How NextLight Became the #1 Internet Service Provider in the Country - Episode 12 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:15)
And we're back with another episode of Unbuffered. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. And today we're going to be revisiting a network that we've talked about in some of our other shows, but I was surprised to find out we have not covered on our flagship interview show since before the pandemic. So I'm excited to bring back Valerie Dodd, who is the Executive Director of NextLight in Longmont, Colorado. Welcome back Valerie.

Valerie Dodd (00:42)
Very

excited to be here and have more great news to share. So thank you for having us and always thinking of us.

Christopher Mitchell (00:49)
Yes, I think you've won like a hundred awards since you were last on the show. We've had, we've had Drew on a few times on the other shows, but it's good to have you back. And then we've got Scott Rochat as well, who is the Public Relations and Marketing Specialist for the City of Longmont, where you focus on the utilities of the electric and the Internet fiber variety.

Scott R. (01:10)
absolutely correct.

Christopher Mitchell (01:12)
Wonderful. Okay, so we're gonna be talking about some of the great news coming out of Longmont. And so not only ⁓ do we have new awards that have recently been awarded, even as we're recording basically, ⁓ but also we'll talk about a little bit of the history, because I feel like at this point, a lot of people may not be familiar with how we got to where we are in the Longmont NextLight story.

And we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the things that have been learned along the way. And the wonderful program that provides discounts to people who have trouble affording the low prices that are available. And then finally, what's the debt status? So I'm just I'm not even gonna give people a hint. We'll just talk about whether that's a disaster or good news. As we get to the end of the show, people have to tune in. So Valerie is like, No, don't do that. It's good news.

Valerie Dodd (02:02)
Thank

⁓ yeah, we'll

tease them. We'll hold.

Christopher Mitchell (02:07)
Sure. So ⁓ how is it going? What is the most recent news you'd like to share, Valerie, coming to us from the gigabit city of Longmont?

Scott R. (02:08)
Thanks

Valerie Dodd (02:18)
I would say it's going swimmingly. And the reason I say that and the reason I pushed our interview back a week was I knew that there was probably some good information coming with regards to the annual PC Magazine's Reader's Choice Award. And to me, this award means so much because it is all about or it all comes about from the surveys of our customers.

And so according to our customers, we are the best number one ISP, Internet Service Provider in the entire country. We're also the top muni ISP in the entire country. We are the most recommended, the highest value, the best for home business and homework. So ⁓ it's just super exciting. We've received some of these awards before, but it feels like we swept the whole thing this year and we continue to grow.

will be 12 years old this November. And yet, we continue to delight our customers at every stop. And in turn, we just continue to work really, really hard to not take that for granted, to invest in our systems and our customer experience processes, our automation and all of those things. And of course, the network is foundational to all of it. And we invest a lot of money in ensuring that from our outside plant to our electronics to our huts that

We have very reliable ⁓ service and with tremendous capacity and headroom and great speeds so that we can continue to delight our customers. But it just, it means the world and it, I think I tear up when I get these results because it just never gets old. As many as we've received, but it has been hard fought. We're super grateful for our employees, absolutely, but for our customers taking the time to fill out these surveys.

And if they didn't do that, we wouldn't be getting these awards. And so we really appreciate that they do that. But it speaks to, I think, not just their appreciation of what we do and the good value and the fast, you know, reliable speed we provide. But I think there's something that reflects a pride of ownership. Scott can talk a little bit about our history, which goes back literally 30 years to 1996. And some of our city leaders having the vision.

Christopher Mitchell (04:33)
Mm-hmm.

Valerie Dodd (04:42)
to, we need fiber to connect some of these electric utilities. And so it took many years to get some of the vision, to get some of the fiber built, and then we had to fight some legislation. And so the community realized and were smart enough to say, wow, it would be outstanding and exceptional for us to have 100 % fiber network. Not every community gets to boast about that. And so I think in their voting,

for this and making it happen and approving the bond. It really gives you a sense of community ownership, community pride. They keep supporting us. We keep working really hard. So it's a very synergistic relationship that just delights my soul. ⁓

Christopher Mitchell (05:32)
Yeah, I can imagine.

It's truly remarkable. ⁓ I remember different industry analyses I've read over the years that suggested that for the companies that are the sort of the largest in the nation, AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, that for them to achieve a 40%, 45 % take rate on their fiber network is kind of the pinnacle. And one can't expect to take more than 40, 45 % of the market according to Wall Street analysts.

Valerie Dodd (05:35)
you

Christopher Mitchell (06:00)
And ⁓ you are doing remarkably better than that with kind of north of two out of three subscribers that have the option taking it. so that's also pretty remarkable.

Valerie Dodd (06:11)
Yeah, it really is. I spent many years, roughly 25 years at other ISPs or traditional phone companies. And yeah, to your point, you would love to have a 40 % market share. And right now we're pushing 68 % of fiber enabled premises. And it just continues to grow. And we keep thinking we're going to near that ceiling.

And I keep raising the bar carefully and we keep achieving. And I think there's also something to it when you get to where to your point, there's two, two out of three, two thirds of the residents in this community have our service. It's really hard not to know about it or hear about it unless you're moving maybe from the West coast and you think you're just going with that cable company to this cable company. And then you get here and like, my gosh, what have I done? It's never too late. ⁓ So I think that

It's like the bigger we get, the almost easier it is to start selling in our services. Also, I get notices every day, all day long from Nextdoor. And so the community itself is saying, hey, I'm finally ready to kick cable to the curb. know, whom should I go with? And it's just one after the other. They're all just like, NextLight, NextLight, never had a problem with NextLight. receive and sell these awards. They're great. Local customer service. Love them. Super value.

or valuable. And so we really have a lot of people, a lot of salespeople, speaking on our behalf, almost 30,000 people loving our service and telling people about it, doing Google reviews very happily. And so it just seems like success begets success.

Christopher Mitchell (07:51)
Yes. Yeah. I mean, I've been out there. We've toured your network, my team, and we've enjoyed it. We've talked to some of the folks that we've known over the years over there, and it is a remarkable network. I want to actually bring Scott in a little bit to just do the old history lesson about it. So as Valerie noted, it goes back to 1996. And I'm not sure, before you were at NextLight, before you were at the city, you were at the newspaper. But I wasn't sure if you were with the newspaper all the way back then as well.

Valerie Dodd (07:54)
you

Scott R. (08:19)
I was not with the newspaper all the way back then. I was ⁓ probably still in college back then. But yes, I am well versed on the history. Back in 1996, quick history, there are four cities here, Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins, and Estes Park.

Christopher Mitchell (08:26)
Hahaha.

Scott R. (08:42)
⁓ that together that all have their own municipal electric systems and together have a municipal wholesaler called Platte River Power Authority. Around 1996, Platte River Power Authority decided that it was going to improve the communications and electric substations and that fiber would be the best way to go with that.

And at that time, several Longmont family leaders, both on the Stalmore family and the city council and the community itself, said, you know, this would be a really great opportunity to build a state of the art network for Longmont. And this was something that

both happened very quickly and not very quickly at all. quick part was that by 1997 we had the core 17 mile fiber loop built within the city. The not so quick part was actually establishing the network.

Christopher Mitchell (09:25)
Mm-hmm.

Valerie Dodd (09:29)
Bye.

Scott R. (09:38)
because we initially looked for a public-private partnership. ⁓ As you remember, late 90s, early 2000s was the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and so private partners were a little hard to come by. ⁓

Valerie Dodd (09:47)
you

Christopher Mitchell (09:51)
Yes.

Scott R. (09:52)
And in 2005, the Colorado State Legislature passed a law basically saying that with very few exceptions, municipalities could not operate their own Internet service unless, wonderful loophole, they got the approval of their voting population. So in 2011, Longmont came to the polls.

and I will say that you've seen this in other municipal elections I know because I've seen you write about it that the opponents of these ballot issues often come forward and spend obscene amounts of money and in the case of Longmont there was an election in 2009 where the opponents spent $245,000. There was another one in 2011 where opponents spent $420,000.

Christopher Mitchell (10:31)
Yes.

I remember those both being records for elections within the state of Colorado at that time.

Scott R. (10:51)
They were at that time, yes, and they were certainly records for us. ⁓ What happened in between 2009 and 2011 was that voters found out a lot more about the benefits of what this fiber would do for them, that it was not going to raise their taxes, that, and one other thing that happened, of course, was that Google Fiber began lighting up their own cities. I think Kansas City was lit up in 2010.

Valerie Dodd (10:59)
Thank

Christopher Mitchell (11:18)
I think they were announced.

don't know if they were lit up, there was a lot of enthusiasm. Yeah.

Scott R. (11:21)
the announcement, yeah, that's right, Google,

that's right, it was in 2010 that Google began recruiting for who was going to be their first Google Fiber city, which excited a lot of interest across the country. And so in 2011 when the voting came out, it was a massive win in favor of city-owned fiber, and an even more massive win two years later when it came time for a bond issue.

Christopher Mitchell (11:29)
Right.

What one of it?

Right. One of the things that I remember about this, I remember there's a couple of things. I actually still have some of the ads, some of the videos of like the kid jumping into an empty pool, I think, or like a person jumping into an empty pool. Look before you leap. That must have been the second one, I think. But I also heard they paid people, actors, to dress up as firefighters and basically suggest that if you voted for the fiber utility, you would be kicking firefighters off of their jobs.

Scott R. (11:56)
Look before you leap, yes.

Yeah, was, I was on the newspaper, I wasn't yet on the city staff at the time, but there was, yeah, there was a lot going on in terms of advertising like that. And I think by the second election, people were very much more aware of the money that was being spent, were certainly aware of where it was coming from.

Christopher Mitchell (12:31)
One of the things that, mean, I don't know if you, did you spend time trying to find someone to interview that was opposed to the project? Because I remember there was like every person that was on the ballot voted, like supported it. And you could not find a person within the city limits of Longmont that actually opposed it that wanted to speak up about it.

Scott R. (12:48)
Literally every single city council candidate that year, no matter where they were on the political spectrum, every single one of them was for city-owned fiber. I mean, there was literally a debate once where they were all asked to stand up and every last one of them did. And yeah, it was, it really was the little community that could.

Valerie Dodd (12:54)
All right.

Christopher Mitchell (13:12)
So then, um, then you do the bond and that's passes. And the part that I don't know when you announced it, but at some point City of Longmont, um, the NextLight utility announces that you're going to have this charter program, which no one had ever done before. And that is something that divided the community a bit of like fiber municipal fiber practitioners and whatnot. Some of whom said it would condemn you and that you would never get on top of your expenses. And that

if you did this program, which was where if you signed up in the first, is it three months?

Scott R. (13:44)
The

charter membership that rolled out was if you signed up for NextLight within three months of it arriving to your neighborhood, you could get gigabit service for $49.95 per month.

Valerie Dodd (13:47)
Thank

Christopher Mitchell (13:57)
Forever.

Scott R. (14:00)
This was effectively, but.

Christopher Mitchell (14:02)
Right.

And if you moved within the city of Longmont, you'd take the price with you and your home would still have it so you could market it as being a charter home. This was brilliant marketing. I don't think I ever talked to the person that came up with it, but it's really terrific. And I just had fight after fight with people who were like, ⁓ over time, their costs are going to balloon. They're not going to be able to do this. And clearly, ⁓ those claims were wrong. This has got to be one of the smartest things you all did.

Scott R. (14:10)
Correct. Correct.

Yeah, and I can let Valerie speak to the financial end more than I can, but I do know that when the business plan came out, when we first rolled out the NextLight Business Plan, which itself won an award, by the way, the initial projection was we could be...

we could be on top of things so long as we had, I believe it was at least a 37 or 38 % take rate. That was considered the goal. As you've noticed, we're quite a bit north of that now.

Christopher Mitchell (14:56)
Right.

Valerie Dodd (15:01)
Thank

Christopher Mitchell (15:03)
Well, you were one of the first, I mean, I don't think I'd ever seen anyone rocket to 40 % the way that y'all did. I mean, that's the growth in the first five years was astounding.

Scott R. (15:12)
I think I've told this story on your show before, but our director at the time, Tom Roiniotis, on the very first day that folks were signing up, the call center phones were just ringing off the hook. And he looked at me at the end of the day and said, you know, I had two great fears about today. One was that absolutely nobody would want this, and the other was that absolutely everybody would want this. And of the two, I'm glad I've got number two.

Valerie Dodd (15:15)
Thank

Thank

Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (15:39)
Yeah. Yeah, Valerie,

I'm sure you've heard the lore of all that you came in, I think when a lot of the growth had started, but then you have to figure out how to maintain it. But what did you hear about those early days?

Valerie Dodd (15:51)
⁓ Yeah, there was pandemonium. And so I have mixed feelings. Let me just say, ⁓ I often say that, you know, the 12 pound baby was delivered before I got here and I got to step in, they handed me the baby to love, nurture and care and develop, you know, so, ⁓ but I didn't have to, yeah, go through some of those really difficult first days where you're, you know,

finding a billing system and a technology partner and the right partner to do the actual installation and the work and then setting up a call center, setting up tech support. So much critical work had to happen very early on to support the customers. And so I often say, I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants and I just am so grateful for all of that work that they did.

Yeah, so when I started it was about seven years ago, this August, and we had roughly 57 % penetration, but yet we hadn't built out all of the market. And so I think we were around 80 % built. And so there's a lot of premises that, know, are onesie twosies and that slowly come along or there's maybe a really big apartment building that you haven't quite gotten to. And so we have, you know, achieved our growth.

through new enablement and so now we've got over 90 % of all premises established, which you'll never get to 100%. There's always growth, there's always some difficulty getting assigned access agreement for maybe a mobile home park or a certain apartment that's managed at a national level. And so we've grown through enablement and then we've just grown through a real investment in our network, our customer experience and our marketing.

Scott R. (17:24)
Bye.

Valerie Dodd (17:42)
And so, you know, for a while it was just, you know, order taking. And then that slows down and then some of the hype is gone. You don't have as much media coverage working for you. And that's when you've got to go do the paid media. You've to get engaged in, you know, social media and really get out there and do more targeted and digital marketing. And so we've certainly done that and that's continued to help. And then, as I mentioned earlier, one of your best sales channels is always your customer base.

and we do give customers $50 bill credit anytime that they refer, a neighbor, family, friend, anyone in town. And so we happily do that because that's a little lower than our standard cost of acquisition. So happy to do that. So for all of those existing customers listening, don't forget.

Scott R. (18:26)
you

Christopher Mitchell (18:27)
Right. Take advantage. Let's, let's, let's button it up. the, thing about that much growth that early is that it really throws the financial projections out of whack. ⁓ I, I'd like to explain it to people that are in the industry is it's like every home that you connect, it's like you're loaning them like $2,500 or $3,000 or something like that. And over the next three years, they're paying it off. And then eventually you're net positive on them.

Valerie Dodd (18:29)
I'm a bit.

Christopher Mitchell (18:51)
If you suddenly have a whole bunch more people to connect, that's just really struggling to make sure that you have the revenue in those early years to pay all your bills and to do everything else. Because suddenly so much more money is going into the physical connections. And you already have people waiting on waiting lists. And people get tired of being on the waiting lists. And Comcast and others are constantly going around trying to say, we got a great deal if you sign up right now. So it's real headache to manage.

Valerie Dodd (19:08)
friend.

Yeah, and I think one of the early on challenges before I was here was back to Scott's point about the assumptions in the business case, 35 to 40 percent. Well, next thing you know, they're turning it up and they have 100 percent penetration of this particular block or of this particular device. And then you're at capacity. And so there's one key learning is like don't underestimate your take rate and also realize an average take rate.

doesn't tell you what you're going to have on each cabinet or device or out of each hut. So you really have to make sure that you build capacity for the scenario of 100 % of the customers in this area because neighbors talk. And so I think that was a lesson and we did have to go back and borrow some more money from our utility partner, LPC. And I won't talk about the status of our financials and our payoff until you say it's time to talk.

Christopher Mitchell (20:15)
Ha ha ha!

Valerie Dodd (20:16)
But I won't avoid that conversation. ⁓ But I will say our team's done a really great job managing a balanced budget. We pay roughly between $5 and $5.5 million in debt per year right now. And we're able to cover that with our revenue. And so at some point when it's paid off, that's a fair bit of cash to invest back into the network and some other things. so the team's done a really good job of

⁓ managing cost, making sure that we don't grow and for our, you know, over $23 million in revenue, we've got just roughly about 50 employees. And so it's a pretty good ratio of ⁓ income to your employee count. And so we take that very seriously and manage both sides of that equation. And, you know, we're continually working with our transport partners to get our costs down for, you know, fiber to our points of presence.

the country so a lot of shrewd management on the team's part.

Christopher Mitchell (21:21)
I'm curious if there's any, I mean, you mentioned the challenge of you have a hundred percent take rate in a given area and the network is built to save costs, not expecting you'd have that. So then you suddenly have to manage that. ⁓ As we were warming up, I told you the way I wanted to frame this is ⁓ I just feel like when you look at all the awards that Longmont has won, you can imagine a comparable sitting somewhere in the United States saying, well, they just, must've gotten everything right. ⁓ And the idea that.

Valerie Dodd (21:22)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (21:51)
you know, that that what they're doing is seems like a mountain they're trying to climb in. Like, what if they have a misstep? What if they pick the wrong technology to invest in? What if they pick the wrong billing system? And so I thought it might be helpful for you. And then I don't know if Scott has a might have another memory as well of areas where you've had to correct mistakes along the way.

Valerie Dodd (22:10)
Yeah, I I think there's some truth to the notion of failing fast, you know, and failure is inevitable and there's no better teacher than failure. And so I won't say there were a lot of missteps and certainly some of those things happened before I was here and I identify or call that out. But I think the one I mentioned just a moment ago in terms of underestimating how much people

wanted it and loved it and then were out there selling on your behalf. And so, you know, it might be, ⁓ yeah, you might have greater success and you need to be sure to have backup plans. ⁓ The good news is when you need to go get more capital, it is success-based and there should be revenue tied to those installations and those drops that you're placing. So there's certainly that aspect of it. And then, you know, I think it's important to really manage your partners and if your partners aren't

always working or having the same plan as you or maybe there's some equipment that could be manufactured discontinued or something. Make sure you're aware of that. ⁓ We I think had a few devices placed in some areas that took on a fair bit of moisture and we had a freezing problem and it was cracking some of our devices and so you got to be careful about that stuff. And then yeah, I'm just trying to so I think quality inspections are really important.

Scott R. (23:22)
Hello.

Valerie Dodd (23:34)
Occasionally you have you one or two people working maybe for a contractor that are putting your drops this deep when they should be this deep Next spring know next spring when somebody is putting in you know a watering system They take out their drop and so quality inspects Observe carefully what you've hired and what they're doing for you and spend a lot of time in the field because We're your most vulnerable and your network really is in that drop

Christopher Mitchell (23:42)
Hahaha

Valerie Dodd (24:03)
and then just making sure, because it's closer to the ground, you know, and so I think that's an important thing. And then, you know, since I've gotten here, I've been doing a lot of interviews and answering a of questions and it's like, wow, how did you make this work? Or how did the city make this work? And I have to say, it isn't easy and there were a lot of things working in our favor and Scott can speak to this probably as much as anyone, but...

We have LPC that gave us life and that is our, you know, Longmont Power Communications Organization or enterprise. And they have been providing electricity for over a hundred years in the city and at a great value. You know, one of the lower electric rates we provide or have some of the lowest ⁓ electric rates in the state. And so the community already trusted the city. You don't have that everywhere. And ⁓

And that's it.

Christopher Mitchell (25:03)
Right. Sorry, even when you have municipal electricity,

you don't always have that great relationship that you have. You can't take it for granted.

Valerie Dodd (25:08)
Absolutely.

I mean, our founding fathers and mothers and sisters really did a great job of saying, we want to control our own destiny. We want to control our own utilities. That gives us autonomy to really succeed locally and then to be selective about what businesses you invite to town and other things. But it gives you a lot of choice. And so I think

the city did really well in understanding the importance of having control over its electric and water utilities. And then people saw it, they trusted the city. It was award winning. It was a valuable, a value. And then I think they were like, wow, no one else is coming up here saying they want to bring us fiber. And then let's also not forget, Scott can help me with this one too, is that Google Fiber looked at ⁓ Longmont as building a fiber Internet network here.

we were, I think, a runner up and we're not selected, but boy, did that wake people up to the benefit of having fiber Internet. So you have Google teasing the whole community with the possibility of this fabulous, reliable, super fast network. And then when that didn't pan out and then we're like, hey, but we'll do it, I think it really helps. So I share that to say, it's not easy. We have a lot of things working in our favor and on our behalf.

for the last 100 years, the last 30 years, the last 15 years. And so was a series of events that happened that really set up the groundswell and the appetite and deep interest in having our own fiber Internet.

Scott R. (26:52)
Absolutely. There's just so much preparation that went in before a single connection ever got made for NextLight. ⁓ At one point in the early years, when we were hooking folks up, we were getting calls literally from coast to coast, ⁓ from Hawaii to Massachusetts, from Washington State to Texas. And one of the things that

I mean they always want to know how did you do it and one of the things we always emphasize is you've got to do your homework ahead of time because our situation is not going to be the same as Hawaii's situation is not going to be the same as Massachusetts situation. Everybody's is a little bit unique and so we found a solution that works for us. You have to take the time to find the solution that works for you.

Christopher Mitchell (27:43)
And Scott, I don't know if it's true, but one of the funny stories that I've heard in the sense that like you all live in like paradise, you know, I mean, obviously, you know that from how rapidly it's grown. And, but the joke was that, that all of the mayors around you were rooting that it would not succeed because they felt like they may have to go down this path if it did. And, and funny enough, like you have several other award winning networks around you as well now.

So they have gone down the path and done very well.

Scott R. (28:10)
Yeah.

I

mentioned that we are one of the four that make up the Platte River Power Authority. And now all the other three member cities of that authority have fiber networks themselves, Loveland's Pulse, Fort Collins' Connexion, and Estes Park's Trailblazer. And yes, all of them very, very excellent networks. And Northern Colorado has become kind of a leader in municipal broadband.

Valerie Dodd (28:39)
And back to success begets success and you demonstrate success and then it's like, this is possible and this is viable. They can build the competencies to do these things.

Christopher Mitchell (28:49)
Yes, I mean, this is not a foregone conclusion. ⁓ This success is ⁓ truly remarkable and it does require a lot of hard work, not just to get there, but then to maintain it. ⁓ One of the things I wanted to note, we have one thing I want to talk about before we get to the debt, and that is that when the Affordable Connectivity Program went away, when the federal government stopped funding it, your

possibly the only place that ended up having more people getting a benefit when the federal government stopped writing checks. And so I just wanted to give you a chance to tell that story briefly of how you dealt with that.

Valerie Dodd (29:22)
Yeah.

I'm going

to back up even further. again, ⁓ predates me. But early on, the again, the community knew that the important thing here was to have an accessible service offering and there weren't going to be winners and losers in this community. And we weren't going to do a business case to decide where we did and didn't build out. This is a not for profit organization and we were going to be different. And so the city worked with the Longmont Community Foundation to develop a program whereby they would ensure that

Scott R. (29:45)
Thank

Valerie Dodd (29:53)
students had access to discounted, if not free, Internet through sharing the NextLight. And we even included the opportunity for customers to donate to that program. So we had that program in place. Well then COVID hits. And when that hit and happened and we all went home, everybody went home to the house, the students, workers, we said we need a discounted service offering. Nobody can be stranded during this epidemic. And so within a day, because we have the

ability NextLight within the city to set our own pricing. We don't have to take things to city council. We work as a separate enterprise and I was able to get a $15 Internet product approved by our city manager that day and so that was terrific. Also we had technicians rallying. We were installing drops into garages so because we couldn't enter homes. We did what it took to make sure people were set up during COVID. Then the federal government caught up to us

Scott R. (30:28)
campus and work in a separate environment.

Valerie Dodd (30:53)
And then they provided some subsidies. We took advantage of those and then they removed those subsidies. We kept a $25 discount and so we still have a $15 product for customers that are income qualifying and participate in some of our other discounted utility programs. And it is one of the best things that we have done. We have roughly thousand customers on those discounted programs and it's really wonderful. And I will say some people use that $25 towards

are you know $70 product and so they still want gig but they get it at a discount because that is their lifeline. They don't you know have as much money to travel and do other things and so they really value that terrific connection to work entertainment etc at home. So that's just again another reflection of our community and how committed we are.

to ⁓ everyone in the community about accessibility and equity and doing the right thing. And again, we are not for profit and that's the best thing. And I tease and I'm not even teasing. I often say I have the best job in the city and certainly the best job in telecommunications because we get to wake up and do great things for people every day. We're not stressing about a stock price. And I've spent many years of my career doing that. And that it feels like you're focused on a balance sheet rather than.

customer. And so I'm so grateful. I love my job and I'm excited to be here.

Scott R. (32:17)
So.

Christopher Mitchell (32:23)
Yes, and this brings us to the last question, which is, wow, with all these benefits, it can't possibly be paying for itself. And yet, it seems to be.

Valerie Dodd (32:33)
Yeah, I mean when you get up to that almost 70 % penetration and yes, we have a lot of customers that still have the charter rate of $50, but other than that we have a $69 one gig and we have some higher price higher speed solutions not a lot of customers on those products, but we have found a way to keep our costs down get a little bit of scale economies of scale and So right now we're managing a 23

$23.2 million balance budget, pushing 30,000 customers. And as I mentioned earlier, we have about $5.5 million in debt. We're on track. We're paying the debt now. The debt will, as I look down the corner, it's like, yeah, it's 26. What year are we in? So at the end of 29, we will have absolved ourselves of all of our debt. And so we're on track. It's a terrific place to be.

And so we will be looking very seriously at what we do with ⁓ that cashflow reinvesting the network. Trust me, the network, you know, guys and gals are like, you're not doing anything until I make sure that, you know, we've upgraded the fiber backbone or we've done this. We've got a future proof, everything continue to invest in necessary software systems to really allow for that automation, self-service, ⁓ other things.

Scott R. (33:41)
in this case.

Valerie Dodd (33:56)
But we have the freedom just to continue to ensure that into perpetuity our community benefits from the best Internet in the country.

Christopher Mitchell (34:06)
That's really wonderful. So I assume you're paying it down ahead of time for people who aren't familiar. A lot of times it's 20 year debt. I don't know if that's what you took on, but you if you're ahead of schedule, that's 2029. Okay. Yeah, terrific.

Valerie Dodd (34:15)
We're on schedule.

Yeah,

it's a great feeling and we're able to do what we need to do today and continue. You we have roughly three million dollar capital budget per year, which goes towards continuing to build and fortify our network. So, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (34:32)
Well, and I think it's really important for people to appreciate that you are, I'm sure you have a rainy day fund, but that's

also one of the first things you need. I remember when the landslides hit, um, uh, back when you were building the network, um, early on and, uh, you can never be too prepared. So, um,

Valerie Dodd (34:47)
That's the fourth of 2013.

Yeah.

Scott R. (34:50)
Game time at the flood.

Christopher Mitchell (34:51)
Yeah,

the flood and then, well, the flood, yeah, and then Estes Park, think maybe had the landslides. I'm trying to remember. What I do remember is that Vince Jordan, who is at the time helping to build the network, that he lost a bunch of vaults because they got buried. And so maybe that was with the flooding. They just moved all the mud around, but they had to relocate those and they had not yet recorded their position in GPS. So it was a challenging time.

Valerie Dodd (35:15)
And I'll put in another plug for the city. Scott can help me with this one. But the city has also received awards for the 2013 flood recovery. And so I just feel like the way we manage our utilities in this community and city is pretty phenomenal. And we just have a really high standard. And we've got surrounding communities that are struggling with water. We're OK. We've got reserves, even though we're having a drought year. ⁓

Scott R. (35:24)
Yes.

Christopher Mitchell (35:42)
Mm-hmm.

Valerie Dodd (35:43)
The city does a great job with its utilities and I want to make sure that I help contribute to that aspect from an excite perspective for as long as I'm here and set things up. Yeah, to continue.

Christopher Mitchell (35:55)
Well, it's wonderful to see all the exposure. Any last thoughts, Scott? ⁓

We've certainly covered why you deserve the many accolades that you've received.

Valerie Dodd (36:01)
Okay.

Scott R. (36:04)
Well, and to be honest, the accolades, this particular accolade is one of my favorites because this accolade is not about us. This accolade is about our community. It's about customer satisfaction. It's about what's been done for them, what they feel has been done for them, what they value in this network. And that, especially for a city-owned Internet service, that's the holy grail right there.

Christopher Mitchell (36:33)
Yeah, I agree. I have to say that it's one of the best parts about working in this field for almost 20 years is seeing the folks that I saw get started and seeing the difference that you make and, ⁓ and knowing that the challenges were worth it. The, you know, the, the, ⁓ the taking the risk was worth it. And that, ⁓ and that you were able to like assemble such a great team, hire great people as you both know, and, ⁓ and make it all work.

Valerie Dodd (36:41)
Thank

Scott R. (37:01)
And we've inspired a lot of interest and curiosity throughout the state. I think you covered this as well a couple of years ago. Colorado did away with that restriction on municipal broadband, in part because so many cities, counties, districts, et cetera, had voted to set aside the restrictions that there just wasn't much left to restrict anymore.

Christopher Mitchell (37:13)
Mm-hmm.

No, that's true. And then I think also, I think you'll both agree. One of the things that's great to see is that we didn't see foolish plans. We saw communities that are engaging in a thoughtful process as to how to move forward. And so that's, I think, reassuring as well.

Scott R. (37:39)
It is, it is. Like I said, you have to do your homework. It's not something that you can just jump into feet first and hope everything comes out all right. You take the time to make your plans. And if you do take the time, the plans can reward you very, well.

Christopher Mitchell (37:45)
Right.

Well, thank you so much, Valerie. I really appreciate your time once again.

Valerie Dodd (38:01)
My pleasure. Thank you for your interest and attention. And yeah, we're really proud of what we're doing here. And it means a lot when people are taking notice. So thank you.

Christopher Mitchell (38:12)
Absolutely. And hopefully you'll be inspiring more people through this show. Have a great day.

Valerie Dodd (38:16)
Bye

bye.

Scott R. (38:18)
You do the same, Christopher.

Jordan Pittman (38:21)
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unbuffered Podcast. We have transcripts for this and other episodes available at ILSR.org/podcast. While you're there, check out our other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcasts. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas for the show. Follow us on Bluesky. Our handle is @communitynets.

You can catch the latest research from all of our initiatives by subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org While you're there, please take a moment to donate. Your support in any amount helps keep us going. Unbuffered is produced by Christopher Mitchell with editing provided by me, Jordan Pittman. Until next time, thanks for listening.