Sounds of the Summit: He’s never worked in broadband but that’s not stopping him. Meet the man trying to connect Encinitas, California.

On this episode of Connected Nation, we conclude our coverage of the Broadband Communities Summit West.  Learn how a relatively new nonprofit is helping community organizations bridge the Digital Divide; explore another company's unique approach to helping smaller ISPs secure funding; AND hear from one man who is taking connecting his community into his own hands.

Recommended Links:
Curtis Dean Linkedin
Community Broadband Action Network
Scott Sampson Linkedin
Mac Mountain LLC.
Robert Ford Mance Linkedin
Ford Mance Capital Advisors

Past Broadband Communities Summit West episodes:
Sounds of the Summit: Episode #1
Sounds from the Summit: Why 100% connectivity is a moving target in the Sunflower State
Sounds of the Summit: Upcoming trends in digital inclusion and how one ISP is revolutionizing local connectivity
Sounds of the Summit: Today's perceptions in telehealth and Hawaii's vision for full connectivity

Chapters

• 1:53 What is the Community Broadband Action Network?
• 6:21 How Curtis Dean and her co-founders started the non profit organization
• 9:36 Financing broadband
• 11:59 How working in the ISP industry gives one an advantage
• 15:42 Working with ISPs across the country
• 24:01 Encinitas, California need for better broadband
• 25:37 Why it's important for everyone to have access to broadband

Transcript

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (00:07):
This is Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband from closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds. We talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods. On this episode of Connected Nation, we conclude our coverage from Broadband Community Summit West, taking place in San Diego, California, October 30th and October 31st. On this episode, we talk to a relatively new nonprofit that's helping community orgs bridge the digital divide. Plus we talk to an organization that's helping ISPs, especially the smaller ones, secure financing in new ways. And I'm giving you my favorite interview of the entire conference. You'll meet Robert Manz, find out what he's trying to do in his own community. I'm Jessica Sen, and this is Connected Nation. I'm now standing with INE, who's with the Community Broadband Action Network, also called cban.

Curtis Dean, Community Broadband Action Network (01:06):
Yeah,

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:07):
How are you doing?

Curtis Dean, Community Broadband Action Network (01:08):
I'm great. Great to see you.

Jessica Denson, Connected Nation (01:09):
How has your conference been?

Curtis Dean, Community Broadband Action Network (01:11):
It's been really good. I'm always, when you go, I do a lot of conferences on behalf of our members and you just don't ever know what to expect. And every time I'm blown away at the amazing conversations you have the amazing sessions. You learn as much from sessions as you do from conversations, right. And I'm always impressed by, the way I always say is I come in and I leave smarter than I got here. And this event, all the broadband communities events are very much like that. They're just great content and great networking.

Jessica Denson (01:47):
Well, tell us about CB. What is C band? What is your goal and mission and what are you guys doing out in the world?

Curtis Dean (01:53):
Yeah, well, we are a nationwide nonprofit organization with members in 29 states and two Canadian provinces. And our motto is building broadband bridges. And what that means is that we try to take our members from this side of the chasm to the other side by building a bridge because in that chasm, that gap, that divide, you might call it, are perils and hazards. And they don't want to go down in that divide and climb back up. They're going to get eaten by alligators.

(02:25):
So every provider or every one of our member classifications has different hazards in that divide. For providers, it's lack of information, it's high cost, it's operational efficiencies, it's lack of opportunity, the need to grow for communities. That's another classification of members. Those barriers are, again, lack of information, not knowing where to turn, but in their communities they have gaps in coverage, they have gaps in quality of service, they have gaps in customer that they're trying to help find a solution for. We also have associate members and they're companies like we see here today. Several of our associate members are here today and they are service and solution providers. So they are needed to help. They have their own gaps they need to get over, including how do I find the right prospects? We engage with our network with a dialogue to help make those connections. I consider myself kind of a connector in that our members will reach out to me as the executive director and say, Hey, here's my problem. Who do I talk to? I make some introductions and hopefully they get together and solve problems.

Jessica Denson (03:47):
Do you have any success stories or anything that you'd be willing to share or able

Curtis Dean (03:51):
To? Yeah, really we've had a number over the years and again, a lot of it is just making those connections. We're working right now with Zi County, Michigan and in Benzene County, they brought C band to the table to help them because they just wanted to make sure that when the bead funds were released by the state that providers in the region were going to go after those areas so that they can get that ubiquitous coverage they seek. So they asked Cban and our team to help them make sure the maps were correct, identify areas that could be served that aren't served, identify areas that were supposed to be served through RDOF, but the providers weren't doing anything. And then maybe nudge those two providers say, why don't you guys step aside so somebody else can get this money? And we're in the middle of that engagement right now. We're also working with them on digital equity programs, which we have done now for the past two years through a grant with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. So the membership services, it all comes down to really helping them get from where they are to where they want to be.

Jessica Denson (05:08):
And what do you think for your organization, what's the big picture? Where would you like things to be in 2, 3, 5 years down the road?

Curtis Dean (05:16):
Well, we want to grow our mission and our capacity so we can do more. So I'm the executive director, but this is really a passion project for me. And so I am a consultant as well. So that's what pays the bills and this is what gets me up in the morning,

Curtis Dean (05:32):
Getting up in the morning only pays the bills so far. So we're looking to grow capacity. We're doing that by expanding our membership. Our members, the only classification of members that paid dues are associate members. Those are those products or service providers like you see here. They pay dues and that helps us with some of the funds. We need to do things like travel to events, redo the outreach, maintain a website, run a

Curtis Dean (05:58):
An email newsletter, all those things. So we're hoping in the next two to three years we can build the capacity to the point where we can have a full-time, executive director, maybe additional staff so we can do more for our members and have a bigger impact on them.

Jessica Denson (06:14):
When were you guys founded?

Curtis Dean (06:16):
2018.

Jessica Denson (06:17):
And what led to that?

Curtis Dean (06:21):
What led to that? That's a great question. Well, my two co-founders and I, all individual independent consultants in the telecom world, what we all realized was that we were spending a lot of time, lot of time for free, helping people get from where they were to where they wanted to be. And we said, what if we created an organization and that's their sole purpose in life, is to do that. And so that's when c-Band was born. And so it started out with, I think we had 20 or 30 members the first year. We've had big growth this year. We've added, our membership has pretty much gone up by 45% this year. So, but that beginning stage was we all felt passionate about better broadband for everyone and we felt passionate about providers that are what I call community first providers. They don't have to be community owned, but they care about their communities. They're embedded in their communities, they invest in their communities. They're not just a collect bill and move on. The big companies are. So we really wanted to see communities be successful, provider successful, and then we really want to see our associate members who do good work for these folks be successful. So that's the reason we formed it.

Jessica Denson (07:43):
Alright, well, where would you like c-band to be next? Where are we going to find you? How do people get connected to you?

Curtis Dean (07:52):
Yeah, well, a couple of different ways. First of all, reach out to us@broadbandaction.com. That's our website. You can drop an email to hello@broadbandaction.com. That'll

Jessica Denson (08:02):
Reach what's your podcast called?

Curtis Dean (08:04):
Podcast is called Broadband Action. Funny little theme there going on. And we do an episode usually once a week and it's a great way to learn about decision makers and innovators and people who are also crossing their own divides, right? And those best practice sharing, that's a lot of the value we bring. We'll be at the broadband communities, the big summit next year. We're going to probably be a connected in America, in Texas in the winter at least I've been asked to speak. So yeah, we get out to three or four at least events a year.

Jessica Denson (08:41):
Awesome.

Curtis Dean (08:42):
Well, FBA.

Jessica Denson (08:43):
Thank you Curtis. I appreciate your time, Christine with the Community Broadband Action Network. Well, I'll put your link to your website in the description of the podcast.

Curtis Dean (08:51):
Perfect. Appreciate it, Jessica. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jessica Denson (08:53):
Thank you. I am staying at the Broadband Community Summit West and one of my favorite people to interview has walked up Scott Sampson. He used to work for Fiber Fast Homes, but now supposedly retired, but I don't think so.

Scott Sampson, Mac Mountain LLC. (09:07):
Never retired.

Jessica Denson (09:07):
Tell our audience who you're working for now.

Scott Sampson, Mac Mountain LLC. (09:09):
I'm now working with Mac Mountain. I'm with the m and a team. We're doing acquisitions, doing some mergers, looking at investing. We actually started a five sort of pillar of design, build, finance, sell and operate to help ISPs actually maintain this world.

Jessica Denson (09:26):
And you were telling me that you had just come from another conference where you talked about financing and that was a huge topic. Explain why and what you had to share.

Scott Sampson, Mac Mountain LLC. (09:36):
Not a problem. Yeah. I was at the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce get together for broadband, and there was a lot of conversations that were going on and we were towards the end, but everybody was talking about money and financing, especially with BEAD coming out, A lot of these smaller companies don't know how to look at how do they get the 25% or even up to 50% match in some of these states. And so we were there to actually talk about that. I was part of the financing team for private equity, not grant money because a lot of these with matching the 25%, where do they go? And so there are really four different buckets of money out there. Grants being one, which is the beads, the R offs, and those. The other ones is private equity.

(10:16):
Then you've got bonds and bonds run. There's multiple of them, but like revenue bonds, private activity bonds. And then you get into just private lending and loans like SBA and SBA is standard. That's what I knew when I owned my sb. You just went to the bank and got an SBA loan. But is that the best solution? And so what we're doing is working with a lot of companies to help them find different ways to finance what they're going to do, especially with bead coming out because they don't have the money and they don't have the money to put into an account and let it sit there for five years, 10 years, however

Jessica Denson (10:51):
Long it takes to build that. I've heard that from small ISPs saying that is one of the biggest challenges is they can't just set the money there because they need it for operating and moving forward. So continuous what you were saying and what are some solutions then for that?

Scott Sampson (11:05):
Well, the biggest solution is just finding a partner. If you can't afford it, don't give up. We can help you with the filling out the bead agreement. We can give you letters of the documentation that you need to actually submit it with it, saying we will help cover that part of it. We've already done that with one business out of Colorado and we're talking to a few other ones. We're working with a couple companies out of the northeast in Maine, Connecticut, Vermont. And so we are looking at different ways to do it. A lot of it's going to be private and you give up a little bit of equity, but you get the money to help you cover to build. And that's where companies like us come involved and say, Hey, we can actually be your partner and help you make more money. We don't want to be the guys that just give you the money and just pray. We want to be the guys that help you succeed in this world. And it's really where it's going.

Jessica Denson (11:51):
Do you think it gives you an advantage or at least an understanding, the fact that you've run ISPs and worked in this space for so long?

Scott Sampson (11:59):
Oh, a hundred percent. That was the one thing when I was on this panel, I said to them, I'm one of you. I ran an ISP. The first 20 years of my career was being an internet service, and all I knew was go to friends and family, borrow from them, and that could just go totally wrong or go to the bank. That's all I knew. I didn't know there was all these other funding sources out there. That's where I think a lot of small businesses run into the problem. One of the other problems that I heard, and I've seen multiple times with a lot of businesses is also it's a lot of engineers that start up an ISP. They think this is the greatest thing ever, and I'm going to go get the bead money. But they don't understand. It's not just about passing homes, it's not the field of dreams, it's not build it and they will come. You got to sell it too. So we can educate also on selling. And that's probably the bigger one is how do you make money? Because if we're going to become an equity partner in this, it's a big deal for loaning new money.

Jessica Denson (12:55):
So you also work on helping with the marketing side is what you're saying?

Scott Sampson (12:58):
Yeah, that's part of the whole five pillars that we are doing. The design operate. A lot of the engineers that are out there can already do the design, operate and also the build, but it's how do you do the finance? How do you do the sales? You got to generate revenue. That's great. You can go pass a thousand homes, 10,000 homes, a hundred thousand homes, but if you don't sell it, they're never going to get to you and you're never going to make any money. You're just going to waste all this time and effort to spend all this money but not have a customer to show for it. Let a company like us help you. And that's probably the bigger deal to me.

Jessica Denson (13:31):
I think that's really a niche that's needed because you think about engineering minds or this mindset that can really do that. I high respect for that. I could not. But as a comms PR type person, I understand that marketing's a different way. You have to think more at a human level about why this matters to the average person. So when you say you provide that other side, is it guidance? Is it materials, is it all of the above? What is that?

Scott Sampson (13:58):
We'll just say yes.

Jessica Denson (13:59):
Yeah,

Scott Sampson (14:00):
It's probably a lot of guidance. Go help them, show them what to do, teach them. You just can't sit there and just go do it for 'em. You got to teach them why and how do you do door hangers? Do you do knockers? Do you do SEO? Do you do Google ads? Do you do Facebook? There's a thousand ways to do it. And the one thing I've always hated about marketing was a lot of it's a

Jessica Denson (14:21):
Guess

Scott Sampson (14:22):
What's going to work in your area might not work in the neighborhood next door. So we give different ideas. Ones we've known, tried and true that do work, but as soon as you start gaining customers, then you can just build from that. And that's where the sales really comes in from our help getting the money. To me that's a little easier. As long as you've got a good solid business plan and you've got a good solid business, we can help you get the money. That's easy. But then you got to turn it and make sales because if you've got 10000002.5 we had to cover for you, we're going to want that back at some point. So we'll help you sell.

Jessica Denson (14:58):
So you want to set 'em up for success with all of that?

Scott Sampson (15:00):
Yes, definitely. I think a lot of banks just come out there and loan you the money and don't care.

Jessica Denson (15:04):
Good luck.

Scott Sampson (15:04):
Yeah, it's good luck. Cross your fingers, hope you make a sale. If we don't,

Jessica Denson (15:07):
Please pay us back

Scott Sampson (15:08):
If you don't, because we're going to own your company in the

Jessica Denson (15:10):
End,

Scott Sampson (15:11):
Us, we want you to succeed because we're looking at long-term revenue. We're not looking at short-term gain interest on the money. That's nice for us. But if we're a part of your company in a percentage, and that could be for anything, you can be as small as five, 10% up to 50% or even controlling where we come in and just run it for you and you just collect a paycheck from us.

Jessica Denson (15:33):
So do you work with all sizes of ISPs? I imagine not like the T-Mobile's or anything, but mid-size and small

Scott Sampson (15:39):
Definitely.

Jessica Denson (15:39):
And across the country or is it a region?

Scott Sampson (15:42):
Definitely. We are across the country. A lot of who we're targeting is the rural markets really with bead coming out. That's where we're going is really the rural guys, especially if they've already been in that market, they know their customers, they know what they're doing. They just need a little help with money. They don't need the big boys coming in and just stealing their market because they couldn't come up with a 25% match.

Jessica Denson (16:04):
Are you seeing any trends as in the same issues are coming up over and over again or same challenges as we move through this bead process?

Scott Sampson (16:13):
Like I said in the beginning, the sales is probably the biggest one. I see. The

Jessica Denson (16:17):
Biggest one.

Scott Sampson (16:18):
A lot of people have the same fears though that are coming out. The bigger fears right now are material. Are we going to have another supply chain issue? Probably. I mean, I don't know how we don't. I mean it's a short window to get this all built. How do you do it? And then labor labor's the other big one. And it's not just about going out and hiring, it's also about going out and hiring and retaining. You got to be able to keep these employees. You don't want 'em to get stolen because somebody pays a dollar more. But if they're paying a dollar more, but you've got a better attitude and better atmosphere within your company. You've got to learn how to do that right too. I mean the CEOs of today, especially with an ISP, can't just be about the design and build and operate. They've got to do customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction. You've got to learn how to do this and you got to be a full fledged business. And you got to think like a big business does on keeping the employees, but you offer better customer service and really take care of everybody what you're doing.

Jessica Denson (17:15):
So you are out of the game for what a month? You retired?

Scott Sampson (17:22):
Retired.

Jessica Denson (17:22):
I never retired. What made you come back? How made you want to keep going?

Scott Sampson (17:24):
I was never going to leave. I was actually, before I partnered up with Alex, it was very interesting. I was just going to go back into consulting and go help companies anywhere from construction and getting how to get an ISP to helping big corporations build networks around the world. I was going to go back to that. Alex and I got together and it became a very interesting partnership. And when he asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, I was most definitely. And I mean the whole goal was to go back to consulting and this is the best of all worlds with him.

Jessica Denson (17:54):
One of the reasons I mentioned at the top of this podcast, you're one of my favorite people to interview, is because you're so passionate and you can really see that people respond to you. Where do you get that love for this?

Scott Sampson (18:04):
This is an industry I've been doing for almost 30 years, and as I've say to everybody, just wait until tomorrow. We'll all change. This is an industry that's moving so fast and changes every day. You've got to be able to pivot at any moment's time. And to me, that's just the fun part of it. Just to be an operator, just to sit there and just run it. It's sort of boring. But if we can go out and make a change to the world, and that's one thing about this internet, it is a change to the world today. I mean, when I started 30 years ago, I mean you got on there, you looked at some funny cat photos, you did some email, I

Jessica Denson (18:37):
Still do that.

Scott Sampson (18:38):
Went on your bank and did some books and flights. I mean, it was very basic. That's when the internet was a child. Today it's a teenager, it's a little confused on where it's going, doesn't know.

(18:48):
And it's tomorrow. What is tomorrow going to bring? Because now you can't really apply for a job without being on the internet. But now you can get an education, you can go get certified for anything. You can go to college online and never step inside of a classroom. How much fun is this because of the internet? I booked a whole trip with my wife for our 30th anniversary this year. We went to Italy and I booked the whole thing online and what we did and where we went. But that to me is the fun part of this. And it's like I just can't wait. What comes tomorrow? The VR world? What technology? ai? I mean, what is going to happen? And I love it. And I used to talk in front of a lot of schools back when I lived in Arizona and I used to tell 'em, they would always ask me about money and how to do make good money and all this stuff.

(19:37):
And I said, it's never about money. If you love what you do, you'll always make enough money. I have to just say, I've made good money doing this because I love it. And it is fun to be in an industry that you get to see the change in the world. This isn't just a change in your neighborhood. This is a change in the world by certain things that get added. I look at AI and what's coming next, and I mean, we're teaching computers how to be smarter and I mean, I admit the English language is my second language and zeros are my first. And this is where we get to go with it.

Jessica Denson (20:11):
That's awesome. Well, I'm going to leave it there because that is the answer that we should wrap this with. Actually one more thing with Mac Mountain. If somebody wants to get ahold of you guys or be involved with this, what first steps should they take?

Scott Sampson (20:25):
They can either contact me directly, find me on LinkedIn. My name is Scott. Scott Sampson. Or you can go to our website, MAC MAC

Jessica Denson (20:34):
Mtn.com. Yeah, I'll include links in the description of this podcast as well. Thank you. Thank you so much, Scott. Always a pleasure.

Scott Sampson (20:40):
Always a pleasure

Jessica Denson (20:41):
To be here. I am standing at the broadband community Summit West, and I just wrapped an interview with Scott Sampson, Mac Mountain, and a gentleman was standing there listening to us. And his name is Robert Manson. He has joined us now. Hi, Robert.

Robert Ford Mance, Ford Mance Capital Advisors (20:53):
Hello. How are you?

Jessica Denson (20:54):
Good. You're with the Ford Mans Company.

Robert Ford Mance, Ford Mance Capital Advisors (20:56):
I am

Jessica Denson (20:57):
Correct. You were listening pretty closely to the interview, and I noticed that afterwards you and Scott made a connection and you walked up and told me he was just who I was looking for. Explain why.

Robert Ford Mance, Ford Mance Capital Advisors (21:10):
I own a building in Cardiff, California, which is a community of Encinitas, California, and there isn't really broadband wifi access to the internet available. So I aspire to create a broadband wifi network and help the small businesses in my community link to patrons, find customers, and then propel all of the benefits of broadband access to the citizenry. That's my goal.

Jessica Denson (21:49):
And how was Scott, why do you feel like Scott was a good person to connect with?

Robert Ford Mance (21:52):
Yeah, the blend of technology and business is, there's a vast divide between solving a problem that is a technology problem and implementing a business goal to sell what is basically the intangible value of a business and its benefits to the customer. So that I think Mark, his name is Mark. I'm sorry,

Jessica Denson (22:20):
Scott.

Robert Ford Mance (22:20):
Scott. I beg your pardon. Scott can provide me both.

Jessica Denson (22:25):
Yeah, he can. Yeah, he can

Robert Ford Mance (22:26):
Provide me both. So when I listened to him talk, I thought, well, this is why I'm here at this conference. I have discovered my solution, let's say.

Jessica Denson (22:38):
That's awesome. And at conferences like this, the broadband communities, west Summit or Summit West are important to make those one-on-one connections, don't you think?

Robert Ford Mance (22:46):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I've never seen anything like this broadband conference. There's nothing like it is there. I don't know.

Jessica Denson (22:53):
There are some around the country, but this is the first, the inaugural for this part of the country.

Robert Ford Mance (22:57):
Yeah, yeah. And I'm learning so much about the digital divide, about broadband, the middle mile, all these elements and sources of capital in order to put it all together into specific solutions for small businesses, from small communities for equity. That's very, very

Jessica Denson (23:24):
Important. Well, tell me a little bit about your community.

Robert Ford Mance (23:28):
Yeah. Encinitas is now, it's more of a high net worth community than it ever was,

Speaker 3 (23:38):
But

Robert Ford Mance (23:39):
It's founded in really around the surf industry and the beach culture of the past. So in Encinitas, there's a historical society, and I own a building that is the last standing historical building in the community.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Oh, cool.

Robert Ford Mance (24:01):
It's called the Guild. And it was built in 1911 by a developer. And then over the years, there's been many different things, such as the post office, it had a mercantile, it had a hotel in it. The developer built a train station and a pier outside of it, but now it's become privately owned. And in the bottom of it, I have a tenant, it's called Patagonia. Patagonia is a big company

Jessica Denson (24:30):
That with all the merch and stuff, things you could wear on the

Robert Ford Mance (24:34):
Beach, things like that. And they're basically advocates for the climate very much. And then upstairs, there used to be small businesses there, like lawyers and accountants, but now it's becoming more retail because there are more people come up to the second floor retail. So on top of my building, I have this license to have a

Jessica Denson (25:00):
Tower kind thing,

Robert Ford Mance (25:02):
And the technology has changed so much now. So I'm thinking of trying to connect, put a broadband wifi network on the top of the building and connected to the internet through fiber. So back hauling to the internet is very important to this solution.

Jessica Denson (25:20):
Yeah.

Robert Ford Mance (25:21):
Yeah. So that's what I'm doing.

Jessica Denson (25:23):
That's awesome. So you're an older gentleman.

Robert Ford Mance (25:26):
I am 75.

Jessica Denson (25:28):
Oh, I wasn't going to give it away at

Robert Ford Mance (25:29):
All. I am 75. Yes, I am.

Jessica Denson (25:31):
Well, how important do you feel it is for all people to have access to the

Robert Ford Mance (25:37):
Internet? I think it's mightily important. Access to the older generation, like mine is very key. Just bringing in home telehealth to seniors is important. And then down on the scale of age, young people, like my grandson, who is 10, he lives on the internet already. I mean, he's incredibly creative. So it can serve generations. And generational transfer of knowledge and belief and knowledge is critical to democracy prevailing. And that's why I'm doing it.

Jessica Denson (26:23):
Well, I wish you luck, and I'm going to keep track of how it goes. Thank

Robert Ford Mance (26:26):
You very

Jessica Denson (26:27):
Much. Thank you so much for joining me.

Robert Ford Mance (26:28):
Good luck with your podcast.

Jessica Denson (26:29):
Thank you. Robert Manz.

Robert Ford Mance (26:31):
Yes.

Jessica Denson (26:32):
I'm Jessica Denson. Thanks for listening to Connected Nation. If you like our show and want to know more about us, head to connected nation.org or look for the latest episodes on the iTunes iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Pandora, or Spotify.