Outside the Box in CLEC-Land

It is rare that there are stories about CLECs actually thinking outside the box AND executing on it. Here are 4.

In the successful CLEC Transformation model, we tried to fit either EarthLink or Cbeyond in, but folded its cards by selling itself to Birch and the other saw its CEO leave behind a mess reminiscent of a college frat house after the big homecoming party. But in Waynesboro, Va., we might have a good example of a traditional Tier 2 voice CLEC transformed. Lumos has built "an extensive enterprise business in the mid-Atlantic region supported by a 7,000-mile fiber network", says telecompetitor. I got to interview their new CFO at Comptel Dallas 2014 and I can quote Lumos' services.

Buhler, Kan. based IdeaTek Systems Inc. transformed from an ISP formed in 1999 to a fiber provider - selling services to cellcos and enterprises off its 1,800 route miles. It just sold that fiber network to Zayo. And take a look at this website - great look and feel - and a cool message: Human at Our Very Fiber. BOOM! It takes a lot of elements to get to the sale stage - marketing, sales, assets and a proven track record. Those things require an investment of not just money, but effort, execution and persistence.

Sonic.Net is up to something with a new advertising campaign about Fxing the Internet in America [video].

An old ISPCON pal, Eliot Noss of Tucows fame, is in the ISP business. According to the Wash Post, "On Tuesday, Ting Mobile — a small, Canadian-owned wireless carrier based in Mississippi — said it was buying up an Internet service provider in Charlottesville, Va., home to the University of Virginia. The acquisition of Blue Ridge InternetWorks will kickstart new investments by Ting into the town's local fiber optic network, enabling new fixed broadband plans costing less than $100 a month for speeds roughly 100 times the current national average, or 1 gigabit per second."