The Most Unbuffered Network – Episode 33 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:16)
Welcome to Unbuffered. And I'm excited to say that this could be one of the most Unbuffered episodes because we're talking about Pulse, a fiber network that has among the lowest ping times in the nation, literally has the most Unbuffered network for the best connections. And so we'll talk about that, a new announcement, and and we're gonna we're gonna dive into it today. I'm Chris Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and I'm here today with

Someone that I want to call 20G Bree. And I don't know if you'll appreciate that or not, but you're Bri Brieana Reed-Harmel with the Broadband Division Manager at the City of Loveland, where you run the Pulse Network. Welcome.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (00:58)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm it's a pleasure to be here. And and I love I love the name. I love the name. It's great. You sure? I love it.

Christopher Mitchell (01:02)
Does twenty 20G Bree?

Excellent. We are we're talking about several things that that Loveland has done around the network and how things are going. but the big announcement that just came out is a new twenty gigabit service on your fiber network that goes all the way to people's homes and businesses. And so what's happening there?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (01:27)
Yeah, so we announced brand new product offering in our communities. we're offering 20 gigs straight to the home to our our residential business our residential class of customers. we're the first in Colorado to be able to offer this and it's super exciting. we're calling it Vector Fiber and it is we've had a pretty strong interest and in from the community and a lot of excitement around it just in a couple of days.

Christopher Mitchell (01:52)
That's excellent. And it's the one of the things I thought was interesting was there's a couple of differences that we don't always see. one is you're actually gonna hand people an SFP. And I think I don't know how many people listening to this show are familiar with that. you know, I actually had done a lot of work in this space before I really was comfortable with what an SFP was. So what's an SFP?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (02:13)
Well it's a different form factor for how we deliver

the the handoff to the customer. So basically it is a a direct fiber handoff rather than typically you go through an ONT that transfers to a copper connection like a CAT CAT56, etc. So this is a direct fiber connection to the customer's premise. It's small rather than and it doesn't include things like Wi-Fi that has to come from the customer directly. They have to provide a lot of their own equipment. But the type of customer that is going to be interested in this product is very comfortable with that and we've had a

lot of requests over the last several years for this type of form factor. So we're we're hoping that this will fill a gap in in our product offerings that we haven't been able to fill before.

Christopher Mitchell (02:58)
Yeah, you can imagine a like sophisticated

local business grabbing from you, you're delivering fiber, you're turning it into Ethernet, and then they're turning it back into fiber for what they're doing, perhaps. It's now you're avoiding that extra step if needed. But then I did see something that we don't always see anymore, which is a static IP address again, which I'm gonna go ahead and guess that you figured if someone's gonna be taking advantage of twenty gigabits, they're gonna want that static IP.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (03:22)
Absolutely. So this is more similar to some of the business offerings that we o that we have, but it's really designed for a residential customer that is a more sophisticated usually there's all kinds of different like

home network stuff and

Christopher Mitchell (03:41)
Mm-hmm.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (03:41)
you know different servers and things like that that people are doing now at their home and so this is really designed for that that class of customers. We do offer static IPs to our business customers, we do offer SFPs to business class customers because that's very typical but this is a fairly new offering for just as certain types of residential customers that that need that type of connection and that speed and that low latency connection through this this new product.

Christopher Mitchell (04:09)
So I guess this is where I turn to the camera and I say, How much would you pay for this amazing service? And we we say, Well, you pay a thousand dollars? you don't even have to. It's a much better deal.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (04:20)
It it really is, you know, we we we went this was actually a hot topic of conversation with within our team and is how do you actually position this in a way that is covers our costs and we're able to recover the value on this product but is also accessible enough for the the residential type of customer that would be interested in this product. so this we've we've come to the market with it at three f $350 a month.

which we think is a really, really great value, especially in for for the the type of use that this would typically drive. It typically we in the past we've pushed this type of customer actually to a business level in order to get a static IP to get an S F P type of connection and so we think that this this will actually have

a lot of interest. And we've actually seen that. We launched this on the twenty ninth, which is National Internet Day, which was kind of exciting and kind of fun. I didn't even know National Internet Day existed, but there was a a fun tie-in. and we've already had a really strong interest.

Christopher Mitchell (05:31)
Yeah, that's great. I'm I think one of the things that I was I think about was 20 years ago when I was getting started in this and and talking about people should be building fiber optic networks and it was what do you need for? Well, once you build a network like this, then you can offer these incredible products. And I do wanna I do wanna come back in in a little bit to talk a little bit about what you had to do in order to be able to to set this up. But I'm did want to remind people that for people who don't want

the

fastest Internet access that's available in in Colorado on a service like this. I mean, presumably if you're a if you're at the university, you can get a hundred gig. But like for being available at every address in a community, it's pretty rare to have 20 gigs. but you can get you have $75 a month for the gigabit speeds and then you have the entry tier $50 a month, which I mean in this time of everyone being concerned about affordability, that's an amazing deal to have five hundred megabits at fifty dollars a month.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (06:30)
Yeah, we've actually repositioned our products over the last several years. I mean we we started offering services in twenty twenty and we have slowly been increasing our bottom tier over that time period to match the needs of our community. And I I think that that's something that's extra special about being a community owned broadband, municipally owned broadband is that we can be really responsive and really nimble in a way that y you you can't do that when you're a big big company, big national company. And and we are really in tune

with our community in in that way, being able to, you know, they've invested a lot into this project and into having community-based broadband and so being able to say this we're we're we're meeting the expectations, we're doing what we said we would do with investment and refurbishment and bringing you the latest and greatest technology to really be true to our tenants has been really really fun to be able to kind of bring that to fruition.

Christopher Mitchell (07:29)
Yeah, I think for for ISPs that operate at your level, which is if I saw correctly, it's somewhere on the order of fifty to twenty thousand subscribers. that's fifty dollars a month is is difficult. And you really have to be lean and you have to be efficient because it's great f for the for the customers to be able to pay that little, but as a provider, it's difficult to to make that work. You have very little margins, I'm assuming, for that service.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (07:54)
We do. Yep, it absolutely true. But it's we are not for profit. So you know, it is it's about making sure that we're covering our expenses and then reinvesting back into our infrastructure for the future. so that's what really what we focus on.

Christopher Mitchell (08:10)
So if I was to ask you, and I I should have prepared you for this, but I I always like to surprise people and force them to smile uncomfortably. but if I'd ask you, you've been working on this project for several years, and and we'll talk about that in a second, but before we tell people a little bit of the history, what's the thing that's made it the most exciting, the most, you know, the thing that makes you proud to be a part of the community, running this service that is, you know, just integrated into the community when you look back on the years of of doing it?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (08:41)
it's a great question. We have really changed the landscape of our community over the last several years and in a lot of different ways. I mean we've increased competition, which was one of the things that we were charged to do. And so by just existing we have actually improved the quality of services even to those that don't take our our

services from policy they're taking stuff from our competitor. They our c competition has really upped their game. we're we're also driving the economics in our community in ways that I I had hoped we would be able to to help with but we have a lot of you know new new businesses that are moving in a lot of new

research and startups and that we support through through our network and and it's it's fun. It's plus plus we're building something for the future. my background I come from the public power space and so prior to being here I was on our publicly owned

electric utility side. And, you know, we just celebrated our hundred year anniversary last year for electric. And that I see I see a lot of similarities and parallels to what we're building today with our community own broadband and what we did a hundred years ago with our public power side of the the operation that it just

it it it it builds the community in a way that you you don't you don't see with with private industry. You know, there's the sense of ownership with with our with our residents and our businesses.

Christopher Mitchell (10:23)
Right. And then I think one of the things that that we love at the Institute for Local Self Reliance is as you make the business grow, the you're then supporting the community more. And so you're putting, you know, you're to the extent that you're advertising, I'm sure you're advertising with local folks. You're you're you generally there's taxes that you pay even if you're not required to, in order to like make sure the schools are strong and and everything else. And that's where I feel like

You know, people have a sense of of that the big cable and telephone companies might be taxed. I don't think they don't approach appreciate how they can avoid those taxes or how they have minimal footprint in a city that's taxable, whereas a provider like you is often providing a lot of benefit to the community.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (11:06)
Yeah, we work I mean we're working with our downtown business association, we're working with our low income housing authority, we're work with the school district, you know, to provide support. I mean there's there's all these different ways that we're because we're we're here, we know what the needs are, we're able to to be able to come to the table with innovative ideas and ways to solve needs that are gaps, right?

Christopher Mitchell (11:30)
Did you for your one hundred year celebration, did you get did you do hats and challenge coins? I remember when Longmont did that just this probably seven or eight years ago now.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (11:39)
Yeah, no, so they we it was fun. They we actually had a a local brewery that brewed a special beer for to celebrate. So another you know, the northern Colorado is really known for our microbrewery community too, and

Christopher Mitchell (11:53)
Mm-hmm.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (11:54)
so it was it was fun to be able to power that together. Plus it was Pulse's fifth five year anniversary from launching services, so there was just a lot of activity and excitement around the entire enterprise, not just the the power side of the business, but power and broadband and

how those all kind of like tie together.

Christopher Mitchell (12:11)
So

you've built the network out. and we'll talk in a in a second also about the expansion in Timnath, but but I think we've mostly covered for people who who are a little bit confused. you're a municipal electric power provider that also provides Internet access owned by the city of Loveland. They're in Colorado on the front range, one of the most amazing places where you have powder days when it's an amazing day. People are expected to to take it off and go take advantage.

With the Super El Nino. I hope you still get that this year. We'll see.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (12:43)
I hope so. I hope so. We definitely could use the the moisture this time of the year.

Christopher Mitchell (12:47)
Yes.

And then but you're mostly built out, right? what's the what's the news on that?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (12:53)
Yeah, so we completed construction across the entire city at the end of 2023, and so we are just we're managing to the growth as the city grows because the Loveland is a growing community historically, and so as new developments come in, we're making sure that we're we're connecting those. I will caveat, I mean, and and anybody who provides broadband services to their community knows that we do have a few apartment complexes and and other areas where we we're not allowed access and so those are still popular.

That we're targeting over the next many years to hopefully be able to get in and be able to serve those customers too.

Christopher Mitchell (13:31)
How is it how is it with the the growth? Is that pretty much combined where if you have a developer putting in a new bunch of single family homes or something like that, do you is there like one spec that the developer gets or do you go in and do it yourself? How does that work?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (13:48)
we do partner with our power side of our utility because we're trying to do joint trench and making sure we're taking advantage of the economies of scale that we have. just like you know any any any provider would when the trench is open, you want to make sure you get your your stuff in the ground. but there's I think there's a lot of opportunity. One one of the things that we're looking at now is how do we move our

other utilities forward with now that we've invested all this infrastructure into our community, then now what can we do? I mean we can serve Internet to customers, but what else can we do to provide more value to our city in ways that I I think we're just starting to s kind of scratch the surface on with you know s sensing and connect communities and all these different things that are

Christopher Mitchell (14:34)
So glad you said that.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (14:37)
you know that we can do once you have the infrastructure available.

Christopher Mitchell (14:41)
Yeah, I'm

I'm so excited to see what cities like you do with sensing with with fiber optic sensing. Can you share at all what you're thinking about?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (14:49)
well it's really very high level. I mean we we know that it's possible and we're still in the exploratory stage of things. So I mean I it's it's just lots of ideas at this point, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall about different ways that we could potentially do things. But it's really exciting and it's one of those things that when you talk about like what what excites me, this is one of those areas that it's that research and development and then what's what's next, right?

Christopher Mitchell (15:12)
Exactly.

I mean, I'm I just feel like I hope there's a future where you're able to use fiber optic cables that you have to basically significantly cut the capital and operating expenses of the city's traffic engineers, while giving them a lot more information, providing for safer streets. I just I feel like people have no idea what can come soon of of what we can do with the fiber optics and fiber optic sensing. It's it's incredible.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (15:40)
You know, it's I know we were gonna talk about some of the things we're doing with Timneth because that's an expansion area, but that's an area that we've been working very closely with their public works department. They've never had the ability to have their traffic signals connected prior, and that's that's something that we're working on right now. So that's you know a benefit to their community for investing in fiber too, that we're able to then leverage community to community in this public public partnership kind of aspect to to bring value to their to their community.

Christopher Mitchell (16:14)
Excellent. I I I do think I wanted to ask just qu briefly, do you can you share with us what vendor you're using for the the 20 gigabit and and just like what you had to go through in your network to be able to offer that anywhere without knowing who was gonna take advantage of it?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (16:32)
Absolutely. So we are a Nokia shop. So we have we started out with our Nok our central office hardware is Nokia and our O and Ts are as well, so that's what we're using. It's pretty fun that we actually were able to leverage the infrastructure that we initially invested in to launch our 10 gig service a couple of years ago. We've been able to do the same thing with the same infrastructure to now go to 20 gig with only minimal investments. When we were originally contemplating

Doing community-owned broadband many years ago, that was one of the things that we talked about is that you you really only have to replace the electronics on either end, and that's really come true. For this 20-gig launch, we've been able to just upgrade the optics and the hardware in the customer's home and being be able to

offer that as a service. So it's been it's it's been a great investment that we've been able to just take what we already have and just kind of mi incrementally add on top of that and improve improve the offerings.

Christopher Mitchell (17:36)
Excellent. so I'm curious how the competitive landscape is. I know I don't think CenturyLink was as aggressive when you were getting built out, and now for some reason they're coming to town and and trying to to pull your customers away. I mean, you have T-Mobile and and Verizon and AT&T all trying to pull a few customers here and there onto their wireless system where they have some extra capacity. So what's it been like having to to face that?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (18:05)
yeah, so when we first started our services about five years ago, our primary competition was our cable provider, which is Comcast in this market. we still had CenturyLink at that time. They they had installed a little bit of fiber here and there mostly to MDUs, but they weren't investing a lot. over the last two years, they have started overbuilding their copper infrastructure with

with fiber under the brand name of Quantum. And so that has been an interesting shift for us to have not just a a cable provider but another fiber provider actively competing in our neighbor in our community. and you're right, we do also have some of the wireless providers like T-Mobile primarily is is probably the big one that we see for home based Internet you know we still have something that

they can't provide and e even if the technology is similar

What we're we're we're actually providing is that experience to the community, that customer value and that customer care. that unless you're actually here, if unless you're part of the community, you're never going to be able to see like an apples to apples comparison. So even if if we have another entity that's you know providing similar speeds or similar technology, our really our differentiator is that we're local, that will roll the truck that same day if we have the ability, we are technicians and are

sales team, they live and work here. you know, it's it's a it's the it's the biggest differentiator for us. And our customers see that and there's they provide they they see the value in that.

Christopher Mitchell (19:45)
Yeah, I th I assume that like others, if you have disconnects, you do a survey and try to keep track of it. And and it wouldn't surprise me if you just continue to see that people are moving out of town after disconnecting. But what we find is that when people have a great value like you provide, they often, even if they're getting mailer after mailer, they're like, I don't wanna they're almost superstitious about it. They're like they're like, I don't wanna try this other thing, I've got a good thing going.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (20:11)
Y you know that that's our probably our biggest reason for disconnection i well I know it's our biggest reason for disconnection because we do track that is move outs. So when we have somebody who's leaving our our service territory, that that's far and away the biggest reason that people are disconnecting their service. We do have a little bit of churn off that go to our competition. and especially when Quantum was first coming in to the market, we saw a lot of interest in the community. They had a lot of promotions early on that were

very enticing for some customers. But we've seen a lot of them come back as well because they just that that customer service, that customer care is just not the same as it was under Pulse. And so we see we've seen a lot of customers that have been like, you know what, I'm I'm I miss that and I I value that and I want to come back.

Christopher Mitchell (21:02)
Yeah, I'm actually a Quantum customer. pay eighty five dollars a month for gig, which is more than you charge. And that's just and I think that actually is the the rate. They don't they don't play any of those games with me that or I we at least here in Minnesota with like the the fake fees. But when I have a problem, I'm often talking to a call center that's on the other side of the planet. it's quite different than you're looking at.

so but go ahead.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (21:25)
Yeah. We

we we get people that call in and they're like, Are you sure you're here? And it's like, No, you can come and visit me if you want, you know. So yeah, I'm I'm a I'm a physical person. I'm here in in Loveland.

Christopher Mitchell (21:40)
I wanted to I wanted to note that like I feel like there is a like a jeune sequoi like of of it which is I mentioned at the beginning with your ping. So Ookla did this study. We covered it not too long ago. Specifically I was talking with with Roger Timmerman from from UTOPIA shortly after it came out.

And it identified your pings across thirteen months as being single digits, which is like about as good as it gets. you know. so I do feel like people may not know what that means, but when they transition to a different technology or a different company providing a similar technology, they're like, Whoa, it just doesn't feel the same. so it's it's impressive. I don't know if you want to share it all. I mean, I'm sure you guys have took a lot of pride in that measurement.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (22:30)
We we really did. you know, we've we've had a few PC Mag awards over the last couple of years too related to to that and our speeds and our customer service. so we're we're really proud of that. And and not, you know, not to diminish our entire region because we have, you know, Next Light and to our south and Fort Collins to our north who are also kind of our our sister cities here that are all you know right at the top of the list. We kind of compete neck and neck who's gonna get it this.

year right for for fastest and best best

Christopher Mitchell (23:02)
Mm-hmm.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (23:04)
Internet provider. So really proud of what we do.

Christopher Mitchell (23:07)
I

think I mean I I don't want to take anything away from you guys. You guys are amazing. But I just wonder if PC magazine has some writers who are just like really trying to get out to to justify trips to visit you and and hang out in the on the front range there.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (23:19)
I sure hope

so. It's a great place to be.

Christopher Mitchell (23:22)
So where are things with Timnath? I feel like, you know, I mean, I feel like time flies by, but it feels like you just announced that recently, but it has been a minute. So how are things going there?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (23:31)
They're going great. So we're expected to actually complete construction for the brownfield part of the the town next early next year. And we're start we see really strong market growth in in that region as well. Timnath is is a wonderful partner. They have been really at the table. They see us as part of their their city, even though we're a a neighboring community that's you know we've we have a a an agreement with, but it's

it's

been really fun to see to see it happen again. You know, we we went through that early on with with our Loveland community. and and to see that growth again and that excitement start to build in in a new community as we as we roll through has been really, really exciting. So

Christopher Mitchell (24:20)
Can you

give me a sense of what your conversations are like with others in the region? I'm I'm kind of curious because we've people come to us and they ask, what's the future of municipal broadband? Or, you know, the there's been an assumption that BEAD was somehow related to this. I think, you know, we all know BEAD was gonna mostly serve very rural areas. It was useful for some municipal providers where they might be serving a nearby region to help them to to do that.

but I mean, I think, you know, you've got AT&T doing fiber to most locations now, you know, like you've got a lot of people have access to fiber, not enough. And we want to see more. But I think for a cities that have to wrestle with, you know, housing and other challenges and things like that, they could look at a network like yours and say, I would love to have that. But is things aren't so bad that I can justify that investment. and so I'm do you still have a

Country like cities that are reaching out to you to try and get a sense of whether you can save them and what the challenges would be or anything like that, or is it are they just moved on to other issues?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (25:25)
I mean it's a it's mixed. I think that the landscape has definitely changed in the last, you know, five to eight years since we started this project. but there's still value in communities owning their network or at least having a a say in what's happening in their network. And it's

It's not just competing, right? It's not just providing Internet to the residents and businesses. It's all the rest of the things that having fiber in the ground or utility pools, how you know, depending on the community, that it brings to the table that you can then leverage to do other things. So it's some of it's a lot of it's non-tangible. and and we don't actually know

all the things that we can do with it yet, right? So it's one of those things that once you start investing and exploring, you then can leverage that. It is something that we've been able to take advantage of. We as a community invested our electric utility invested in the late 90s with putting fiber infrastructure in that we've been able to leverage for our ring, our initial ring, and you know, and then it's just kind of like builds upon that. So it's incremental building. So I I you know it's that's a we do get asked that question it's like should we do this? Should we not do

this and it's well if you're just competing, maybe not, but that's not the only reason to maybe build out community based broadband.

Christopher Mitchell (26:51)
Right.

I think of when thinking about the traffic, it would not surprise me if over the next ten years you can ha have a hundred times the situational awareness in your city at one tenth of the cost that you're paying for the surveillance cameras and traffic monitoring and all the different sensors and things like that. And that's an incredible deal, but not if you're having to pay the AT&T rates, you know, for fiber, like the Verizon rate, wherever you happen to be. Like it's just

They

i it's sort of i cause i anyway, like that's sort of what I would expect to happen. but at the same time, I feel like all the smart city stuff that you've you've you've gotten, you know, vendor after vendor, I'm sure, that said this stuff's gonna change your life and a lot of it didn't, so it's hard to say.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (27:35)
It's it's hard to say, but we're we're seeing right now I think one of our biggest changes that we've seen is in the public safety space. So we've been able to partner with our

emergency response teams in the county to help with you know communication in rural areas that they didn't have communication in, being able to put in flashers and being able to support like our fire authority and e911s provider

in a in a way that's was like mutually beneficial and it with infrastructure that we had invested in for the community, right? For s for that community purpose. And we've had Laramore County, which is the county we're in, is really prone to natural natural disasters. we have lots of floods and fires and all these different things. And so we've had a number of emergency situations since Pulse has been in existence and we've been at the table, we've been able to keep

Community buildings online, we've been able to stand up, you know, the cows in areas where they needed support in and really quickly because we're right there at the table with them. So that's just like thank you, thank you.

Christopher Mitchell (28:49)
Sell on wheels for people who aren't familiar.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (28:53)
so you know, we're we're starting to be able to leverage this already. And so to your point, traffic is maybe another thing. Sensing with our electric and water utilities is maybe another thing. There's just there's just a lot of options out there.

Christopher Mitchell (29:05)
Yeah, that's actually I should have just for those are the two things that it feels like where all the research is, which is traffic where there's a lot of money and water where there's an incredible importance. Like any time you can sense leaks much earlier, those are two profiles that it seems like a lot of the technology is is aimed at right now.

Wonderful. are there any other stories that you'd like to share in terms of just like things that can help people better appreciate why why it matters to have this this local service that is delivered by people who are in the same time zone right around right down the street?

Brieana Reed-Harmel (29:41)
You know, there's I I don't know, there's I've s I've shared so many that's I think it's I can't think of anything, I'm being very honest with you. there's there's just there's a lot of there's a lot of value that we're that we've been able to provide to our community that I'm just I'm just super my team is just super proud of. We're every day we enjoy coming to work.

Christopher Mitchell (30:07)
Well, we we saw that when my team was was out there, we got to to meet up with a lot of the folks on your team and and do a little tour and it was awesome and certainly saw that in action. So I really appreciate your time today and it's exciting to me that you're building that infrastructure and even though in ninety five years none of us will will will be here to see it probably. unless we're in like, you know, this future of where we're contributing to the AI, you never know. Right, exactly.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (30:34)
The singularity, right?

No.

Christopher Mitchell (30:37)
So thank you so much.

Brieana Reed-Harmel (30:38)
Thank you, I appreciate it.

Jordan Pittman (30:40)
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 podcast@communitynets.org 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.