Secure Your Connection: Andrew Curley, Midco

SMGA's Chris Fields and Tyler Tordsen chat with Midco's Senior Government Relations Director, Andrew Curley. Midco is a long time supporter of Sioux Metro Growth Alliance. Join the trio as they discuss Midco's footprint, the Fiber Forward initiative, and Andrew's seat on the Membership Advisor Board.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:28

I'm Chris Fields with the Sioux Metro Growth Alliance, and co-hosting with me today is our president and CEO, Tyler Tortson. Hey Tyler. Good morning. Good morning. And our guest this morning is Andrew Curley, the Senior Director of Government Relations for Midco here in Sioux Falls. Andrew, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Good morning. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Glad to be on. Yeah, we're glad to have you. Midco is one of our um one of our partners that's been investing in SMGA for a number of years now, and we're glad to have him on and appreciate what you do. Andrew is also just recently elected as the uh MAB board chair or member advisory board chair. Uh and so by virtue of that, he also sits on the exec board.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Yeah, on our board of directors. So we gotta make sure that today goes well. Yeah. Make sure you look good. So how long have you been on the since since you joined MidCo's team, how long have you been on the membership advisory board for SMGA stuff? Or back in the Makita Lakita days, probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, I mean when it came became Sumetric Growth Alliances, I think it's when the membership advisory board was established, and I think I've been on since since the beginning. Okay. So yeah, I mean to Chris's point, Midco has been invested in SMGA since the beginning, including back to the Makita Lakita days. Um and so yeah, with with the change of Sumetric Growth Alliance, we've continued that investment, and so I've been part of the advisory board since then.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Nice. And how long have you been? I know you and I have known each other from congressional days and stuff too, but how long have you been at Midco now?

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Last week was my seven-year anniversary at Midco. Okay. Holy cow. Yeah, time flies. It doesn't feel that long, but like that's a good thing, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

But so what did what did you do? Um can you give us just a little bit of background? What did you do before Midco? Where'd you go to school? That sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm uh born and born here in Sioux Falls, uh, so my whole family's from the Sioux Metro. Um, but I grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. My dad worked at UND for about a decade. Um and then I ended up at St. John's University in Minnesota for college. Um and my family made it what made their way back to Sioux Falls, so that's kind of how I ended up back in Sioux Falls uh after graduation. Um so I was a polisci history, polisci major history minor at St. John's, and so kind of got the political bug while I was there. Um and so when I came back to Sioux Falls, I worked for then Congresswoman Noam in her congressional office. So yeah, that's how uh Tyler and I got to know each other in kind of similar roles, and he was in Senator Round's office. I was in Congresswoman Gnome's office as her Southeast Area Director the last few years. Um then I spent a couple years at an organization called Americans for Prosperity, and then um in 2019 had the opportunity to join Midco and kind of take my politics and government background and kind of expertise and put it to use for a good company, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

That's awesome. You you said you went to St. Is it St. John's? St. John's, yeah. I've heard a few people on this podcast and in our network that have attended St. John's. They must have a pretty good political science department or something. Yeah. A lot of a lot of people coming down here from from there in the political science realm.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, there's definitely kind of a pipeline from Sioux Falls to to St. John's. Um, you know, it's a it's a small Catholic school, so I think the Gorman graduates, there's always a handful of them that head up there every year. But um, we're also, you know, most of us are pretty proud to be St. John's alumni, or St. Ben's is the sister school. Um, so we also talk about it a lot. So Johnny's and Benny's, you know, we're not afraid to let people know where we went.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

Nice. Um, so tell us a little bit about um the Megco, like uh explain your role a little bit more. What what what exactly do you do day to day? What are some of the tasks that you take care of? How often as the government relations do you have to go to DC?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, absolutely. Um so we're a relatively small team. So I oversee the government relations team. We've got somebody in Bismarck, North Dakota, and somebody up in the in the Twin Cities, because the Dakotas and Minnesota are kind of the heart of Midcoast footprint. So we're spread across that those three states. Um we do everything from local state to federal uh government relations. So, you know, we're working with new communities that we want to expand into to get some of the you know the franchise agreements and permitting that we need, also you know, kind of monitoring and dealing with what's going on at the state legislative level. Um but then yeah, we do get to DC. I was just there in March. Um met with Senator Thune um and we met a couple of our other congressional offices in our footprint. Um we get out there, you know, maybe two or three times a year to talk through those things. Um thankfully we've got really accessible congressional delegation here in South Dakota, so we see them a lot of times when they're back in the state. Um but so yeah, kind of runs the gamut of all levels of government for for the government relations team at Midco. But then also kind of one of the hats I wear too is is partnering with our you know non-governmental partners like Chambers, economic development organizations. Obviously, that's the tie to Sue Metro Growth Alliance, and my involvement is Midco's investments in those kind of organizations is something that we also oversee.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Yeah, and we we really appreciate the the partnership and the investment. Um that's one of the things you you touched on and and that I really enjoy about South Dakota, and we've talked about it before, but just the accessibility of of our uh government officials, our elected officials, not even just at the state level, but at the at the federal level too. You working for Noam when she was at the in the House, right? And then Tyler working for Senator Rounds and um and just the accessibility we have to be able to meet with them one-on-one or in group settings. Um I've lived a lot of places throughout the country, and you just you don't see that across the country like we get in South Dakota.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, I think sometimes people can take it for granted. I think that's like that's kind of expected here that you're gonna run into you know rounds or dusty or somebody aro around town because they're back and active in the community. I don't yeah, that's not the case across the country. So we should we should never forget that uh and take for take it for granted.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

I think I probably run into Thune at Shields more often than I do anywhere else. Rounds, it was always Dakota Mart and stuff. So yeah, so I was thinking too, you know, it makes sense the local, state, and federal kind of government relations piece. Um I've never thought about it before. Like, what about county? Do you guys ever have to go before county commission or kind of check-in? I mean, most of your stuff is for the most part, you're probably working directly with landowners for any, you know, lines you're putting in or things like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

But yeah, I mean government relations, and we a lot of times we're like on the permitting side. Yeah. If government relations has to get involved, it's probably because something's going wrong. Because normally it's kind of just business as usual. Our construction teams, our engineering teams are great about working through, you know, the permitting process. So if they're pulling my team in, it's probably because it's something we had some issue. And so we don't have a ton of interaction with our county governments. Um, you know, at the city level, we need, you know, in order to provide video service as a cable provider, we have to get a franchise from the city. Um, and so that's the kind of angle with city governments. We don't have that same requirement for counties, so it's usually permits, and we do need quite a few permits from all levels of government to you know be in the right-of-way as a utility. Um, but usually those are pretty smooth. And um, you know, I think for the most part, every level of government understands the importance of telecommunications, of you know, fiber connectivity. Um, and so they're you're usually pretty good to work with.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

What what is the range of services that Mikko provides on too? I'm sure it's evolved over time and stuff too. I but are people still putting landlines in and using some of that stuff too? Like give us the whole gamut. You guys do cable, you do internet, you do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I mean, you know, most people think of us as you know the cable company. That's that's how we got started as a you know providing services. And we actually started as a movie theater company. Really? Yeah. In 1931, we started as the Well Worth Theater Company in Minnesota. Um our founder wanted to be well worth the dime that people had to pay back then to go to a movie. And so we've done a lot of different things over those 95 years of existence. Um, movie theaters being a big one. We used to own um Kellow radio stations. We actually our founders founded Kello TV as well. They're you know no longer a part of the Midco family, but we were the founder, our our founders were the founders of Kello. Um but then yeah, cable was was the big thing for a long time, and then we eventually added landline telephone. Okay. And then it was about actually 30 years ago, late 90s, when we started doing internet service. And so we for you know about 30 years, we've been the kind of triple play provider of cable TV, telephone, landline telephone, and then internet. And I'd say in the last like decade is when it's really been we're a broadband company. That's what people think of us first and foremost. That's when you know in the last decade has been really when revenue from broadband has been our leading driver. And so we're today we're a broadband company that also offers video, also offers landline telephone. And we do have a few people that still have landline telephone. And really on the landline side, um, a lot of that also is businesses. Sure. Yep. You know, your your or for fax and yeah, insurance agencies still need it, you know, Sanford H hospitals still need it, Bayer Hospitals still need it. And so we still do offer landline. We actually just in the last month launched mobile. So you can get your mobile service from Midco now as well. So Midco mobile is something that we're just rolling out. It's kind of a soft launch phase, but we'll be making a big splash with that over the next year um to be able to kind of bring all of your connectivity under one roof with Midco and then kind of that same brand and customer experience that people are used to from Midco, you'll also be able to do that with your cell phone.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

So interesting. I'll be excited to see kind of how that how that kind of shakes out. And then obviously Midco TV and some of the streaming stuff that you guys do in-house and uh part of the umbrella. I've been watching a lot of that with Summit League tournaments and hockey and everything else too over the last time.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, that's a good that's a good good point. On the Midco sports side, um for a long time we've had what we call a linear channel, so a channel that's on your traditional TV. We broadcast and we do the Summit League tournament and a lot of you know SDSU, USD football. Um, but then we've gotten more into the streaming side of that. So with Midco Sports Plus, it's a streaming app, and that's actually been a really good um evolution for Midco Sports for us, and so now we have the Summit League Network is on Midco Sports. Um CCHA Hockey, which is the hockey conference that Augie's part of, is all of all other schools, their mainstreaming uh vehicle is Midco Sports Plus, and that's something that we're continuing to evolve and hopefully bring on more conferences and more schools onto that.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Yeah, it was it's pretty slick for me this year when I was uh not able to get to games because uh because of kids or whatnot too, and then I was rocking a kid to bed and was able to have the Midco Sports app on my phone and be able to stream it in silence and put an AirPod in.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

So I I did not have uh movie theater on the Midco services bingo card. No, I did not.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

No, I didn't know that history. At one point there was a Midco marina uh down in Yangton. Really? Uh the river? Yeah. So we yeah, our our founders were just like these super entrepreneurial innovative guys. Yeah, sounds like um uh like five-stall car center five call star five five-star call centers. Five star call centers, yeah. That too. That used point one used to be midco uh connections call centers. We used to operate kind of those call centers too. So yeah, we've a little bit of everything, but kind of narrowed it down to that core this last few decades.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

On the broadband side, so you picked a heck of a time to kind of make the transition over to Midco too, because uh so seven-year anniversary uh for you working there, I'd say, I mean, for sure, at least in the last seven years, but last ten, but the last five-ish have been really heavy on broadband, right? I mean, with some of the uh federal dollars and even some of the state programs. Uh tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, your role. Yeah, I mean it really you're hit the nail on the head the last like five years, and a lot of it was during COVID. Um I think everybody in society recognized the value. I mean, most people I think understood the importance of internet prior, but really hit it home of like you don't have strong internet connection at your house, you can't do all those remote things that we all had to were forced to do during COVID, and now some of us kind of do when it's convenient. Um but you know, education, working from home, you know, telehealth, all those things are require a really strong connection. Um and so because everyone kind of realized that a lot of the some of the COVID relief dollars ended up going towards broadband. And so all the the various, you know, COVID programs, CARES, ARPA, all of those had a broadband component to them. And so there's a lot of money funneled into expansion of broadband to people who didn't have it. You know, if you you if the like I said, COVID really drew the lines of who was and wasn't connected, and so there was a really big push to invest a lot of money into uh rural broadband. South Dakota actually had started their program like just a few months prior to COVID, or really made the investment in it. So we had to kind of some of the structure just getting started in South Dakota, and then all of a sudden we had this influx of cash of dollars from the federal government. So when Governor Gnome at the time started the Connect SD broadband program, it was like, hey, can we get five million dollars this year? Can we get five million dollars next year? The next year she comes back and says, Can we get a hundred million dollars? Uh because we had some of the money from the various uh COVID buckets. Um they've spent a lot of money in South Dakota to expand rural to rural areas and really made a ton of progress. And now the next big thing is with the infrastructure bill that was passed, you know, it's been five years ago. There's a new program called BEAD, which is the broadband equity access and deployment program. Um it's been kind of slow going and with changes in administration, there's been a few hiccups with it, but it's kind of intended to be like that last big push of dollars. Um South Dakota's plan to spend $87 million to connect some of the hardest to serve areas. Um out in the Black Hills really is primarily where all that funding is going. So Midco was preliminary awarded about $12 million of that. So we'll be expanding some of our footprint up in kind of the lead, Deadwood, Piedmont, some of those. It's hard with some of the rocks and some of the terrain, right? I mean, that's okay. Yeah, that that putting fiber in the ground out there is uh quite the challenge. There's a reason those areas are the the last to get connected, is because they're the hardest to serve.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

So we didn't uh you know we we didn't talk through any questions or pre-plant anything, we're kind of just giving it to you straight here. But um and it's okay if you don't have this data point, but if you had to guess from five years ago or seven years ago to today of how much how much kind of broadband or internet connectivity in the state versus what we're at now. Like you know, sixty percent of the state had access and now it's ninety or something. I don't know. I'm just making up numbers, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

So if you look at like a map geographically, you know, it was probably this is closer to like yes, 60% of people had connectivity, and today it's probably 95%. Um but of course in South Dakota those rural areas are uh can be pretty sparse. So population-wise, I would say probably ninety percent of the people had connectivity previously, it's that last 10% are always the hardest. And we're getting closer and closer to probably up in that 97-98% at this point.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and they constantly make an upgrades, right? I mean, I I remember when uh the big announcement on gig that you could get, you know, a gigabyte stuff now, it seems like that's it's it's still big, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Honestly, yeah, the the evolution of the speeds and the bandwidth that we're that we're providing. Like when we first started talking about internet, it was in kilobits, and now that it was megabits, now it's gigabits, and we're even talking with some of these huge users, uh, terabits of connectivity. But at the residential level, yeah, gig we we rolled out in a 2016-2017 time frame. And now we're you know, we you know we build a new community. We're offering that we can offer five gig immediately, and five gigs symmetrical, and that's the other big thing is a lot of times download was always the big thing of like can we get enough bandwidth to download the content that we need? Now with more and more stuff being uploaded, that upload speed is is just as important. So getting it kind of closer to symmetrical is what we uh how we how we phrase it is a is a big important thing too. So five gigs both ways is some of our newer ne uh newer networks. But most the reality is most residential people don't need that today. Yeah. But we also talk about it as far as like what do they need now, but also what are they gonna need in the future? And we have no idea what we're gonna need in the future, but we want to make sure our network is prepared for that. So we're investing pretty heavily into yeah, higher speeds, more bandwidth, better latency um to make sure that the network's prepared for all these kind of cool innovations that are coming.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Yeah, peeling back the layers a little bit. So we've been uh in our residence, we've been a midco customer for a long time and stuff too, and uh you know, been pleasantly surprised with kind of the coverage, the customer service, the the locality of it, and um kind of the speeds and the pricing for for as many years as we've had it. And and even like randomly without prompting, without waiting for promos to expire, like randomly get an email like, hey, guess what? We your prices stay the same, but we're just randomly upping you to higher speeds. I don't know if it's because they see how many iPads we're getting connected and all that kind of stuff or what, but uh it's just been nice to almost kind of automatic taking care of people as you guys continue to improve the system too.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Yeah, I mean you hit a hit a nail on the head as far as the customer experience is something that like our teams stress really heavily. But a lot of companies in our industry that's you know, we sometimes get a bad route for not great customer experience. Midco, we've been pretty proud that like that's not been the case for us. Is it's something we emphasize in everything we do is the customer experience and making sure that it's smooth and running running the way you expect it to. But if you do need to reach out to us, that your your interaction with our customer experience teams um is positive. And I you know we've won multiple awards for the kind of you know satisfaction of our customers. Um so it's something that's really like gratifying to hear people like, hey yeah, I I had to call in, but it the experience was great when interacting with your team. Yeah, yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

I will I will say we just got a reduction in our uh our midco internet bill. So very pleased to see that. Um I don't know how or why, but but we'll take it. Um you had mentioned uh COVID and kind of how COVID transformed uh working, employment, work from home, and and how that transition kind of happened. I just wanted to say real briefly, uh during COVID before I came to SMGA, I was working at CNA Charity, um, which is now the building that you guys were in. They they sent us home for it was probably close to two years for sure, 18, 18 to 20 months. We were working from home, uh using our computers to answer the phones and do all the things. But yeah, you guys you guys took over Lloyd spot in the CNA Charity building used to be called the Lloyd Building. Now it's whatever Midco building, CNA charity building.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

But I think it's technically like the lumber exchange building because it used to be the Schoenerman's lumber that was there.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

Yeah, well so you guys just recently moved there what a couple years ago now?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

It's been just over two years now that we've had the office done, Tom. Nice. Um, and what what that was is we've we still have some office space out where we were off off Benson and 220 or Benson and 29 on the northwest part of town. We still have what we call our our technology campus out there. A lot of our engineering technology teams are are still out there. Um but we found we actually had kind of two offices, and what we found is a lot of our call center folks are still working from home because they went home and and we had to make it work for them, and they've they did a great job, and actually some of the productivity went up. Um, and so we had a big call center space out there that ended up being kind of unnecessary. So those of us who are more kind of front office functions, you know, I'm in the part of the legal department, our marketing team, and some of our executive leadership team. We moved and consolidated downtown, and that's where we've been for the last two years. It's been a lot of fun being back downtown because Midcoast roots have always been in downtown Sioux Falls. But yeah, it's been fun able to walk over here this morning.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

Awesome. Yeah, can't can't beat that underground parking during the winter. Yeah, that's a huge perk. Um, so let's uh let's transition um and talk briefly about or expand upon as much as you want your guys' uh fiber forward initiative that you have going on. Tell us a little bit about fiber forward and what that means for the metro.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of alludes to what you guys were talking about as far as like upgrading those speeds kind of automatically. Um, we've been making a pretty significant investment into growing and expanding our network over the last five years and kind of continuing through here through the end of the decade. So just taking a step back, back in 2021, um, we had a big event out at our office, um, again off of off of Benson, where we had our company leadership, then Lieutenant Governor Roden, Congressman Johnson, uh Two Falls Mayor Tin Haken, and and a lot of um other dignitaries in the crowd, um, where we announced a $500 million fiber forward investment into our network. So this is all private investment to get to upgrade and expand Midco's fiber network. Um so on the upgrade side, you know, Midco has been offering uh broadband service for you know 25 years now. We're kind of in that you know, time for a generational upgrade of the network. And so all of the areas we already serve, we're upgrading to those higher speeds, higher bandwidth, um, and then but also growing the network at the same time. So that's what Fiber forward is, is both growth and uh upgrade of our of our network. And so it's been uh uh five years now of a significant amount of work. Um we've already invested over a hundred million dollars in South Dakota, and 50 million of that has been actually in the Sioux Metro because that's where we kind of got started. So any of the communities that we already serve, so obviously that's Sioux Falls, but Harrisburg, T, Lennox, Canton, Humboldt, Crooks, Ram. Or you know, all these Sumetro communities, Miko's already there. We're now going through the process of upgrading those systems and to to get to those higher speeds and making sure, like I said, that it's prepared for the you know the future and future needs of the community. As you guys know, as those communities are growing, you know, uh strong connection is a big part of you know those growth opportunities. But also as with Fiber4, we're also growing into new communities. So since that 2021 announcement, Brandon, Worthing, and Hartford are all three communities that we previously were not in, that we've expanded into in the last five years and become part of those communities. And again, as they grow, we're gonna grow with them and be invested and be community partners with those communities. So it's been a ton of uh really positive work. A lot of teams at Megco um have gone into that, but as we alluded to earlier, yeah, we're seeing, you know, as we don't do that fiber upgrade work, you know, some of our customers are just seeing automatic increases in their speeds, their bandwidth. Again, particularly on that upload side, you know, by pushing the fiber closer to the home, we can increase the speeds that they're seeing. Um and so we're kind of at the point now, it's kind of kind of midway through this investment. So we just recently talked about like, okay, what's next? You know, we're a company that you know, we make this announcement in 2021 with a commitment to invest in and upgrade our network. We've kind of done a kind of midpoint upgrade update on okay, now we're we got 43 million dollars more invested into South Dakota to kind of finish the job, and we're gonna to which will push our our investment um in South Dakota over 160 million dollars total into our network over the course of about a seven to eight year time frame to really push that that network to the to the next level. Um and so we're continuing to do that now and kind of announce that you know by the end of 2028 our intention is to have all the areas that we previously served be upgraded um by that time frame.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

That's phenomenal. I just saw the the story on this uh on kind of your your your check-in point a couple weeks ago. Yep. And it was like what over a hundred thousand homes in South Dakota upgraded and uh fifty over fifty thousand of of Sioux Falls, and it was like over half of T uh basically already too from a population standpoint, and probably at least a third, maybe close to half of Harrisburg getting upgraded too.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

So yeah, yeah, I think we're I think we've completed Lennox, and then yeah, T, we're making good progress. Harrisburg, I mean it's kind of always a moving target because on there, but yeah, uh we're doing a lot of work in the in those markets.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Hopefully you guys are putting in the fiber on the new housing developments as they're getting built, uh, because there's quite a few going on in real time.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

It really is. I mean, we've got some really good uh relationships with the developers that are doing a lot of that growth, and obviously working with a lot of like the public works and planning and zoning um departments for a lot of these communities. Um but yeah, we are our every intention to like, hey, you've got a new development coming. You know, you're thinking about this is something that I think evolved with some of the planning and development. Is used to be, well, you can't build a housing development if you don't have you know sewer and water, if you don't have power, you don't have natural gas. I think sometimes telecommunications was kind of an afterthought, and not anymore, really. Yeah, you know, a lot of developers understand that as we're bringing those other other services to these developments, we need to make sure that we're bringing fiber along with it. Um, and so we've got some really strong relationships and making sure that we're investing in that growth. Because a lot of it, you know, we I talked about we're expanding into new communities like a Brandon and a Hartford. Um, but a lot of our growth too is just the community is growing and we're growing with it, right? So those new developments that you talked about, a new industrial park or new housing development. Um, we're making sure that you know they're connected as well and we're growing with them.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

That's good. Well, for being the chair of the membership advisory board for Sumetro, you listed off I think at least half the list. It'd be nice to see that continue too.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yeah. Um you had mentioned um developing uh new areas and working with these developers. What uh what is uh and going into your fiber forward, kind of talking about that? What what in your opinion, what is driving the need for speed if if we can use a top gun reference? What's what's driving the increased need for speed? Is it AI? Is it the constant streaming people are doing? Is it the gaming the kids are doing these days? Like just more people working from home.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

All the above it really is. I mean, the the number of connected devices, I think, now is like over 30 in the average average home in the US. Um, and so those connected devices, you mean connected, you know. My dad was talking about how he was able to, you know, start the laundry from his phone while he was he forgot to do it, you know, that kind of stuff. Like how many of our appliances are now connected to the city. You can preheated oven now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Preheated oven, yep. Um, some of you mean some of those things that you know we never probably f fathomed however many years ago, more and more that's become more and more frequent. Um that requires a strong connection. Um, but yeah, people working from home, streaming, um, you know, every you know, my kids want to be YouTubers, you know. If you ask them what they want to do for a career, um, all that stuff requires a lot of a lot of bandwidth. Um, and so all those all those use cases are pushing the need for stronger connection, but and and that latency as well is kind of the speed of the the connection um is a is another data point that we use. Um but then AI is also a big a big one. Um we're seeing a lot of a lot of demand for increased um connectivity, increased bandwidth uh to feed the AI kind of you know machine that's out there. Um but then also like we we don't really know what's next. Like it's just so much innovation going on in the in the technology space. You know, we we've uh heard kind of demonstrations of um like 8k video, like almost virtual reality. So just imagine you're watching, like if you're watching the Tim Rule of in the playoffs, for me it's the wild in the playoffs, like you're watching it from home, you know, in a few years instead of watching on a flat screen TV, you could be watching it from a virtual reality headset, and it's gonna feel like you're at the game.

SPEAKER_04 27:58

Like immersive.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yeah, and that technology is there today, but like it's gonna become more and more mainstream, and like as that rolls out and people start adopting that, their bandwidth need is gonna be pretty robust. Um, and that's the other thing we kind of talk about that goes with that is the connection to the home, but actually a lot of that goes over your Wi-Fi connection. And the average person doesn't differentiate between like the wire to their house and then the the Wi-Fi in their house. We spend a lot of time thinking about making sure the connection to the house is really good, and then making sure the connection within the house is really good because all those things you know go over Wi-Fi. And even our video, mid-code TV, is a Wi-Fi enabled product that you're not plugging into the old coax cable that's running through your through your house anymore. It's just turn on your router, your midcode TV box connects to it to via Wi-Fi. So the Wi-Fi space in the house is another one that we put a lot of time emphasizing, making sure that's running smoothly for people. Because again, all these all these future applications for the internet are gonna require that.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Thanks. So uh I want to shift a little bit too on um, so we're fortunate to have uh your guys' CEO Ben uh Dold on our um Growth Summit panel back in December. Uh so he was on the panel kind of talking about a little bit of AI and kind of data centers and kind of hot hot topics and stuff too. Uh as much as you can kind of share or kind of insights that you have in the in this field, talk to us about this data center trend. I mean, it's gotten big, but it've also been around for a long time, right? So, I mean, what is your guys' relationship with data centers, big and small? Um, just your thoughts on this conversation in general.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, I mean, to your point, they've been around for a long time. Midco, we operate, we have four data centers ourselves. Um, but the term data center is kind of this buzzword, but like you have to really drill down to like what kind of data center are you talking about? So, like Midco's data centers, one is some for some of our own purposes, and some of like in order to deliver you know a video product and some of our internet products, we have to have a kind of a mini data center for ourselves. We can also sell it for like enterprise customers. So if you think about like healthcare financial services institutions that have a lot of really data data that really needs to be secure, our data centers can store that data in a secure fashion and have like the right certifications to keep it, yeah, sure, to keep it safe, and that's the kind of data centers that have been out there for a long time and that there are multiple of in Sioux Falls already. Um, and then you also get into like um Bitcoin mining type facilities, and you know, that's a type of data center. Um, there's kind of like edge compute data centers that again, some of these are smaller, um, but then you get into what's called hyperscalers or AI factories, these giant kinds of the big scary one that everybody's talking about or thinking about right now.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

When you hear the buzzword, that's that's yeah, that's where people I don't know, a huge chunk of people's minds are. That's where there's the hyperscale.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah, and that and that's I mean, some of that's unfortunate, you know, from like uh you know, I know in Rapid City there was an announcement about uh uh a data center out there, and you really think about like the the megawatt bandwidth that they're requesting, and you can kind of tell as you how big they are. So it's I think it was like a 25 megawatt data center. That's still a big like load for like the the power company, and it would be a big load from like a fiber perspective, but it's not the the big scary one that people are talking about. So like they see the headline Rapid City is gonna this new data center, and people think just instantly, yeah. That's not the case. Or even I know Lennox is going through, they're having kind of conversations about hey, is Linux positioned well for a data center? I think that what I saw was like, can we get an up to 10 megawatt data center?

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

And that's more close to like the type of data centers that we operate in the the smaller scale.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Again, that people probably don't realize they've been again been here 10 years or 20 years that have you drive by it every day because you know you didn't know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

So when you know a community like Linux is talking about, like that's not like that's a probably a smart and smart for them to be thinking about it and like what's the what's the feasibility of that here in Linux? Um, but it's not the giant you know scary quote unquote um hyperscale data centers that you know. Yeah, we're doing your quotes on the scary. Yes, absolutely. Because it because it really shouldn't be. So I think on the hyperscale side data centers, like they're not meant for everywhere, right? Like you've got to find the right locations um to put them. But a lot of that is where are you new near power? Um, are you near you know fiber connectivity? Do you have a community that's open to it? Does it make sense? Um, and so these developers that are looking for to develop these data centers are trying to find where they are, and then there's also there's some sales tax component to it that South Dakota currently doesn't have the right sales tax environment for. So quite frankly, like the bigger data centers are probably not going to be developed here anytime until we you know may potentially change that. But Midco we we operate, um, like I said, in North Dakota, Minnesota, we also operate in Wisconsin and Kansas. All of those states have the right kind of um regulatory environment for this. And so North Dakota, it's it's been a really big growth driver for that state. Um and some of the data centers that have considered South Dakota are just going to North Dakota.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

Um don't remind us.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Which is a bummer, it's a bummer, you know. It's uh provider, you know, we'll serve them serve them up there too. But as a South Dakota, I'd love to have some of that because the the property tax is the big one in North Dakota right now is applied digital. They're looking at building now, I think, their fourth facility in in North Dakota, and I think they're already near nearly the biggest property tax payer in the state of North Dakota. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

Um Do you have a sense of like what that like how big of a I don't know what the right word is, the load is that for you guys that like the Allendale one or the Yeah, so that's so there's yeah, obviously there's the big load on the on the power side.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

And that's the other thing. That's the big thing that these developers are looking at is like where can we get the power that we need and where can we have a where we have a uh electric provider that is willing to do it. Um and so that's really where they're kind of they're picking this pick these these locations aren't picked at random, they're picked for very specific reasons. Even the ones that were discussed here in in Sioux Falls were it's an exact location that makes sense. There's not like just oh it's anywhere in Sioux Falls, it's that exact location. Makes sense for a hyperscaled data center. But the the the from our perspective, yeah, these are the biggest loads we've ever we've ever served or provided. Um, we talk about you know a gig connection to your house, they're talking about multiple 400 gig connections um that they need to to to feed their their bandwidth needs, their connectivity needs at these facilities. And so, yeah, we've been partnering with um the the developers at Ellendale and working on some of the other ones in North Dakota. Just for context, a 400 gig connection, what our team um kind of estimated is that would at peak be well enough to serve the entire metro of Fargo. So the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo, and which is uh, you know, we've I know that data point because we've talked about it in North Dakota. It probably would be comparable here in the Sioux Metro. Sure. Uh Sioux Falls and Fargo are relatively um similar. Um so at peak demand, all of our customers in the Fargo market, and that includes all the kind of surrounding communities, wouldn't use more than 400 gigs of connectivity. And they're talking about multiple and sometimes hundreds of these 400 gig connections just to one facility for that bandwidth to be at one time. So it's it's unprecedented.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

So comparing it that way, but you guys are obviously doing this and working on it and building it out in a way to where you're able to service it. It doesn't diminish your existing capabilities, and certainly it's not on the backs of, and again, this is we're talking only this piece, not talking power, not talking some of the other ones. But that's one of the fears, right? Is well, you know, you're gonna stick it to existing rate payers and their service is gonna go down and their costs is gonna go up to be able to serve this. It's not you guys are doing it in a way to where you're able to do all of the above because you're strategic on your yeah, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

One, you know, a lot of the developers are good partners with ours, and like you know, we need to invest in getting uh fiber you know further out to them, they're willing to partner with on those things. But yeah, so so zero of the investment that needed to serve these is coming on the backs of existing mid-co customers. It's just not the way we would do business, but also actually it's it's it's augmenting our network, actually, it's gonna make our network stronger. The investments that we're making to serve them are gonna benefit everybody on our network, and so it's actually a net benefit for your you know, your customer in and whatever community that we serve is actually benefiting from you know the augmenting that we need to do to the network to provide the kind of bandwidth that they're talking about. So it's a yeah, that positive, I'd say.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Has it been fun kind of learning learning all this stuff? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

I mean, I don't think I would ever ever been able to talk you know about data centers, you know, even just a couple years ago. But you know, we're just seeing such a demand and such a and honestly, there's there's just a big need to educate people because there it has become something that's kind of gotten contentious. And so we need to talk about you know what are the big the what are the the true facts when it comes to data center development, you know. Yeah, the water, the water is not what people think of it, you know, these closed loop systems, yeah, they're really not using uh a massive amount of water. They're not you know, if they built one in Sioux Falls, they're not gonna be sucking out of the Big Sioux River. They put these big tanks that just close loop and use the same water.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Yeah, you fill it up once and then it gets recycled. And what's nice, I mean, Sioux Falls was so creative that again having the right people and brilliant minds around here that they I think they were gonna sell them to fill up the tanks for them to have to reuse, they were gonna sell them like discharge water from the wastewater treatment plant that was probably could have just got dumped in the Big Sioux anyway, because it's already treated and done. Yeah. Uh so anyway, just I I think it's a good point. I mean, that's why with our growth summit every year we try to pick subjects like that to help educate. You know, when we did our water uh water one two years ago, it was like when we're talking about gigs and talking about all these different terminology, like, you know how how much is a lot and what does that mean, and and all of that too. So it's it's fun. I talk to rural mayors all the time. Um, and you know, all of them that come into this, they kind of stumble into the role. Most of them didn't set out 20 years ago to become the mayor of whatever town, you know. And uh here they have to become or they naturally become experts on like wastewater and on uh uh like I was talking to Mayor Butch and Crooks, and he's like, you know, they basically run uh their own natural gas company, you know, because they do their own. So he's like he's had to become an expert. Yeah, yeah. That's just kind of fun. And now look at you, the big broadband telecom expert. Something like that. It's a movie with some movie theater history from 1931.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

That's great. Um, so we Andrew, we we never let anybody off the hook on this podcast without asking them uh for their Sumetro hidden gym. Um we've had people give uh restaurants, uh state, city parks, um shops, shops. Yeah. We had somebody give us a specific view one time. So um yeah. So thinking about our four county footprint, 17 member municipalities, what would your Sioux Metro gym be?

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Um, I don't know if it's a hidden gym anymore, but honestly, Palisade State Park is one of the most beautiful. It's gotta be the most beautiful area in the Sioux Metro. It's such a cool area. My family's loved, you know, going to hike there. We've camped there a couple times. My son loves to fish there. Um, it's a really cool area, so you can't really be, you know, and it's how close it is, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:17

You can they got internet now? Yeah, Palisades State Park at the new state park piece.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Yeah, the new yeah, the new expansion. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's supposed to be a kind of place you should go disconnect, maybe. But yeah, no, our families don't tell the kids that you brought the iPads with, but just in case it's an emergency. So, yeah, my family's really enjoyed being out there. Actually, it's a good reminder that we should get out there this summer because it's really clear and I haven't seen some of the new the new areas of it.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Yeah, they they just they moved the entrance from one side of the park to the other and they added, I think, a hundred camping spots or something. That's a sight to see. So that's cool. Yeah, it'd be funny.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

I can have an intern project and go back through all of our episodes and and kind of rank and see how many people have named. I think Palisade's been named quite a few times. It's probably in the top three for sure. Probably not anymore, not because of that. Everybody knows about it now. It's still worthy, still worthy of conversation. It's gorgeous.

SPEAKER_04 40:06

It's my hidden gym for sure.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

Before we let you out of here, too, I do want to give a a quick kind of public thank you to um you guys, to Midco again for all the annual support stuff. You guys sponsor a lot of our events too. So just a good partner all the way around just for the sake of growth, the sake of giving back to community um exposure and that kind of thing. But then also um being kind of one of our uh few kind of founding investors of our new leadership Sumetro program, our personal professional development program, really meant to complement and serve uh our rural communities and stuff too, that we were uh just excited to recently launch. And so I just appreciate you guys playing a role and being part of that too. We're really excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah, absolutely. We're I mean we're really excited about it, and kudos to you guys for kind of developing that. But yeah, there's a need for you know leadership development. I mean to your point about somebody kind of stumbles into being a mayor of a small town, all of a sudden they're expected to know how everything in the city works, and that that's not the case. But also, I think like the convening, both I think just in general, what Sumetro Growth Alliance does, but I think this will be another part of that of like getting people together to learn together and to develop a relationship and collaborate. And so that's as the Sumetro grow grows and we start, you know, more communities start bumping into one another, that that some of those relationships are there and the trust is there. That that's gonna be it's gonna be more and more important over the next, you know, 10, 15, 20 years. And I think this will just be another another part of bringing the region together to work together um so we can all grow together and all learn together and all um hopefully have a you know prosperous future together.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Yeah, we're really excited about it. We wouldn't be able to do it without your guys' support like that to help get it off the ground. But I think you're right. I think we're gonna look back 10 years from now and look at our cohort and our success and see uh how great this was. But anyway, I just wanted to give you guys a shout out. Absolutely. Happy to do it.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

Well, Andrew, thank you so much for your time. Uh I know you have you're a busy guy and you have a lot, a lot going on, but we do appreciate you stopping by, growing places and and chatting with Tyler and I.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Absolutely. It's been fun. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 42:02

Uh Tyler. Well, my friend. Until next time.

unknown 42:11

Um,