Ben Dold: We’re excited. We’re in the third phase of our team member trial. We’re going to be soft launching here within the next couple of months, and then we’ll be bringing our first full market launch this summer and then scaling it from there. Honestly, Jeff, this is probably the third time we’ve taken a look at mobile in my 15 years at Midco. Of the previous times, whether it was the unit economics or the platforms available, it just wasn’t the right timing and didn’t make sense. We got really excited this time, and we found a platform that really fit for us.
Jeff Johnston: That was Ben Dold, president and COO of Midco, about why now is the right time for the company to launch their mobile business and to offer a mobile home broadband bundle. Hi, I’m Jeff Johnston, and welcome to the All Day Digital podcast, where we talk to industry executives and thought leaders to get their perspective on a wide range of factors shaping the digital infrastructure market. This podcast is brought to you by CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange group.
The convergence of wireless and home broadband is happening at a rapid pace. National wireless operators are delivering exceptional fixed wireless growth, and the large cable companies have been taking share in the smartphone market. And now, smaller regional broadband operators, such as Midco, are starting to enter the mobile market. I invited Ben onto the podcast because he is deeply involved in Midco’s mobile strategy. And for small broadband operators, entering the mobile market is a big decision. Hearing how Ben thinks about it should be very helpful to CEOs who are struggling with this decision. Without any further ado, pitter patter, let’s hear what Ben has to say.
Ben, it’s great to see you. Welcome to the podcast. How have you been?
Dold: I’ve been doing really well. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here, Jeff.
Johnston: I am really excited that you agreed to come on to talk about what Midco is doing in the mobile space. It’s topical right now, and I think you guys are doing some really interesting stuff. I really believe that listeners are going to learn a lot. Hey, Ben, just to set the stage for folks who may not know who Midco is, just give a brief background on Midco, the markets you serve, history, just so people can get a sense of where you guys sit.
Dold: Our history is really important to us, so it’s fun any chance I get to tell that story. Midco has been around for over 90 years with many evolutions throughout that history, with roots in the theater business in Minneapolis, and then transitioning into radio, broadcast television, video rentals, paging, call centers, and then ultimately getting into the cable television business, and really evolving from cable television into the connectivity company that we are today.
We serve around a half a million customers in the Upper Midwest, across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, a little bit of Western Wisconsin, and then Eastern Kansas. We have the full complement of products that you’d expect from a connectivity company focused on broadband, but also we have an IPTV product, a VoIP product, serving homes, small businesses, apartment complexes, as well as larger enterprise, wholesale carriers, and things like that. Now, we’re really excited to be bringing mobile to market later this year.
Johnston: That’s a really dynamic history of the company. I guess I didn’t know all that, so that’s pretty cool to learn. I will tell you, CoBank holds Midco and you in very, very high regard. I think you guys do a really great job serving your customers and running your business, so certainly kudos to you and your team.
Ben, let’s talk a little bit about some of your strategic priorities over the next three, five, seven years, however you look at it. How do you see the overall industry landscape evolving over that timeframe?
Dold: I think it’s clear to anybody in this industry that the level of competition has ramped up. There’s more choice and different types of choices for connectivity than there’s ever been. We’re firm believers that competition brings out the best in us, and so we’re very involved in the communities that we serve. We have a broad market strategy that drives a lot of what we do, and that is to have a best-in-class customer experience, excellent network performance, and to be price competitive, while also being a force for good in the communities that we serve.
We’re very local in the way that we approach our markets, and I think that serves us well. We’ve built a strong, trusted brand over the years based on those factors. As we think about our strategic priorities, they all really connect back to that market strategy and being competitive in this marketplace. A big one for us is our Fiber Forward initiative. We announced this in 2021, and this is the generational upgrade and expansion of our network.
Since 2020, all of our new passings have been built fiber-to-the-prem. Then since 2021, we’ve been really working on upgrading the existing network to bring fiber-like experience to our customers. That means bringing fiber deeper into the neighborhoods to a fiber-to-the-curb configuration, going distributed access architecture with Remote PHY, pushing the speeds through high split in the nodes and amps, as well as currently field-trialing DOCSIS 4.0 modem, so we can really bring that multi-gig, symmetrical gig experience to all of our customers.
While we’re expanding with fiber-to-the-prem, we’re upgrading the legacy network to the next-gen, best-in-class there as well, so that we have that ubiquity of great experience and capacity, not just for today, but for the next decades to come. That’s been progressing really well, and that contributes to the network performance, contributes to the customer experience. Then on the broader competitive side, what we talked about, one of our other strategic priorities is launching mobile. We’re really excited about what that’s going to bring to our product portfolio, to our existing customers, to potential future customers.
Then the other big thing that we’ve been focused on is just making sure that we’re running the business as efficiently as we can. Looking at major contracts, looking at all of our processes, embracing the possibilities that AI can bring to not only bring efficiencies to processes and systems, but improve the team member and customer experience as well, eliminate mundane work. Those are the big areas of focus that we’re really working on from a strategic priority perspective to ensure that we maintain our market share lead in all of the areas that we serve.
Johnston: I could just go to town on everything you just talked about. There’s so much good stuff there, but we’ve got to stay focused. I love the focus on DOCSIS. I really feel like there’s still some runway there. A lot of people poo-poo it or whatever, but I feel like there’s still a lot you can get out of that network with 4.0, and who knows what comes beyond that, right?
Dold: Yes, we’re seeing really strong performance in the areas where we’ve upgraded to high split, where we’ve brought fiber really deep into the neighborhoods. We have small service groups. You just have so much capacity. We launched symmetrical gig on high split last year, and we’ve been scaling that really nicely. We’ll be launching multi-gig symmetrical this year, and we’ll be scaling that as well. When you look at the experience that it brings to customers, because ultimately that’s what we’re selling.
We’re not just selling internet connectivity. We’re selling an experience that’s backed by our award-winning local team, but highly reliable, low latency, all the capacity that a customer can need. We’re seeing really good performance, and excited about what that looks like when it’s available across our entire footprint.
Johnston: Love it. Love it. Love it, man. Good stuff. Let’s move on to mobile. Maybe we can drill down into the details a little bit, but maybe in the broader strategic context of your mobile plans and how that fits into your overall business strategy and product strategy. Then we can get to some of the finer details of what you guys are doing and what you’re hoping to accomplish.
Dold: We’ve been working hard on this now for over a year to bring mobile to market. We’re excited. We’re in the third phase of our team member trial. We’re going to be soft launching here within the next couple of months. Then we’ll be bringing our first full market launch this summer and then scaling it from there. Honestly, Jeff, this is probably the third time we’ve taken a look at mobile in my 15 years at Midco. The previous times, whether it was the unit economics or the platforms available, it just wasn’t the right timing and didn’t make sense. We got really excited this time when we found a platform that really fit for us.
We were seeing success from our public peers in terms of their ability to really gain traction and then the benefits that their customers were seeing and their businesses were seeing. That got us really excited to say, “Okay, this is the right time for us.” There just had been a lot of evolution in the marketplace of options for more mid-tier providers like us. We believe it’s really critical to the long-term success of the organization, when we think about the competitive environment. Increasingly, customers are telling us they want a converged broadband and mobile product. We’re seeing that in the marketplace. We’re seeing it from our peers. We’re excited to bring that converged offering to market here really soon.
Johnston: That’s great. You mentioned unit economics. I think we’ve talked about this. I launched the ESPN MVNO back in 2005. That’s why I got all this gray hair. Then before that, I launched Quest Wireless in the early 2000s. Boy, have the unit economics changed. I know back then, it just didn’t work. It just absolutely didn’t work. I think things are a lot different now. I’m super excited to see you guys leaning into that. Maybe a little bit about your go-to-market strategy, Ben. How you thought about that? MVNE versus, I guess, I would call it the traditional MVNO.
Dold: We pretty quickly realized that at our size that an MVNE was the right approach for us. Maybe we didn’t have the scale that some others did to have some of these direct relationships or to build some of these platforms on our own. Again, fortunately, there are good options in the market from that perspective. Then it became the process of, how do we want to go to market? What do we want this platform to look like? How are we going to integrate it?
If we go back to what we talked about before with the brand equity and trust that we built in the communities that we serve, that was a key driving force around how we thought of integrating with our existing buy flows, how it integrates within our brand. How do we think about the support ecosystem? Are they going to be our team members that are going to be doing tier one support, or are we going to outsource that?
Our approach to customer experience, our approach to the brand loyalty we’ve built really drove us to looking for more of an integrated experience where it looks and feels like Midco, what customers have come to trust. That really drove us toward the notion of let’s find an MVNE where it brings all of the scale and expertise that’s needed, all the behind-the-scenes, OSS, BSS, and integrations into other platforms, but that can connect into our existing support ecosystem, our existing web, digital channels, and buy flows.
Ultimately, we arrived at the decision that we did where we felt really good about it. A lot of our work now has been integrating it into all those elements, developing the marketing assets so that it has the right look and feel, and then, honestly, spending time really bringing the team along. Even if someone’s not on the mobile project team at Midco, they should be very aware of what it is and what we’re doing and why it’s important and how it fits into our long-term strategy. We’ve really settled in on this notion of simple, affordable, reliable are the keys to our approach to go-to-market with mobile. I think we’re building something that hits all those marks and customers are going to be excited about.
Johnston: Yes, for sure. When I talk to other operators who have looked at an MVNE or an MV-- well, mostly MVNE, the pushback that I get or the concern, I guess I should say, that they have is around brand risk because they feel like they’re giving up so much control from an operator perspective that if something breaks in the wireless network and somebody has a bad experience, they just see the bill they pay is ABC Company, and that’s who they’re going to be mad at, even though it’s not ABC Company’s fault. Would you say integration is really the key to protecting the brand and controlling that customer experience? I’m sure picking the right MVNE is probably also an important part of this too, yes?
Dold: Yes, I do. I think that is right, because that way you do have some control then in terms of the customer journey because you can plug more into your existing customer journey. Then through integrations, backend support tools, then it allows you to have your team then be that tier one. Unless you’re going to really build this yourself, you’re going to need help. Yes, picking the right partner to help is important, but eventually you’re going to need to hand off those higher-level, more complex. We believe that a lot of the issues we can resolve right with our team members that reside within the communities that we serve.
Johnston: Great. Good stuff. Let me ask you, Ben, why? We’ve talked about how you’re doing it, but maybe you can spend a little bit of time. Why are you doing this? Do you see this as something to protect your existing customer base? Do you see this as an acquisition strategy? How do you guys think through what success looks like for you guys?
Dold: Great question. When we first began down this path, a lot of the value unlock was coming from retention, churn reduction. That is certainly the case, and I know a lot of people that have gone down this path have seen that. We built our business case around that. But as the market has evolved and as we’ve gotten further into it, I would tell you I’m even more excited about the acquisition opportunities than I was and am about the churn reduction and retention opportunities, which I still think they’re very large. Increasingly, you’re seeing these converged bundles in the market.
In-home 5G with mobile, or whether that’s more of a wireline broadband with mobile, you’re just seeing a lot of it. Customers are increasingly choosing it. I think to maximize acquisition opportunities in an environment where people are moving less and there’s just less opportunities for acquisition, I think it’s critical to have broadband mobile bundle to put in front of customers to help you differentiate to those that don’t, but to have table stakes against those that already have it. I think if you can do that in a simple, affordable, reliable way with a brand that has built trust in the communities, I think it can become a really powerful acquisition tool. I’m excited to see the benefits on both sides of that coin.
Johnston: That’s great. Choice comes up a lot when I talk to folks. I don’t want to overwhelm customers with choice but maybe giving them more choices than they have in the past is a good strategy, which it sounds like you guys are on that page.
Dold: If somebody has this notion that, “I think I can save money,” or “I think I can make life easier by having mobile and broadband bundled by one provider,” if you don’t have one of those parts of the equation, you’re not in the consideration set. I do think introducing choice with some level of differentiation does help.
Johnston: Your bundling questions. I call it the killer bundle, because I’m with you. I think it’s what a lot of people want. I think that’s evident in the success you’re seeing with fixed wireless bundling and certainly with the larger cable operators as well. There’s demand out there for that. Then just thinking about the bundling a little bit more from a competitive perspective, who knows what Amazon’s going to do, I guess, at the end of the day. We know satellite internet’s not as good as fiber, clearly, but it could be good enough for a certain segment of the market. If it’s bundled with a price service that looks really attractive, that’s something the industry might have to grapple with here in the not-too-distant future.
Dold: No, I think that’s right. I think it comes back to this notion there’s likely going to continue to even be more choice. So how do you stand out? How do you make sure that you have the services that customers want at an affordable price point that you’re easy to do business with and all of those pieces? I think mobile is just a huge component of being at that table to be considered. I think for a lot of folks, there will be other factors that come into it, but I think we’ll be well-positioned for that.
Johnston: Ben, what advice would you give? I do think there are a lot of operators that are, call it on the fence, or thinking through their mobile strategy and what they want to do. Any words of wisdom or advice as you’ve gone through this that you think people should be aware of?
Dold: I love this question because any chance we get just to take a step back and think about the future and where the industry is going. My advice would be if you’re considering launching mobile, close your eyes and picture that it’s 2030 and think about what the competitive landscape looks like at that time with where things are headed. Then imagine that you have a mobile product or don’t have a mobile product. Imagine you do, and do you think you’ll have more broadband customers or less broadband customers at that time because you’ve gone down the path of launching mobile? I think you’ll have more.
I think that there’s a lot of opportunity that comes with that, not only just from having the mobile base, but maintaining market share with your broadband base and having had mobile from both an acquisition and a retention perspective. My advice would be to go through that exercise, and I think you’ll come to the same conclusion that we did, which is, we’re going to be better off in that future state competitive environment by having launched this product and learned and iterated on it as we’ve gone.
Then for those that decide, yes, this is a path that I want to go down, my advice is, again, really think about how does it fit in with your brand? How much or little do you want to integrate into your existing systems and buy flows and support ecosystem? That’s really going to drive a lot of your decisions around platform and just how you go to market with it. Honestly, the level of effort.
I think there’s different ways to approach it that can make sense based on each business’s position, but it’s important to take that step back and think about what you want that to look like because I think that will help inform those decisions, and you’ll make sure that you have the right partners, the right approach, and all those pieces to set up for success when you ultimately do launch.
Johnston: Great advice. I hope people pay attention to what you just said because I think that is really, really good advice and very important for people to follow. Well done, you. Hey, this brings us towards the end, Ben, but I just want to give you an opportunity to cover that we didn’t cover or anything. The stage is yours. We’d love to hear any of your closing thoughts.
Dold: No, I really appreciate it, Jeff. This has been great to talk about the history of Midco and our strategic priorities and certainly the biggest one on the horizon with Midco Mobile. I had a lot of fun through this process. Maybe that’s the other piece to just highlight is, it’s important to make it fun because you don’t get an opportunity to launch a product like this very often in one’s career. You’ve done it twice, which is great.
Through this process, I was the first person at Midco to port my number over to the platform. Then I traveled around our footprint and showed the teams, “Hey, here’s Midco Mobile on the phone.” It’s been a lot of fun. I think we’ve brought a lot of excitement to the teams. I think that’s going to contribute to excitement in the market. We’re having a lot of fun. We’re optimistic about what it can mean. I’m just grateful for our partners, and I’m grateful for our team for all the effort that they’ve put into this. It’s a big deal, and there’s been a lot of hard work. We’re just looking forward to getting it in the market and seeing customers around our footprint with Midco Mobile.
Johnston: I wish you all the best luck and fortune in the world. I’m sure you guys are going to do great. Hey, thanks so much for being on the podcast today, Ben. I really appreciate your time. I know you’ve got a lot going on, so thank you.
Dold: No, absolutely. Hey, thanks for having me, Jeff. Really good to talk with you. You take care.
Johnston: A special thanks goes out to Ben for being on the podcast today.
For broadband operators, a major concern they have with launching an MVNE is brand risk, as they don’t have complete control over the customer experience. For example, if something goes wrong with the mobile service, the customer will probably blame the broadband operator, when in fact it could be the wireless network operator’s fault. I think Ben’s approach to this, through deep system integration, is important to take note of. I also think asking yourself if you’ll have more or less broadband customers five years from now, if you decide not to offer a mobile service, is a simple yet important question to help shape one’s mobile strategy.
Hey, thanks for joining me today. A special thanks goes to my CoBank associates, Christina Pope and Tyler Herron, because without them, there wouldn’t be an All Day digital podcast. Watch out for our next episode.
