RidgeviewTel LLC

Scaling the Rural Service Provider:

Systems and Automation Enable Service & Growth

Vince Jordan

President/CEO RidgeviewTel

Rural Service Provider Challenges

• Much of the time the only way to provide service to rural customers and communities is through Fixed Wireless Infrastructure

• An effective wireless rural broadband service must meet rural market need

• Initial CPE costs• Monthly Service Fees

– Affordable for the end user– Cover large geographical areas at low cost– Reasonably priced backhaul at aggregation points– Quality of Service equal to metropolitan areas

• Network and Service must be stable to keep customer service call volume manageable

Rural Service Provider Challenges

• Customer acquisition (how do I get my customers into the systems?)

• Scheduling (where are my people tomorrow?)

• Network Growth and Management (what is my equipment doing?)

• Billing (oh yeah…it would be nice to get paid for all of this…)

• Customer Service (can I get my customers to take care of themselves?)

• Leveraging Access (how do I get the most utilization from my backhaul?)

• How do I achieve service area penetration?

Rural Service Provider ChallengesCustomer Acquisition

• Current Method - Customers call my office or mobile phone and I scratch something down on paper or type into a Word doc or FileMaker doc (this is not automation).

• Systems Based Method - Get customer to your website and have them work for you!

• Make sure website is integrated with your OSS!

Rural Service Provider ChallengesScheduling

• Current Method - Outlook? Calendar Software? Day Timer? Sticky Notes?

• Systems Based Method - Integrated OSS and Calendar * Have Customer record drive your Calendar

Rural Service Provider ChallengesNetwork Growth and Management

• Current Method - Hang lots of radios and pray they work as the manufacturer stated they would, telnet into radios when you have to, buy expensive by the seat or by the radio management software, drive, drive, drive….

• Systems Based Method - Integrated OSS & NMS provide complete Network View

Rural Service Provider ChallengesBilling

• Current Method - Generate paper bills, lick (papercuts), stamp, mail and hope they send a check back. Enter received check in Quickbooks and deposit in bank account.

• Systems Based Method - Automated Electronic Billing

Rural Service Provider ChallengesCustomer Service

• Current Method - Customer calls office or mobile, asks lots of question, you jump between Xcel, QuickBooks, Word, Sticky Notes…

• Systems Based Method - Integrated OSS & Website with Customer Self-Care

Rural Service Provider ChallengesLeveraging Access

• Current Method - Pay lots of money for expensive tower space and expensive backhaul in anticipation of HUGE customer growth to cover these costs. If successful, add more expensive backhaul and tower space, if not, go broke and open a Pizza Hut. (Actually, might not be a bad idea all things considered).

• Systems Based Method - Utilize backend systems that provide customer controlled bandwidth management, compression, caching, persistence, DNS caching, bandwidth utilization monitoring, load balancing, and what ever other technologies that can be applied to squeeze every last drop out of the backhaul!

Rural Service Provider ChallengesAchieving Service Area Penetration

• Provide the Best service at the Best price

• Make it a “no-brainer” for a prospect to sign up for service

• Go for VOLUME - not recovering all of your costs up-front on each customer.

• The ONLY way to do THIS is follow these three simple steps:

• AUTOMATE

• AUTOMATE

• AUTOMATE

RidgeviewTel LLCVince Jordan - President/CEO

vjordan@ridgeviewtel.comhttp://www.ridgeviewtel.com