Business View Magazine | July 2020

75 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2020 NEW L I SBON TELEPHONE COMPANY to 50 or 100 or 500. People who are locked down are either working from home, or doing education from home, or watching movies and gaming – all of which take a robust internet connection. But there are challenges. As Greene reports, “Depending on what type of equipment we’re using and who the manufacturer is, we have seen a shortage of some items. This was happening even before Covid-19 because a lot of the equipment manufacturers had shifted their operations to China. And with the Chinese embargo that was put in place, we were already starting to see a slowdown in receiving equipment because a key component was manufactured in China. The coronavirus made things even worse. However, fiber cable hasn’t been a problem and neither has any of our infrastructure from that standpoint. We’ve not missed a beat when it comes to fiber buildouts, and we’ll probably have a record year in 2020 as far as our construction spend.” When Greene issues his quarterly report, he highlights the new customers that have signed up and gives them a warm welcome. As well as giving a shout out to valuable partners such as town and county governments. In several cases, the company provides Broadband services for a town, in exchange for being allowed to use their water tower or other town-owned towers to provide wireless internet service to rural parts of that county. A key vendor since 2015, ElectriCom out of Paoli, Indiana is a major player in the Broadband infrastructure construction business in several states and has enabled NLBC to stay ahead of the curve on all its construction projects. Greene