What if the best ISP on your block doesn’t own the tower—or even the access network? Drew sits down with Matt Larson, founder and CEO of VistaBeam and chair of WISPA, to explore how open access for fixed wireless and fiber could flip the broadband model from top to bottom. With radio platforms now supporting hundreds of subscribers per sector and multi‑operator IDs on the same AP, shared infrastructure is finally reliable enough to scale.
We dig into the real-world friction behind RDOF and BEAD, from delays to defaults, and why contract terms like termination for convenience and reimbursement cadence determine whether builders participate or walk. Matt shares a pragmatic blueprint: treat the access layer like a utility, let specialists focus on what they do best, and use a neutral clearinghouse to standardize APIs, reconcile usage, and settle payments across many operators. The payoff is faster market entry, lower capex per brand, and healthier rural broadband economics.
Along the way, we trade notes on vendor advances, consolidation jitters, and the quiet power of AI to improve network operations, customer support, and data analysis without the buzzwords. Most importantly, we spotlight partnerships that replace range wars: one operator runs rock‑solid infrastructure, another owns local relationships, and both win by eliminating duplicate towers, rents, and headaches. If you care about broadband equity, small‑ISP survival, or simply getting reliable service where you live, this conversation offers a clear path forward.
Enjoy the episode? Follow the show, share it with a colleague who cares about open access, and leave a quick review to help more builders find us. Then tell us: would you trade some margin to move faster on shared infrastructure?
Thanks to our sponsors: Helium & meter Networks!
🤑Looking for ways to monetize your network? Check out helium.com!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey everybody, Drew Lintz, the Wireless Nerd, and
this week we have a specialedition interview podcast.
Now, last week I got to visitthe Wispapalooza show for 2025,
and I got to hang out with someold friends and see some old
faces and see some great newequipment.
And one of the people I got tosit down and have a conversation
with was Mr.
Matt Larson.
Now, Matt is the CEO and founderof VistaBeam, and VistaBeam is a
(00:21):
pioneering wireless and fiberbroadband provider with coverage
spanning 40,000 square milesacross four states and over a
hundred towns.
They provide service toresidents and businesses in
Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, andWyoming.
And this year the industry votedto award VistaBeam as the 2025
operator of the year.
In addition to his dailyactivities running VistaBeam,
(00:41):
Matt is the chairperson for theWireless Internet Service
Provider Association.
I got to have a conversationwith him about what open access
looks like.
A little bit about the future ofwhat a wireless ISP or a fiber
ISP could delve into.
Now, this is something that I'vetalked about on a blog.
It's something that I've hadconversations with people about.
But essentially the idea is thatyou can build a network.
(01:02):
And once that network is built,someone maintains that network,
but other providers use thatnetwork.
So imagine if you had oneoperator that owned towers and
infrastructure all across thecountry, but small independent
ISPs had the ability to utilizethat equipment to spread their
service across the nation.
And they weren't responsible forthe actual equipment in the
(01:24):
tower, they're just responsiblefor the service that runs across
it.
So without further ado, I'd liketo uh jump into the interview
with Mr.
Matt Larson from Wispapalooza2025.
Matt Larson.
Okay, so tell me about tell meabout Wispapalooza 25.
Well, I mean, this was it's beena minute since I've been here,
but there's an air of excitementaround where the technology is,
(01:48):
and for us who've been doing itfor so long, where how far it's
come.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
You know, I think a lot of what's going on, I think
a lot of the technology is kindof maturing.
Um the big one for me is uh onthe on the access side, the
Toronto gear just continues toget better and better.
Their new G2, being able to put500 people on a base station.
It's insane.
It's huge.
And still use the same customerradios.
(02:14):
You know, it's pricey, but itworks.
I've got some on my network, andyou know, we we put it up, we
set it, forget it, kind of.
SPEAKER_00 (02:20):
That's I that's I I talked to them earlier, and that
that was the whole thing.
When they came down to SouthTexas and they did the whole you
know, see it to believe itevent.
I went out and we did a littletour and got to see everything,
and that was that was atakeaway.
It's like wow, this is actuallyreal.
Yeah, which is hard for peoplelike us who've been through so
many technology iterations totake somebody like that
seriously because it seems likethere's no way it could happen,
(02:41):
but they continue to improve.
Yeah, it's it's like having a gPond node in the sky.
It's crazy.
And then I talked to Cambiumalso about their product, the
the Evo product, and how they'rehow they're they're
consolidating access into asingle unit, and that's pretty
to see that happening also waspretty cool.
Overall, um, what are how arethe Wisps these days?
The government's making it alittle bit weird.
SPEAKER_01 (03:02):
It's tough to be a Wisp.
You know, there's we've seensome consolidation.
I think some people have kind ofgotten scared out of the market
a little bit.
Um, one of the reallydisappointing things is these
last couple rounds of governmentprograms, um, RDOF and Bede have
been kind of a train wreck in alot of ways.
Yeah, uh it introduced a bunchof uncertainty into the market.
(03:26):
Um, we had like wild auctionswith defaults and new players
that didn't really seem to havea real plan on how they were
gonna execute.
Uh and then a nowhere satellite.
And then what?
And then coming into Bede, Bedeis it's a program that was
designed five years ago andshould have been started on
(03:48):
three years ago.
Yeah, yes.
And it said, here we are, fiveyears later, it's like a giant
mess.
Yeah.
And the industry was just allover the place.
And so a lot of people, I think,got scared of government money
coming in over building them andjust scared out of the market.
SPEAKER_00 (04:02):
So so how much of that did you hear at the show
where were people's concernsabout being because it has it
has been a little bit of anightmare.
On every front, I mean from theequipment manufacturer side,
they thought that POs were gonnastart rolling, and so they
ramped up product, and from theconsultant side, they thought
they had business coming in, andfrom the ISP side they were
(04:23):
ramping up to do stuff orstaffing up, and I mean it's
like and it it you create a lotof uncertainty.
How much of that was was broughtup and then addressed this year,
do you feel?
Because I saw some sessions onit.
Yeah, yeah, honestly, I'm kindof like I'm just done with it.
Yeah, well, you know what?
I don't blame you.
That I think that that fatigueis is super real, and and maybe
(04:46):
it's not even that people aregetting scared out of it, it's
that people are just going, youknow what, I don't I don't want
to do this anymore.
Well, I I mean we participated,yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
And we've got a hundred million dollar worth of
Bede provisional award, justwaiting for waiting for NTIA
approval, and then we get a conand then we're gonna get
contracts, and then we have tonegotiate the contracts.
But I'm prepared to walk awayfrom all of it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
If the contracts don't look right, if it doesn't
look like something that's gonnabe uh sustainable and has a
bunch of gotchas in it, thenwhat is there one thing that's
happening with it that is likethat's a non-starter right now
that you feel like a lot ofpeople are looking at going,
man, if they do this, I'm out.
SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
One of the things is the termination for convenience.
There was talk that anygovernment contract is gonna
have that included in it.
So that's convenient.
Well, geez, I'm gonna insist ifif they get it, I do too.
Okay, yeah.
That's why I'm gonna I'm gonnainsist on that in my contracts.
And if we don't get it, thenI'll just walk away.
There you go.
Because like I this was all ityeah, it would be awesome to go
(05:46):
build that, but it's also agiant chunk of work.
If you're actually doing the jobthe right way and you're gonna
go out and you're gonna meet theterms of the program, and you
aren't trying to figure out someway to scheme your way out of
it, it's a lot of work.
It is a ton of work.
SPEAKER_00 (05:59):
And for someone to be able to just walk away from
that with you holding the bag,because you'd still be
responsible for that for thecontract or or some type of term
or something at the end of theday.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
Well, the way I look at it, it's it a lot of it
depends on the reimbursementschedule.
Yeah.
So if it's gonna be you comingout of pocket to do$100 million
worth of work.
Well, but I the thereimbursement should be, it
should be you turn in invoices,get a reimbursement a few months
later.
Yeah.
So then you're only on the hookfor that.
Yeah, for the work.
If that's the way it works,yeah, we can accept it.
Yeah.
Um, but if they're expecting usto do all the work and then get
(06:30):
paid at the end, it's like, hellno, that ain't happening.
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
What else, what are some of the other because I mean
to me, that's that's the thing Ikeep watching over and over with
with the FCC turnover and andand just the political situation
in the US as it is, and youknow, tariffs, I think tariffs
hit some I talked to somecompanies that tariffs hit
pretty hard here, and thatdoesn't make life easy for
anybody.
Yeah.
Um were there what else was whatelse was the buzz about at the
(06:57):
show?
I mean, there was I don't feellike there were any new pro G2
obviously kind of steals a showuh and good for them for
launching before the event.
Although I do like I rememberthe days when products were
launched here.
Yeah that was always fun.
You know, you'd walk in with youwould walk away with like, oh my
god, you know what I learned?
You know, that was I wouldencourage any company listening
who who's at Wispapalooza to doa product launch, man.
(07:19):
Give us something, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:20):
Yeah, you know the the hot word, the hot thing
here, I think, is AI, which itseems like that's the hot word
everywhere.
Yeah, and you know, I've got Igot a crazy guy from Canada
who's setting all our stuff forAI.
So we are setting up an entireyou know section of our company
that is going to use that to youknow improve the way we run our
(07:40):
network and interact with ourcustomers and analyze our data.
You know, that that is that'sgot huge payoffs, but you don't
really need to say that muchabout it.
Yeah, the thing I'm reallyexcited about, and it might be
another year before this likereally fully catches on, but I'm
really excited about thepossibility of open access and
fixed wirels.
Really?
So I was in on a session withthat.
(08:02):
That was something that neverreally was quite possible in the
past because you know, if we goput up an access point and we've
only got 100 to 200 meg to workwith, or we can only handle like
20, 30 customers tops, thereisn't enough uh, there isn't
enough capacity, there isn'tenough reliability, and there's
(08:25):
not enough potential on that toreally make that work at a big
scale.
Okay.
I think Toronto's kind offlipped the script on that.
Okay.
So a a G1 Toronto that canhandle 200 customers, a G2 that
can handle 500, yeah, and in areally reliable way that's going
to be scalable, predictable.
(08:46):
Toronto's setup, you can havemultiple network IDs on it, so
multiple operators can operateoff of it.
We are working on a project, weare doing that with another
operator.
It's amazing, and it's beenfantastic, you know, because
this what what it does for us iswe're working with this other
operator, and now we don't haveto try and compete for tower
(09:07):
space for backbone.
That's right.
We're on the same tower, we'reusing the same backbone.
Uh, we we exchange our trafficat uh an IX, uh-huh, and I don't
have to go out and upgrade allthese tower sites.
I go upgrade the customers.
And so I think that's gonna openup an entirely new class of
Wisps.
Uh-huh.
I think we're gonna start to seeWisps that specialize in their
(09:31):
regional area.
And I think a lot of guys aregonna look at this and it's
like, why would I give up themargin?
You know, because I think it'sgonna be you know somewhere
between$20 and$30 a month toaccess this for a customer.
But if you run the numbers onwhat it takes to run a really
good network, especially a highquality one like a Toronto
network, that's in theneighborhood of what it costs to
do that.
(09:51):
Yeah.
And if you don't have to standup your own staff, if you're if
you're really good at sellingand you've got a niche market
that you can sell to, and you'vegot that entrepreneurial energy
to go out and market and selland support customers in your
community, um, and you don'thave to build network, all you
do is build that relationshipwith the customer, that opens up
an entirely new class.
(10:12):
Do you remember the dish uh dishnetwork installers?
Yeah, of course.
Back in the day, Dish Networkhad all these entrepreneurial
installers and they went out andthey installed customers like
crazy.
That's right.
And then Dish basically put themall out of business because they
took away their recurringrevenue and they took away their
commissions and brought in theirown installers to do all that.
(10:32):
I think we have an opportunityto unlock that entrepreneurial
energy and get it, would notsurprise me if two years from
now we've got another two orthree thousand wisps and they're
little tiny guys and they'rerunning off open access networks
and innovating like crazy in allkinds of different things.
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
Man, you know, years ago, uh a gentleman I met named
Kai Wolf.
It's just crazy to think aboutKai.
Kai was doing work with TV WhiteSpace, he was doing work in in
Kenya and in Africa.
He had moved to South Texas, andthat's where I met him, because
he saw opportunity fordevelopment down there.
And when I got together andstarted talking to Kai, he
realized that I was in thewireless industry and we started
(11:10):
talking about stuff that he did.
And when he deployed GoogleWi-Fi networks in Kenya, the
idea, his his big idea was thathe could go build out a Wi-Fi
network that was paid for byeither the government or by the
community or by the vendor, andthen he would lease out the
SSIDs on that network to localpeople who wanted to start their
(11:31):
own ISP.
Yeah.
And and that was, you know, 15years ago that Kai was doing
that.
It was amazing.
And I have I've I've writtenblog after blog.
I think I've got like three orfour blogs I've written
specifically about this in theWi-Fi space because I was
challenged one time by the mayorof our community who said, How
do we figure out how to makemore money with the investments
that we've already made?
He's like, We've already we haveroads, we have infrastructure,
(11:53):
how do we do it?
And we have a pretty substantialnetwork in South Texas and
McAllen, and it's running, it'sall Cambium, CBRS, it's got a
thousand APs deployed.
How do how can we take moreadvantage of that?
And I said, Look, you make iteasy.
You open it up, and you havepeople, you know, the city
maintains the network, theymaintain the infrastructure, but
they open it up to a localcommunity and say, look, if you
want to be a service provider onthis network, submit an RFP.
(12:15):
Tell me what would make you agood service provider.
Do you do educational discounts,do you do free Wi-Fi for
students, and then you charge,you know, on the back end, or do
you do a 30-second advertisementbefore they get on?
Have the community solicit RFPsto provide open access for
community networks.
I had never thought about doingit, and my mind started running
a million miles per hour whenyou started talking about it.
Imagine if Crown Castle orAmerican Tower or some
(12:38):
entrepreneurial group said, I'mjust gonna build out Torana
networks all over the US withthe sole purpose of letting
people lease space on them.
That's incredible, man.
SPEAKER_01 (12:46):
So we have a group that's working on that.
That's incredible.
And I'm I think I'm slow to therace, but I'm getting it.
We're trying to build like somemodels.
So, like in uh the cellularmarket, that's that's how you
got roaming on cellularnetworks.
Yeah.
And they established aclearinghouse where a third
party to kind of make sure thatyou didn't have disputes.
Yeah because it starts to getreally.
(13:07):
I've got one guy I'm workingwith and it's working good.
We trust each other.
But that's when there's four ofyou.
But when there's four and thenthere's 40, and then there's
400, and you've got all thesedifferent network operators, you
need somebody that's gonna besitting in the middle.
It's gonna be like, okay, youyou had this many users on this
guy's networks, you owe thatmuch for that, and you had this
many users that you were were uhselling to other people.
(13:30):
And so you get this much ofthat.
And you're consuming 10 timesthe bandwidth of this guy, and
right, but we balance it.
We need to have a clearinghousethere that establishes the
standards, establishes theinteraction, uh, establishes the
APIs for the interaction and howeverything connects.
What a fun next step for theindustry.
Yeah, so I'm excited about thatbecause that is exciting.
That's yeah, I I'm I'mpicturing.
(13:51):
Because then you're gonna have,then you're I I I do think what
it's gonna do, it's probablygonna push their most wisps,
started out having to doeverything.
Everything.
I was literally when I started,I was literally building all the
calluses, you know.
I was building radios in mygarage.
Yeah, you know, I would take upand get some lucid cards in and
load Star OS on it, and then I'dclimb up and put it on top of a
(14:12):
grain leg and mount the antennasand point the backhauls and try
to figure out how to make allthat stuff work.
But that's it's beyond me.
Yeah, and it's in some ways, youknow, yeah, you can go set up a
little, a little networksomewhere, but setting up like a
big, actual, solid carrier gradenetwork that is gonna deliver
and have SLA quality service onit that's not gonna be deal with
(14:35):
interference and changingchannels all the time and has a
professional team.
All you have to do is just isjust operate.
Yeah, because there'll be aclass of operators.
You know, at first I was likelooking at that, it's like, you
know what?
If I just have to put the towerup, yeah, and a bunch of other
people are selling on it, and Ijust get, you know, I just get
the revenue off of it, I'm justa little positive, like right
there.
(14:55):
Totally.
SPEAKER_00 (14:56):
You know, and it I remember it feels like you know,
years ago, 15 years ago or so,there was that there was all
that hot consolidation going onwhere all the wisps were just
eating each other up and andgoing, you know, the the birth
of what was the one that sold tothe guys in Colorado who sold to
Vivent, um not Rush.
Rise.
(15:16):
Rise, Rise, Rise, you know, whenall those groups came around and
started doing that, maybe we'reon the precipice of that with
something like this, wheresomeone comes and just gobbles
them all up just to get thetowers and the infrastructure.
That's not a bad model.
It's a long play.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Well, here's the thing.
I I think it actually makes itso we don't have quite as much
gobbling up.
Yeah.
I think a small guy that's likelooking at it's like, all right,
I got You can offload the towersand I got five or six hundred
customers, but I've got oldtechnology, and I don't have the
cash flow to go out and upgradeto the city.
SPEAKER_00 (15:45):
I'm willing to sell to company XYZ.
Well, no, no, here's enough tosell.
Well, no, no, no.
I'm willing to sell that part toCompany XYZ so that they can
take a percentage and I stillkeep my customers.
I'm still able to give them avalue add.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Oh man.
I was in a session, the sessionwe were talking about open
access.
Um, this guy had a perfectexample.
He's like, Yeah, we've got, wecall it the C VRS, you know,
range war.
And it's because we're on thesame towers trying to put stuff
up, competing.
And I said, Look, are you betterat selling, are you better at
running the network, or are youbetter at selling to customers?
He says, We're better atcustomer service, they're better
(16:18):
at running the network.
Good.
I said that what you need to dois work out a deal with them,
have them run the network, shutyour stuff down, and split the
profits, let them run thenetwork, you go out and take
care of the customers, and thenyou're you aren't paying two
tower rents, you aren't payingfor you know two sets of
equipment, that's the same.
You don't have the headachesthat you used to have, and you
(16:38):
just focus on what you're goodat.
SPEAKER_00 (16:40):
And I okay, well, my question is is that because
we're getting older and we'rerealizing that you know, I feel
like I had this conversationwith Dennis earlier where it's
like sometimes it's okay to justhave slices of the pizza instead
of having to go out and make thepizza so that you have the whole
pizza.
Right.
You know, is that is thatbecause generationally we're
(17:01):
we're stepping into a phasewhere all of us are, you know,
aging a little bit.
We don't look it, right?
But we're getting older andwe're realizing that you know
what, maybe the best way to dostuff is to work together, and
maybe it's better to have threeslices of great pizza than a
whole shitty pizza, you know?
I don't know, man.
I don't know.
Thanks for listening.
That was my interview with MattLarson, the chairperson of the
Wireless Internet ServiceProvider Association and owner
(17:22):
of VistaBeam Internet.
That was such a funconversation.
It was great to see him andgreat to catch up.
What a thought provokingconversation.
I'd love to hear what yourthoughts are.
Jump on my LinkedIn, jump on ourYouTube, send me an email, let
me know.
I'm curious as to what peoplethink about open access networks
for wireless and fiber internetservice providers.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next week.
Hey everybody, Drew Lintz, the Wireless Nerd, and
this week we have a specialedition interview podcast.
Now, last week I got to visitthe Wispapalooza show for 2025,
and I got to hang out with someold friends and see some old
faces and see some great newequipment.
And one of the people I got tosit down and have a conversation
with was Mr.
Matt Larson.
Now, Matt is the CEO and founderof VistaBeam, and VistaBeam is a
(00:21):
pioneering wireless and fiberbroadband provider with coverage
spanning 40,000 square milesacross four states and over a
hundred towns.
They provide service toresidents and businesses in
Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, andWyoming.
And this year the industry votedto award VistaBeam as the 2025
operator of the year.
In addition to his dailyactivities running VistaBeam,
(00:41):
Matt is the chairperson for theWireless Internet Service
Provider Association.
I got to have a conversationwith him about what open access
looks like.
A little bit about the future ofwhat a wireless ISP or a fiber
ISP could delve into.
Now, this is something that I'vetalked about on a blog.
It's something that I've hadconversations with people about.
But essentially the idea is thatyou can build a network.
(01:02):
And once that network is built,someone maintains that network,
but other providers use thatnetwork.
So imagine if you had oneoperator that owned towers and
infrastructure all across thecountry, but small independent
ISPs had the ability to utilizethat equipment to spread their
service across the nation.
And they weren't responsible forthe actual equipment in the
(01:24):
tower, they're just responsiblefor the service that runs across
it.
So without further ado, I'd liketo uh jump into the interview
with Mr.
Matt Larson from Wispapalooza2025.
Matt Larson.
Okay, so tell me about tell meabout Wispapalooza 25.
Well, I mean, this was it's beena minute since I've been here,
but there's an air of excitementaround where the technology is,
(01:48):
and for us who've been doing itfor so long, where how far it's
come.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
You know, I think a lot of what's going on, I think
a lot of the technology is kindof maturing.
Um the big one for me is uh onthe on the access side, the
Toronto gear just continues toget better and better.
Their new G2, being able to put500 people on a base station.
It's insane.
It's huge.
And still use the same customerradios.
(02:14):
You know, it's pricey, but itworks.
I've got some on my network, andyou know, we we put it up, we
set it, forget it, kind of.
SPEAKER_00 (02:20):
That's I that's I I talked to them earlier, and that
that was the whole thing.
When they came down to SouthTexas and they did the whole you
know, see it to believe itevent.
I went out and we did a littletour and got to see everything,
and that was that was atakeaway.
It's like wow, this is actuallyreal.
Yeah, which is hard for peoplelike us who've been through so
many technology iterations totake somebody like that
seriously because it seems likethere's no way it could happen,
(02:41):
but they continue to improve.
Yeah, it's it's like having a gPond node in the sky.
It's crazy.
And then I talked to Cambiumalso about their product, the
the Evo product, and how they'rehow they're they're
consolidating access into asingle unit, and that's pretty
to see that happening also waspretty cool.
Overall, um, what are how arethe Wisps these days?
The government's making it alittle bit weird.
SPEAKER_01 (03:02):
It's tough to be a Wisp.
You know, there's we've seensome consolidation.
I think some people have kind ofgotten scared out of the market
a little bit.
Um, one of the reallydisappointing things is these
last couple rounds of governmentprograms, um, RDOF and Bede have
been kind of a train wreck in alot of ways.
Yeah, uh it introduced a bunchof uncertainty into the market.
(03:26):
Um, we had like wild auctionswith defaults and new players
that didn't really seem to havea real plan on how they were
gonna execute.
Uh and then a nowhere satellite.
And then what?
And then coming into Bede, Bedeis it's a program that was
designed five years ago andshould have been started on
(03:48):
three years ago.
Yeah, yes.
And it said, here we are, fiveyears later, it's like a giant
mess.
Yeah.
And the industry was just allover the place.
And so a lot of people, I think,got scared of government money
coming in over building them andjust scared out of the market.
SPEAKER_00 (04:02):
So so how much of that did you hear at the show
where were people's concernsabout being because it has it
has been a little bit of anightmare.
On every front, I mean from theequipment manufacturer side,
they thought that POs were gonnastart rolling, and so they
ramped up product, and from theconsultant side, they thought
they had business coming in, andfrom the ISP side they were
(04:23):
ramping up to do stuff orstaffing up, and I mean it's
like and it it you create a lotof uncertainty.
How much of that was was broughtup and then addressed this year,
do you feel?
Because I saw some sessions onit.
Yeah, yeah, honestly, I'm kindof like I'm just done with it.
Yeah, well, you know what?
I don't blame you.
That I think that that fatigueis is super real, and and maybe
(04:46):
it's not even that people aregetting scared out of it, it's
that people are just going, youknow what, I don't I don't want
to do this anymore.
Well, I I mean we participated,yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:54):
And we've got a hundred million dollar worth of
Bede provisional award, justwaiting for waiting for NTIA
approval, and then we get a conand then we're gonna get
contracts, and then we have tonegotiate the contracts.
But I'm prepared to walk awayfrom all of it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
If the contracts don't look right, if it doesn't
look like something that's gonnabe uh sustainable and has a
bunch of gotchas in it, thenwhat is there one thing that's
happening with it that is likethat's a non-starter right now
that you feel like a lot ofpeople are looking at going,
man, if they do this, I'm out.
SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
One of the things is the termination for convenience.
There was talk that anygovernment contract is gonna
have that included in it.
So that's convenient.
Well, geez, I'm gonna insist ifif they get it, I do too.
Okay, yeah.
That's why I'm gonna I'm gonnainsist on that in my contracts.
And if we don't get it, thenI'll just walk away.
There you go.
Because like I this was all ityeah, it would be awesome to go
(05:46):
build that, but it's also agiant chunk of work.
If you're actually doing the jobthe right way and you're gonna
go out and you're gonna meet theterms of the program, and you
aren't trying to figure out someway to scheme your way out of
it, it's a lot of work.
It is a ton of work.
SPEAKER_00 (05:59):
And for someone to be able to just walk away from
that with you holding the bag,because you'd still be
responsible for that for thecontract or or some type of term
or something at the end of theday.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
Well, the way I look at it, it's it a lot of it
depends on the reimbursementschedule.
Yeah.
So if it's gonna be you comingout of pocket to do$100 million
worth of work.
Well, but I the thereimbursement should be, it
should be you turn in invoices,get a reimbursement a few months
later.
Yeah.
So then you're only on the hookfor that.
Yeah, for the work.
If that's the way it works,yeah, we can accept it.
Yeah.
Um, but if they're expecting usto do all the work and then get
(06:30):
paid at the end, it's like, hellno, that ain't happening.
SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
What else, what are some of the other because I mean
to me, that's that's the thing Ikeep watching over and over with
with the FCC turnover and andand just the political situation
in the US as it is, and youknow, tariffs, I think tariffs
hit some I talked to somecompanies that tariffs hit
pretty hard here, and thatdoesn't make life easy for
anybody.
Yeah.
Um were there what else was whatelse was the buzz about at the
(06:57):
show?
I mean, there was I don't feellike there were any new pro G2
obviously kind of steals a showuh and good for them for
launching before the event.
Although I do like I rememberthe days when products were
launched here.
Yeah that was always fun.
You know, you'd walk in with youwould walk away with like, oh my
god, you know what I learned?
You know, that was I wouldencourage any company listening
who who's at Wispapalooza to doa product launch, man.
(07:19):
Give us something, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:20):
Yeah, you know the the hot word, the hot thing
here, I think, is AI, which itseems like that's the hot word
everywhere.
Yeah, and you know, I've got Igot a crazy guy from Canada
who's setting all our stuff forAI.
So we are setting up an entireyou know section of our company
that is going to use that to youknow improve the way we run our
(07:40):
network and interact with ourcustomers and analyze our data.
You know, that that is that'sgot huge payoffs, but you don't
really need to say that muchabout it.
Yeah, the thing I'm reallyexcited about, and it might be
another year before this likereally fully catches on, but I'm
really excited about thepossibility of open access and
fixed wirels.
Really?
So I was in on a session withthat.
(08:02):
That was something that neverreally was quite possible in the
past because you know, if we goput up an access point and we've
only got 100 to 200 meg to workwith, or we can only handle like
20, 30 customers tops, thereisn't enough uh, there isn't
enough capacity, there isn'tenough reliability, and there's
(08:25):
not enough potential on that toreally make that work at a big
scale.
Okay.
I think Toronto's kind offlipped the script on that.
Okay.
So a a G1 Toronto that canhandle 200 customers, a G2 that
can handle 500, yeah, and in areally reliable way that's going
to be scalable, predictable.
(08:46):
Toronto's setup, you can havemultiple network IDs on it, so
multiple operators can operateoff of it.
We are working on a project, weare doing that with another
operator.
It's amazing, and it's beenfantastic, you know, because
this what what it does for us iswe're working with this other
operator, and now we don't haveto try and compete for tower
(09:07):
space for backbone.
That's right.
We're on the same tower, we'reusing the same backbone.
Uh, we we exchange our trafficat uh an IX, uh-huh, and I don't
have to go out and upgrade allthese tower sites.
I go upgrade the customers.
And so I think that's gonna openup an entirely new class of
Wisps.
Uh-huh.
I think we're gonna start to seeWisps that specialize in their
(09:31):
regional area.
And I think a lot of guys aregonna look at this and it's
like, why would I give up themargin?
You know, because I think it'sgonna be you know somewhere
between$20 and$30 a month toaccess this for a customer.
But if you run the numbers onwhat it takes to run a really
good network, especially a highquality one like a Toronto
network, that's in theneighborhood of what it costs to
do that.
(09:51):
Yeah.
And if you don't have to standup your own staff, if you're if
you're really good at sellingand you've got a niche market
that you can sell to, and you'vegot that entrepreneurial energy
to go out and market and selland support customers in your
community, um, and you don'thave to build network, all you
do is build that relationshipwith the customer, that opens up
an entirely new class.
(10:12):
Do you remember the dish uh dishnetwork installers?
Yeah, of course.
Back in the day, Dish Networkhad all these entrepreneurial
installers and they went out andthey installed customers like
crazy.
That's right.
And then Dish basically put themall out of business because they
took away their recurringrevenue and they took away their
commissions and brought in theirown installers to do all that.
(10:32):
I think we have an opportunityto unlock that entrepreneurial
energy and get it, would notsurprise me if two years from
now we've got another two orthree thousand wisps and they're
little tiny guys and they'rerunning off open access networks
and innovating like crazy in allkinds of different things.
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
Man, you know, years ago, uh a gentleman I met named
Kai Wolf.
It's just crazy to think aboutKai.
Kai was doing work with TV WhiteSpace, he was doing work in in
Kenya and in Africa.
He had moved to South Texas, andthat's where I met him, because
he saw opportunity fordevelopment down there.
And when I got together andstarted talking to Kai, he
realized that I was in thewireless industry and we started
(11:10):
talking about stuff that he did.
And when he deployed GoogleWi-Fi networks in Kenya, the
idea, his his big idea was thathe could go build out a Wi-Fi
network that was paid for byeither the government or by the
community or by the vendor, andthen he would lease out the
SSIDs on that network to localpeople who wanted to start their
(11:31):
own ISP.
Yeah.
And and that was, you know, 15years ago that Kai was doing
that.
It was amazing.
And I have I've I've writtenblog after blog.
I think I've got like three orfour blogs I've written
specifically about this in theWi-Fi space because I was
challenged one time by the mayorof our community who said, How
do we figure out how to makemore money with the investments
that we've already made?
He's like, We've already we haveroads, we have infrastructure,
(11:53):
how do we do it?
And we have a pretty substantialnetwork in South Texas and
McAllen, and it's running, it'sall Cambium, CBRS, it's got a
thousand APs deployed.
How do how can we take moreadvantage of that?
And I said, Look, you make iteasy.
You open it up, and you havepeople, you know, the city
maintains the network, theymaintain the infrastructure, but
they open it up to a localcommunity and say, look, if you
want to be a service provider onthis network, submit an RFP.
(12:15):
Tell me what would make you agood service provider.
Do you do educational discounts,do you do free Wi-Fi for
students, and then you charge,you know, on the back end, or do
you do a 30-second advertisementbefore they get on?
Have the community solicit RFPsto provide open access for
community networks.
I had never thought about doingit, and my mind started running
a million miles per hour whenyou started talking about it.
Imagine if Crown Castle orAmerican Tower or some
(12:38):
entrepreneurial group said, I'mjust gonna build out Torana
networks all over the US withthe sole purpose of letting
people lease space on them.
That's incredible, man.
SPEAKER_01 (12:46):
So we have a group that's working on that.
That's incredible.
And I'm I think I'm slow to therace, but I'm getting it.
We're trying to build like somemodels.
So, like in uh the cellularmarket, that's that's how you
got roaming on cellularnetworks.
Yeah.
And they established aclearinghouse where a third
party to kind of make sure thatyou didn't have disputes.
Yeah because it starts to getreally.
(13:07):
I've got one guy I'm workingwith and it's working good.
We trust each other.
But that's when there's four ofyou.
But when there's four and thenthere's 40, and then there's
400, and you've got all thesedifferent network operators, you
need somebody that's gonna besitting in the middle.
It's gonna be like, okay, youyou had this many users on this
guy's networks, you owe thatmuch for that, and you had this
many users that you were were uhselling to other people.
(13:30):
And so you get this much ofthat.
And you're consuming 10 timesthe bandwidth of this guy, and
right, but we balance it.
We need to have a clearinghousethere that establishes the
standards, establishes theinteraction, uh, establishes the
APIs for the interaction and howeverything connects.
What a fun next step for theindustry.
Yeah, so I'm excited about thatbecause that is exciting.
That's yeah, I I'm I'mpicturing.
(13:51):
Because then you're gonna have,then you're I I I do think what
it's gonna do, it's probablygonna push their most wisps,
started out having to doeverything.
Everything.
I was literally when I started,I was literally building all the
calluses, you know.
I was building radios in mygarage.
Yeah, you know, I would take upand get some lucid cards in and
load Star OS on it, and then I'dclimb up and put it on top of a
(14:12):
grain leg and mount the antennasand point the backhauls and try
to figure out how to make allthat stuff work.
But that's it's beyond me.
Yeah, and it's in some ways, youknow, yeah, you can go set up a
little, a little networksomewhere, but setting up like a
big, actual, solid carrier gradenetwork that is gonna deliver
and have SLA quality service onit that's not gonna be deal with
(14:35):
interference and changingchannels all the time and has a
professional team.
All you have to do is just isjust operate.
Yeah, because there'll be aclass of operators.
You know, at first I was likelooking at that, it's like, you
know what?
If I just have to put the towerup, yeah, and a bunch of other
people are selling on it, and Ijust get, you know, I just get
the revenue off of it, I'm justa little positive, like right
there.
(14:55):
Totally.
SPEAKER_00 (14:56):
You know, and it I remember it feels like you know,
years ago, 15 years ago or so,there was that there was all
that hot consolidation going onwhere all the wisps were just
eating each other up and andgoing, you know, the the birth
of what was the one that sold tothe guys in Colorado who sold to
Vivent, um not Rush.
Rise.
(15:16):
Rise, Rise, Rise, you know, whenall those groups came around and
started doing that, maybe we'reon the precipice of that with
something like this, wheresomeone comes and just gobbles
them all up just to get thetowers and the infrastructure.
That's not a bad model.
It's a long play.
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Well, here's the thing.
I I think it actually makes itso we don't have quite as much
gobbling up.
Yeah.
I think a small guy that's likelooking at it's like, all right,
I got You can offload the towersand I got five or six hundred
customers, but I've got oldtechnology, and I don't have the
cash flow to go out and upgradeto the city.
SPEAKER_00 (15:45):
I'm willing to sell to company XYZ.
Well, no, no, here's enough tosell.
Well, no, no, no.
I'm willing to sell that part toCompany XYZ so that they can
take a percentage and I stillkeep my customers.
I'm still able to give them avalue add.
SPEAKER_01 (15:57):
Oh man.
I was in a session, the sessionwe were talking about open
access.
Um, this guy had a perfectexample.
He's like, Yeah, we've got, wecall it the C VRS, you know,
range war.
And it's because we're on thesame towers trying to put stuff
up, competing.
And I said, Look, are you betterat selling, are you better at
running the network, or are youbetter at selling to customers?
He says, We're better atcustomer service, they're better
(16:18):
at running the network.
Good.
I said that what you need to dois work out a deal with them,
have them run the network, shutyour stuff down, and split the
profits, let them run thenetwork, you go out and take
care of the customers, and thenyou're you aren't paying two
tower rents, you aren't payingfor you know two sets of
equipment, that's the same.
You don't have the headachesthat you used to have, and you
(16:38):
just focus on what you're goodat.
SPEAKER_00 (16:40):
And I okay, well, my question is is that because
we're getting older and we'rerealizing that you know, I feel
like I had this conversationwith Dennis earlier where it's
like sometimes it's okay to justhave slices of the pizza instead
of having to go out and make thepizza so that you have the whole
pizza.
Right.
You know, is that is thatbecause generationally we're
(17:01):
we're stepping into a phasewhere all of us are, you know,
aging a little bit.
We don't look it, right?
But we're getting older andwe're realizing that you know
what, maybe the best way to dostuff is to work together, and
maybe it's better to have threeslices of great pizza than a
whole shitty pizza, you know?
I don't know, man.
I don't know.
Thanks for listening.
That was my interview with MattLarson, the chairperson of the
Wireless Internet ServiceProvider Association and owner
(17:22):
of VistaBeam Internet.
That was such a funconversation.
It was great to see him andgreat to catch up.
What a thought provokingconversation.
I'd love to hear what yourthoughts are.
Jump on my LinkedIn, jump on ourYouTube, send me an email, let
me know.
I'm curious as to what peoplethink about open access networks
for wireless and fiber internetservice providers.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next week.
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