January 2017 | Business View Magazine

202 203 that niche to about 2008-09,when we became much more deliberate in the trajectory that we saw the industry going in and the services we wanted to offer.We began to expand our ser- vices beyond that small niche of transport.We saw that the horizon for that work would slowly dwindle, so we began to create a site develop- ment organization which included real estate and construction services. And that really took form in 2010-11.” “We still do quite a bit of work in the trans- port space,” Foster adds. “Most of that, today, is focused on bringing fiber, whether that’s ‘lit fiber’ or ‘dark fiber’ to cell sites.” (Lit fiber refers to fiber-optic cable, used for carrying data between two designated points that has been installed and activated by carriers. Dark fiber refers to unused fiber-optic cable. Often, companies lay more lines than what’s need- ed in order to curb the costs of having to do it again and again. The dark strands can be leased to individuals or other companies who want to establish optical connections among their own locations.) “And then we do quite a bit of work, now, vinculums services AT A GLANCE Vinculums Services, Inc. WHAT: A leading telecom infrastructure service provider for wireless operators WHERE: Irvine, California WEBSITE: www.vinculums.com in the site development space which is really real estate and construction ser- vices for wireless carriers,” Foster says. “In the last year or so, we’ve developed a group focused on small cells, which is building smaller sites for wireless car- riers and it’s focused, predominantly, on what the industry terms ‘densification’– adding a large volume of small sites on like infrastructures – light poles, wood- en poles, utility poles, etc.” Today, Vinculums Services has be- come the leading telecom infrastructure service provider for wireless operators throughout the Western and South- ern United States. The company has about 165 employees who work out of its offices in Sacramento and Walnut Creek, California; Houston, Texas; and Seattle Washington. “From those core offices, we cover the entire west coast, down through the southeast, and, out of Houston, we cover some of the lower part of the Gulf States,” Foster says. “We work, almost entirely, for all four wire- less carriers in the United States. That covers about 90 percent of the work that we do– transport, site develop- ment, and small cell. In addition, we’ve expanded, in the last year, engineering and designing fiber networks, not spe- cifically for wireless carriers – it’s work- ing more with the telephone and the cable companies.”