and redundancy is broadband

Christopher Mitchell (29:20):
Right now. I was thinking even if you have a decent wireless signal in your yard, maybe that'll work in the home, probably won't work from the most secure room in [00:29:30] your house,

Robbie Myers (29:31):
Correct. So you know enough to when to get in there, but you don't know when to get out. And so then people might get out earlier than they need to, which would just a tragedy if they spent 40 minutes in the most secure room in their house, decided it was passed and moved to a less safe place, something bad happened.

Christopher Mitchell (29:49):
Now, Patty, I want to wrap up by just asking if you've heard anything from some of the folks that are switching from satellite services to your service.

Patty Boyers (29:59):
I [00:30:00] have to date, I have five Starlinks that I could sell you if you'd like one, if you could imagine going past somebody's home and they've spent the dollars to get a Starlink, which it is cost prohibitive, number one, I want to tell you right off the bat, Starlink, whatever it is that Amazon's coming out with Jeff Bezos people, those types of broadband components are [00:30:30] necessary. It's going to take all types of technology to reach every person in the nation that wants broadband. Because as you can imagine, you're in Montana, you're in Wyoming, you're in New Mexico, and not only is it just one home per 15 miles, you could never build a wired service to that person and ever come out. [00:31:00] And the government's not even going to throw the money at it, although they throw lots of money at lots of things and lots of quantities, but they're never going to do that.

(31:08):
And so that's where the Starlinks come in because once again, a wireless device and Starlink is wonderful, and Mr. Musk has done wonderful things with his devices in North Carolina with the mudslides and all of the Hurricane Helene, all that horrific, [00:31:30] went to just come in there and dump 'em, drop them, airdrop them here, hook them up, you can, whatever. And yeah, they're great. They're wonderful. They are life savers. But given the opportunity to have a wired service, a broadband service that can give you a gigabyte symmetrical up or down left for less money, you don't have to buy a $750 device. You don't have to try to figure out how to install it yourself. You have no idea [00:32:00] what to do with it. Whenever you do want to hook up to something else that might become, but they do have their place, but they also can become high saturation. If you go to, just imagine you've got so many satellites orbiting the earth and then you get all those satellites orbiting and you can only get so many of those for satellite. So there are regions in the United States today that you can't get a Starlink because of saturation.

Christopher Mitchell (32:30):
[00:32:30] Yeah, you get on a waiting list,

Patty Boyers (32:32):
You would get on a waiting list and you have to wait until your neighbor gets rid of their Starlink or Elon Musk throws four, five more up in the sky and eventually it's going to be to where what Jeff Bezos gets his in the air. Who knows? We will have to pipe the sunshine in. I don't know. There'll be so many of them because they're LEOs, they're low earth orbiting and there's, there's lots of what they call orbital trash out there. If [00:33:00] you could see a picture of what the earth looks like 40 years ago versus what the earth looks like today with all the stuff that's constantly orbiting around it, I don't know what happens. I don't know eventually what happens with that. But I do know that if money is no object, and you could have a wired service in your home, and if you could have Calix Smart Home, the Bark Service, that's a wonderful service, [00:33:30] Robbie, what that is, it is a Protect Your Children kind of thing.

(33:36):
It's an Internet police and it's a dog barking, A dog barks, and it lets parents know, literally dog barks and lets you know that they're getting, that somebody in that home on a device of some kind somewhere is attempting to get on a site that's not, and you get to set your limits and you get to set your, I mean, you could do all things through Bark, which is our company does deploy [00:34:00] bark, but we're a little bitty, Chris, you got to remember, we're tiny. But all those added on services that they have are necessary, and they are wonderful. And folks really like the idea of the one-stop shopping. If they ever get bark deployed at home and they have teenagers there, you get a report that tells you where they were trying to go, whether they were doing it intentionally or not. It is profound to realize how much danger [00:34:30] there is out there. The Internet's a wonderful tool, but it's also, as you said earlier, a double-edged sword.

Robbie Myers (34:37):
Right? And another difference between Starlink, no matter how many customers in Butler County subscribe to it and they take the money for it, Starling's never going to come support our 4th of July events or things where activities we're honoring our first responders or Veterans Day parades and things like that. And companies like BOYCOM Step Up time and time begin to support [00:35:00] our community. And so beyond just the service they're giving, they also are a good civic partner.

Christopher Mitchell (35:08):
Yeah, I think that's important. People don't, I think, appreciate all the importance of that local activity and the fact that, I mean, what we've seen is that when smaller ISPs that are rooted in the community, like BOYCOM, if you have an employer that's trying to figure something out, and we've used an example here in Minnesota where there was a trucking company and the [00:35:30] incumbent telephone company had told them they would provide a level of service. That company invested in equipment to take advantage of it, and then the telephone company found out they couldn't provide it, and a nearby small, in this case, municipally owned, but a nearby small company stepped up and built a fiber line out to make sure that that local employer could then use it. And that's what you see is those kinds of decisions and interconnectedness that's really important. So [00:36:00] we celebrate that, and so I really appreciate the time you've taken both of you. I appreciate what you do for your communities, making sure that they're strong, healthy, and making sure that another generation will have an opportunity to grow up there and have a great time.

Patty Boyers (36:16):
Thank you, Chris. We are local to global.

Christopher Mitchell (36:19):
I like it.

Robbie Myers (36:20):
Thank you for the opportunity to express our gratitude for the technology and a local company, providing that technology to our citizens.

Ry Marcattilio (36:30):
[00:36:30] We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available at communitynets.org/broadbandbits. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas for the show, follow Chris on BlueSky. His handle is @SportShotChris. Follow communitynets.org stories on Blue Sky, the handles @CommunityNets. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for [00:37:00] Community Podcast. You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter @ilsr.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arnie Sby for the song Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Commons.