Connected Nation

Ready, set, build: Tackling the challenges of large broadband buildouts now and in the future

Jessica Denson Season 6 Episode 2

The new year has arrived - bringing the long-awaited start of broadband expansion under the Broadband Equity Access and Development Program (BEAD). However, as all U.S. states and territories prepare to build simultaneously, new challenges are surfacing.

On this episode of Connected Nation, we’ll discuss these issues with a telecom industry leader covering topics ranging from strengthening the workforce to adopting best practices for rolling out large-scale broadband infrastructure.

Related links:
Matthew Langhoff Linkedin
MTA Solutions website

Jessica Denson, Director, Communications, 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.

A new year has kicked off, and with 2025 comes the promise that broadband BUILDOUTS should finally begin. Thanks to the broadband equity access and development program, also known as bead, but with every US state and territory looking to build, at the same time, new issues are beginning to emerge.


We'll talk to a leader in the telecom industry about everything from how to shore up the workforce to best practices when states begin laying massive amounts of broadband infrastructure. I'm Jessica Sen, and this is Connect to Nation.

I'm Jessica Denson, and today my guest is Matthew Langhoff, chief operating officer, COO at MTA Solutions and Alaskan based telecom leader. Welcome, Matt.

Matthew Langhoff, Chief Operating Officer, MTA Solutions (01:05):
Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Jessica Denson, Director, Communications, Connected Nation  (01:08):
Do you prefer Matthew or Matt?

Matthew Langhoff, Chief Operating Officer, MTA Solutions (01:10):
You know what? I'm okay with whatever. Matt's just the shortest, but whatever you call me, I'm willing to respond.

Jessica Denson, Director, Communications, Connected Nation  (01:16):
Okay, I will do that. Sometimes I call people by the first letter of their last name like Mr. L. Would that be all right as well?

Matthew Langhoff, Chief Operating Officer, MTA Solutions (01:24):
You say it and I'll start talking.

Jessica Denson, Director, Communications, Connected Nation  (01:26):
Okay, sounds good. So you are Alaska based, so where are you right now?

Matthew Langhoff, Chief Operating Officer, MTA Solutions (01:30):
I'm in currently in Palmer, Alaska. We're about 45, 50 miles north of Anchorage.

Jessica Denson, Director, Communications, Connected Nation  (01:36):
And tell us, I've never been to Alaska, so tell us a little bit about what that area is like.

Matthew Langhoff, Chief Operating Officer, MTA Solutions (01:41):
Well, it's usually this time of the year it's cold, but as of this morning, it was about 20 degrees outside, and so it's unseasonably warm at the moment. So those of us who've lived here a long time, we're not exactly complaining.

Jessica Denson, Director, Communications, Connected Nation  (01:56):
Wow. Snow. I'm coming to you from Louisville, Kentucky, and we had a major snow storm for us, and right now it's 38 degrees and that's just freezing for me. So I don't know how you do it. You must really love it.

Matthew Langhoff, Chief Operating Officer, MTA Solutions (02:09):
There's a big chance you probably have more snow on the ground at your house right now than I do at mine.

Jessica Denson (02:13):
Oh, wow. Yeah, I think you're right. It was like a record snowstorm. I told my boyfriend we ran out of salt and I said, put kitty litter on it. Won't that help? And no, that created a mess. You would not believe that tells you how, tells you how. They dunno how to handle the snow. But for each interview, I really like to get to know our guests before we get into the topic at hand. And these broadband buildouts are a big deal right now, but I'd like people to learn a little bit about who you are. Talk a little about your life. Have you always lived in Alaska? Is that where you're from and what really brought you to the broadband industry?

Matthew Langhoff (02:52):
Well, I am born and raised in Alaska. I'm not part of the indigenous culture that is represented up here, but I was born and raised here. I grew up in Anchorage, and then I moved out here to Palmer, what we call the Valley, about 17 years ago with my wife. And it is really been great here. I've enjoyed living here. I've enjoyed raising my family here. I went to college here at our local university down in Anchorage, and getting into broadband was honestly more just dumb luck than anything.

I happened to be working in Anchorage at the time in accounting. I graduated with accounting degree at the time. And then a guy who I was working with decided to come out here and work. And one day, a couple months after he came over, he called me up and said, Hey, do you want a job in telecommunications and in the human resources field? And I said, sure, why not? Sounds good to me. That's as much thought as I gave it. And here 23 years later here I still am.

Jessica Denson (03:48):
And what do you think about it? What are you at in your career? I know you're the COO of MTA, but talk about what that really means. We all hear about the C-suite and the different alphabet there, so to speak. I know I hear you, but as a chief operating officer, what do you do?

Matthew Langhoff (04:06):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I mean, for much of my career, obviously I wasn't in this role. I've only been this role about a year or so. And so before that it was somewhat of an unknown. I'd see people do it and not quite sure. And I guess as the Chief operating officer here at MTA, I kind of feel my main role is to ensure there's proper alignment and goals and responsibilities and really try to ensure that people are communicating with one each other, that departments know what they're doing and that they're working in concert together to bring about the maximum effort.

And one of the other big initiatives that I, because of my past history really, I try to ensure that there are well skilled and trained people in all walks of life here at MTA to ensure that they have the right skills and tools necessary to do their jobs as best they can, and then also to ensure that we have the other right life policies in place here. So as things happen to people, they have the ability to deal with them. So when they are here in the office and in the building helping our members, they can do it to the best of their ability.

Jessica Denson (05:16):
Talk about that for a moment. We touched on weather, joking around, of course, but I can imagine in Alaska there's probably only a certain time of year you can work and there's probably some unique terrain there, right? Talk a little bit about the challenges around that. Just being in Alaska.

Matthew Langhoff (05:32):
Alaska is definitely a unique place. One of the things I've had the privilege and fortune of doing is traveling quite a bit for work and for personal reasons. And Alaska is unique. Our build season generally starts around May and ends in October, November due to the cold and due the winter. It's not uncommon to get feet and feet of snow and temperature is well below zero at different points in time. So our construction season is very limited. And then also the terrain. I mean, looking out my window right now, you see mountain peaks that are thousands and thousands of feet high and there's lots of rivers and there's lots of lakes, and this is still a largely undeveloped area. And so building out here is very challenging. And also given the natural ebbs and flows that we have going on here from seismic activity to high winds to other things, the extreme cold that makes building infrastructure very challenging.

Jessica Denson (06:31):
This may seem like an odd question, but just for maybe my own knowledge, what about wildlife? Is that sometimes a challenge there?

Matthew Langhoff (06:39):
Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. Shoot, it's not uncommon for you to hear somebody, some bear chewing on a wire that's laying on the ground. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. And due to the fact that we have such diversity in our ecological area here, we have to be very conscious of wetlands and permits and ensuring that we're building in a way that is in concert with nature and doesn't interrupt its natural normal flow.

Jessica Denson (07:08):
Yeah, I especially could I imagine, I'm guessing if of course you grew up there, I would imagine a lot of people live there because they want to be close to nature.

Matthew Langhoff (07:17):
Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you live in Alaska, it's because you love the outdoors. You love what Alaska has to offer as far as the wide open spaces, the natural beauty, and you choose to live here, unlike a lot of places maybe where you kind of were born and raised. A lot of people come up here because they want to be here. They want the sense of adventure, they want the sense of challenge, and that's kind of what makes Alaskans unique.

Jessica Denson (07:43):
Yeah. How does that work where you're connected to the so-called lower 48? Is there a line that runs from Alaska to the lower 48 or do you go through the seabed or how does that work?

Matthew Langhoff (07:53):
We do. We've got a couple, actually. There's a couple lines that are buried in the ocean that connect to Alaska down, and then MTA actually in partnership with some of our Canadian partners, build a terrestrial line that hooks all the way from Alaska and goes on down through Canada and connects on into Seattle and some other areas of the lower 48 as well.

Jessica Denson (08:16):
I would imagine. Does that create some unique challenges with having that distance?

Matthew Langhoff (08:21):
It does. It absolutely does. Space and time creates challenges of it owns some of the other interesting challenges that we have to do is we have to partner with businesses in other countries such as Canada, and so that provides some other tax issues, labor issues, partnering issues, because they may be subsidiaries of other companies. And so we can't do it all on our own to get to the lower 48 and get connected into that web and atmosphere of people. And so we do definitely do have to partner with other entities in order to make it happen, some of which are multinational.

Jessica Denson (08:55):
Well, let's dive a little deeper into MTA solutions more commonly referred to as just MTA, right?

Matthew Langhoff (09:03):
Yeah. It's

Jessica Denson (09:04):
Talk about what it stands for and what your organization does, kind of how it's organized. I know there's a tribal element, correct?

Matthew Langhoff (09:11):
Yeah, there is. So MTA stands for Matt NECA Telecom Association. We were founded about 70 years ago. We were originally a telephone provider in our local serving area. Over the last number of years, we, like many companies in that space, have transitioned to really providing a lot of internet, especially into our residential customers. We have a serving area of about 10,000 square miles, roughly, the state, some of those states in the upper northeast portion of the United States alone.

We have about 300 people here that work at MTA in all fashions and forms, walks of life from accounting to construction to human resources to facility-based areas. And then we also have several different subsidiaries. One of our prominent subsidiaries is a IT company. They do managed service work. They have about 40 people there. So we really have a whole walk of life of people that we have to employ here and provide opportunity for. And so it is been really been a great challenge here. MTA is a long, rich history and one we're really proud of.

Jessica Denson (10:18):
And you're a hundred percent wholly owned, is that correct?

Matthew Langhoff (10:22):
Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, we have, oh, I don't know, right. We're 30 some thousand plus members at the moment.

Jessica Denson (10:29):
That's interesting. Is there a different, can you explain to the average person how that operates differently

Matthew Langhoff (10:36):
Than a

Jessica Denson (10:36):
Typical business maybe?

Matthew Langhoff (10:38):
Yeah, that's a good question. Typical businesses when you work, they may have, they're owned by a corporation, a limited liability company, something like that. We're not, we are owned by the residents who have service with us in our serving areas I talked about earlier. And each house, each family, each person if they have an individual is what's called a member, basically an owner.

And they elect a board of directors, in which case we have five of the cooperatives have different makeups, and those board members are really representatives of the members and ensuring that the work of the cooperative benefits, the members that are here, and unlike corporations where they are trying to take all of this money, this for profit and return it back to the investors or to the shareholders or to the corporation, our mission is to return that value back to the members that own and operate this place. And so we don't operate on profits in the per se, we operate what they call our margins. And our goal is to return all of the investment that's brought into this place to the membership. And we do that in the forms of broadband service and other services to the best of our ability so they can live a very connected life.

Jessica Denson (11:57):
That must be interesting, I bet, answering to people that are residents. It could be your neighbor, it could be somebody your

Matthew Langhoff (12:05):
It could be my mom.

Jessica Denson (12:07):
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. It could be your own family members. Yeah. You want your mom to be connected.

Matthew Langhoff (12:15):
Absolutely. Yeah. And even my wife's parents, they don't live in this area, but they're members of another cooperative and you get questions from them too. So Yeah, very much so.

Jessica Denson (12:24):
Keep the in-laws happy. Absolutely. So you mentioned it briefly, but I know that MTA just marked 70 years. Correct. Was that this last year or is that this year?

Matthew Langhoff (12:37):
It was this past year.

Jessica Denson (12:39):
So anything that you want to share from the report that you guys put out about that 70 years before we move on?

Matthew Langhoff (12:45):
Well, MTA over at its seven years had so many great accomplishments. And I think what I'd like to say in specific, it has been over its years has been all the hard work and dedication of the people that have worked here and the drive and dedication that they have brought every single day to ensure that reliable telecommunication services have been brought. We do a lot of interesting projects. We are regularly connecting people to technology all the time. I mean, on average any given year, we lay about 150 miles of fiber optic cable throughout our serving area. And it is all with the expressed intent of really creating a connected life for these individuals. And all the work that we did in this past year and the most recent years are all a part of that.

Jessica Denson (13:35):
That's awesome. Well, congratulations on reaching that milestone. That's pretty incredible, especially since you've come from a telephone company and now are doing this high tech stuff.

(13:45)
So let's move on to our big topic today. I think you're a perfect person to talk about this because for one, just even understanding that there's so many unique challenges about working in Alaska, but also your background 23 years in this, there's massive growth growth that's happening in the telecom industry right now because of federal funds that are coming out through bead. We've been through a process where these bead funds are really being looked at and how do you win them? Who's going to put them out? The states are going to put them out, and now there's hopefully this year we'll finally get to see some groundbreaking stuff. By that I mean the ground actually being broken, a shovel going in and a starting to work. But that can mean some problems when it comes to workforce and stuff. So talk a little bit about some of the challenges as so many states begin this massive work to connect that middle mile last mile, those groups, from your point of view,

Matthew Langhoff (14:47):
Each state does have their own challenges, and Alaska is is a part of that challenge. We're not oblivious to that in specific as it comes to us. We have a couple of specific unique challenges. One we talked about earlier, and that is how much we can do in a year. We only can build between May and October, so we really have a limited window. And the second is just workforce availability in and of itself. Right now we have about a hundred or so people, 75 to a hundred people that work at MTA that are in that construction space doing one thing or another. And then we also employ through contractors about another 75 to a hundred every single year. And so we've got that range of people that are out there building every day. And so one of the big things that we face a challenge is access to them having people that are qualified, skilled, and trained to be able to do the necessary work to get it done, to really be those architects, and being able to lay the foundation of the fibers and the other pieces that make the network run in a way that is sustainable in a way that can grow.

(15:57)
Because if anything that we've seen over the years is that what we lay today is only going to grow tomorrow. So not only do we have to delay it properly, so it functions, but you also have to be forward thinking in a way that we can do it so it will grow properly and can scale in a way that we don't have to go back and do it again. As I said earlier, much of Alaska's very remote. And so in order to do this over again, can provide some challenges boring under rivers going through a mountain. There are many things that this company does on a regular basis in order to be able to try to provide services. And so the people aspect of it is challenging not only to the extent that we don't often have enough of them, but also our seasonality of our work.

Jessica Denson (16:43):
And with this in mind, your company is trying to tackle some of the need for those that are experienced in some of this, right? If I may for just a moment, I'm going to give a couple of stats that your PR team gave me that.

Matthew Langhoff (16:54):
We're looking at a shortage of 28,000 construction workers and about 30,000 technician workers between 2025 and 2030. And that one reason that many believe broadband technicians don't really have, they have a limited earning potential and limited path for career advancement, but that's not really the case. These can be long-term careers that are and making good money, right?

Matthew Langhoff (17:19):
Oh, I think it was last year, if not the year before, we had one person who worked in our construction industry who passed 40 years at MTA.

Jessica Denson (17:28):
Oh, wow.

Matthew Langhoff (17:29):
And he's not the only one. We've had other people in other areas of MTA do the same thing who may not be construction workers, but it is not unheard of first to have people who work in the fields that you're talking about to work 20, 30 or 40 years at MTA or other places for that matter. And it absolutely is. It is a place that provides a livable wage, people that they can raise a family on and live a good life. And we pride ourselves on that. That's one of our hallmarks that we use, quite frankly, as a way to attract the right people to work in these disciplines. And so yeah, this is a good industry to work in. It's one that will provide you meaningful work and it'll provide you a living wage and one that you can count on with stability. As we said, MTA has been around for 70 years,

Jessica Denson (18:16):
And your company in particular has developed some apprenticeship programs. Right? Can you talk a little bit about those?

Matthew Langhoff (18:23):
Yeah. So we partner with the Alaska Joint Electrical Training and Trust in Anchorage. They're based in Anchorage. They have an office up in Fairbanks. They train varying people in different kinds of constructions, construction traits, for instance. They primarily do electrical training for the electric companies, but they also have a subset of their training for telecommunications, telecom people. And they help train people in many different things from cable splicing to being alignment to doing some C-O-P-B-X work. And so they really have a variety of things that they train in. So we partner with them. They provide apprentices in this case for a lot of different companies in Alaska, many of which we hire gen subcontract to do workforce, but we employ them as well of our workforce at any point in time. We can have between 10 and 15 apprentices throughout the year just working for us. And then, as I said earlier, that 50 to 75 or more people that we have working as a contractor, shoot, 20 to 25 of them could be apprentices as well. So we are invested heavily in development of people into the trades, into the telecom trades.

Jessica Denson (19:33):
And if you have somebody who say has the 40 years of experience as they start to approach retirement edge age, how do you keep from losing that knowledge, from bringing it into the current generation? Is that that apprenticeship part is

Matthew Langhoff (19:47):
Oh, yeah. You bet. Absolutely. That's where the apprenticeship part starts. Usually in order to become a journeyman here, they have to do 8,000 total hours worth of work on the field, and along with some bookwork that they do back at the school, as I mentioned earlier. And a lot of that 8,000 hours is knowledge sharing. It's not just how do you operate equipment or how do you do a specific task. It's also learning what it means to be a journeyman, learning what it means to be in the trades, learning what it means to actually act in a professional in that capacity and sharing how to be successful. Absolutely. Part of their job is to be a mentor to the groups that are coming after them.

Jessica Denson (20:25):
What are some things that not just MTA, but others could really do to attract younger generations to this type of career, in your opinion? Outreach.

Matthew Langhoff (20:35):
Outreach. I have a 16-year-old son, and he's just now trying to figure out what the next steps in life take to him. And what I've noticed with him and many of his friends his age is awareness. The more they are aware of opportunities that are out there and giving them an opportunity to experience it and to touch it and to spend some time in it, it peaks their interests. And my son, I can use is him an example. When he sees things such as somebody climbing a pole and doing some work, he goes, wow, dad, that looks cool, man. How can I get into that? And so just awareness, awareness, awareness, and making sure that the people, the young people today who will be the professionals of tomorrow and the tradespeople of tomorrow know that this is a very viable career for them.

Jessica Denson (21:27):
One thing MTA does is a youth technology tour. Is that right?

Matthew Langhoff (21:32):
Yeah, yeah. We do a number of things. One thing is a youth technology tour where we bring people in from different areas and we give them a tour of the building. We give them a tour of some of the facilities that we have and how they operate. And again, it goes right back to that outreach in part, we want to show these people that there are good jobs right here next to your house and apply yourself if you like this type of work, we've got work for you.

Jessica Denson (21:59):
If we don't, if MTA solutions and other organizations across the us, if they don't take this step now, what would that mean for the industry down the road?

Matthew Langhoff (22:09):
What plainly vital it'll mean is that they will not have the ability to build out as fast or nearly as effectively as they need to be. They will not be able to deliver services as quickly as needed. As you probably well know, telecommunications, the internet in particular is ever growing and it's not stopping. And the need for stronger based facilities to over deliver. This is all the more, and that takes people and the more people we have, the faster we can get it done so people can live a better life

Jessica Denson (22:40):
And a training. So say if I know someone at 1821 or who wants to get involved in this, how long does training really take? Is it a six month process? I know you said there's a journeyman journey. What did you call it? A journeyman? A

Matthew Langhoff (22:54):
Journeyman, yeah. That's kind of the person after they do it. So basically, if you want to do it, there's, let's just say here in Alaska, but it's similar in other areas. There's a lot of ways you can do it is you can go down to the local apprenticeship school and you can apply. Generally you only have to be 18 years of age with some high school math and things of that nature. And you apply, and once you're indentured, as they call it, basically selected into the program that entities, the apprenticeship mission is to basically train you over basically a four year period. You need to get 8,000 hours of on-the-job experience, plus a number of months read throughout that four years of curriculum-based work. And so by the time they call you a journeyman IE, you have graduated the apprenticeship school and have taken the tests to be certified in your discipline, you are now a full-fledged telecommunications journeyman and you're off to go conquer in the world as you can.

Jessica Denson (23:48):
And really, those are skills you can take to any of the states that are doing these build outs right now. Right?

Matthew Langhoff (23:53):
All 50 states in the United States of America, plus every territory and every other place on this planet.

Jessica Denson (24:02):
And there's so much talk about, I was struck while you were talking about that. There's so much talk about things like AI and what are the future jobs, and having these skilled technicians who really can do the infrastructure, the backbone of all of this is going to be so important now and forever. I think,

Matthew Langhoff (24:18):
Oh, you're a hundred percent correct as much as technology is there and it helps people every day, it takes that backbone that you're talking about that people build, and that's not going away.

Jessica Denson (24:33):
Well, let's talk about that for a moment. What are some advice you can offer state broadband offices across the country as they embark on this major effort to build broadband infrastructure across the country? And it's really, it'll be stat stacked a little bit, but it's still kind of happening in the same time period over a year or two where all of these are going to build at the same time. Are there any lessons that you've learned over time that you could share?

Matthew Langhoff (25:05):
That's a good question. As you talked about earlier, the BEAD initiative itself hasn't been around that long, and it's now just really getting launched in many ways. And so if I had any advice for the people that are doing it, I would ask them to think closely about how companies can go about applying for these grants. Oftentimes, there's matching funds, so companies also have to come up with their own money to do this, but so that can take away from other initiatives they may want to do. Also, there's just the sheer volume of money available.

I mean, right now, the Alaska was set to get about a billion dollars for bead to distribute all over the state. And there's a real estimation that it's going to cost two, if not three times that amount of money to really do what bead wants to do. So there's also, as a result, there's going to be some areas that aren't going to get the full effect of what the design of the program was. So there are some challenges, definitely, I think it's a step in the right direction, but there are some challenges. And like I said, I really hope encourage the administrators that are running these programs to really think through distribution of those funds so they can maximize their intent. And then also how companies can interact with those agencies to ensure that there is access to that money when it is available.

Jessica Denson (26:29):
Speaking real, real realistically, the idea of universal broadband connected nation, that's what we'd like to see everybody to have access. Is there a chance that we could get to everybody having that really high speed internet, or is that going to still take more and more investment even more beyond what we're seeing with bead?

Matthew Langhoff (26:52):
Oh, it's going to take way more investment than just bead. Bead won't cover the necessary investment, especially places like Alaska where we're so remote, it costs us two, if not three times or more, the amount of money to connect up to one house than it does in many places in the lower 48 just due to our lack of density. And then not only that, once it is connected, it takes operational money to maintain the facilities. And so even once it's all built out, which is years down the road, years down the road, it will still take additional funding after that to ensure that the backbone and all the other applications are still running effectively.

Jessica Denson (27:33):
Yeah, it's so complicated. So many people are working on it, so many partners. So we could talk about it forever.

Matthew Langhoff (27:41):
You and I could be at this for weeks too. I know

Jessica Denson (27:45):
It's fun, but probably we probably should get some other things done, probably. So it is a new year, as I talked about at the top of it, it's 2025. Are there any big things that you can share that MTA is up to for the new year?

Matthew Langhoff (27:59):
One of the really exciting projects that we have is there's a village called Onic here. It's a part of our serving area, and we got a grant through the USDA last year or so to be able to build out to, it's a village of about 270 people and through one of our contracting partners, we are, as we speak right now, building a fiber optic network to connect that town and those people to the internet so they can have high speed internet. And that's a project that we are very proud of to be a part of.

Jessica Denson (28:29):
I'd love to talk to you and somebody from the town once that's all up and running. Awesome.

Matthew Langhoff (28:35):
Yeah, I think we can make something happen. Definitely.

Jessica Denson (28:37):
Yeah, I would love that. So the future of telecom, where do you see things five years down the road, 10 years down the road? Is there new technology that's coming out, or do you see a new place that we're going to be looking towards in your mind? I know look in your crystal ball asking

Matthew Langhoff (28:55):
You, I've got it out,

Jessica Denson (28:57):
But five to 10 years, where do you see the future of telecom then?

Matthew Langhoff (29:01):
The telecommunications industry, like many others, is fast and ever changing. The technologies that are brought in today are changing out, not too down the road, far down the road because of the changing of the natural speed of change. I think that telecommunications will be brought out further. I think areas like you talked about, the last mile and the middle mile, those connections will be even closer made. So there will be fewer distances that don't have them, fewer areas that don't have 'em. I think the emergence of some of the satellite technologies will also play a role, especially in very rural, hard to get areas that may have no access to internet, may have no ability to get it. They be able to get it to a certain degree through those. I think here in five to 10 years, you're likely to see communities connected in ways that we don't even see as possible right now.

Jessica Denson (29:53):
As in new technologies, is that what you mean?

Matthew Langhoff (29:55):
Yeah. As in new technologies and just access in the actual ability to have it.

Jessica Denson (30:02):
That's interesting. And I've heard a lot of talk about the satellite and the places that the very, very farthest The last mile, the end of

Matthew Langhoff (30:11):
The road.

Jessica Denson (30:12):
Yeah, the end of the road. Well, Matt, it's been wonderful talking to you. I'd like to give you a chance to add anything that maybe you thought we should touch on that we didn't or any last thing that you'd want people to remember about MTA solutions.

Matthew Langhoff (30:28):
I think if I would like to just share with folks is that we are fortunate to live a wonderful life in many regards due to the internet. And in order to do that, it takes people to do it. It takes people to build it. That's where companies such as MTA and all the men and women that work here tirelessly every single day to ensure that it's here for them, that they have it for their daily lives so they can stay in touch with loved ones. They can work, they can do school, they can do a whole host of things. And companies such as MTA are here for that. And we will be here in the future. And we really hope that people, when they are looking for an opportunity for a place to work, they really consider telecommunications companies such as MTA. It's a fast ever changing world. We like to be a part of it, and we plan to be here in the future and support people along the way.

Jessica Denson (31:14):
Well, that's a wonderful place to leave it. Thank you so much, Matt.

Matthew Langhoff (31:18):
Hey, thank you for your time

Jessica Denson (31:25):
Again. We've been talking with Matthew Loff, chief Operating Officer at MTA Solutions and Alaskan based telecom leader. I'll include a link to the company's website in the description of this podcast. I'm Jessica Denson. Thanks for listening to Connected Nation. If you like our show, want to know more about us, head to connected nation.org or look for the latest episodes on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Pandora, or Spotify.

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