Business View Magazine | July 2020

74 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2020 partner with the member-owned, state-wide network IFN to provide service to 15 cell towers, including a number of national cellular companies. They also do business with medical clinics, libraries, local governments, and some state government facilities, as well as a plethora of small businesses, banks, grocery stores, manufacturers, restaurants, and residential customers. Their biggest product is Broadband Internet. On the fiber side, the lowest bandwidth, they offer is a 25 meg symmetrical package, but that goes all the way to a gigabit for a number of residential and business customers. “We also offer telephone service throughout that five-county area,” says Greene. “And we do a digital video product – set-top boxes (STBs), DVRs, the whole nine yards. And at the end of June, we launched our streaming digital video service. It’s limited initially to wireless customers but if a customer uses our wireless internet they will be able to get that full video package over their internet connection rather than requiring a fiber connection like in the past. That will be very popular. The problem in the rural areas is customers take our wireless service because they don’t have fiber or a really good Broadband provider. But for TV, if you want anything besides the regular off air channels you have to go to DISH or DIRECT, which gets extremely expensive. So we’re going to offer a better product for less cost through our company. No worries about who to call for repairs, and the streaming service will work on Smart TVs, Amazon Firestick, or other devices, just like Netflix.” Telecommunications is now considered an essential service like water, sewer, gas, and electric. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the company has seen an increase in customers. In fact, they hooked up more customers in April than in any previous month. Existing customers want to upgrade their packages from 25 Mbps, Trusted Solutions For Your Network kgpco.com Advanced Supply Chain • Distribution • Wireless Inside Plant • Outside Plant Solution Innovation Center (Cloud) • Software and Consulting Services 1(800) 328-5142 | contactkgp@kgpco.com