Marybeth Hamilton – 00:00:05
Welcome back to another episode of Bluewave Next Move, where we talk with technology leaders from great companies to understand how we move beyond the buzzwords and understand what’s changing, what IT business leaders may be overlooking, and what they should be thinking about.
I’m Marybeth Hamilton, CMO of Bluewave, where we help businesses make clearer, more confident technology decisions. Today, I am joined by Dave Hanrun from Granite Telecommunications. We’re going to talk about two important technology topics that sometimes get overlooked but are incredibly important to business resiliency, so they deserve the spotlight.
First, we’re going to talk about how to build greater resiliency into wireless and IoT environments. And second, what companies need to know about the upcoming and continued retirement of traditional copper networks and POTS lines.
Dave, welcome to Next Move.
Dave Hanron – 00:01:01
Thank you, Marybeth. I’m happy to be here.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:01:04
Thank you for joining us. And we’re gonna move into our first topic.
When people hear the word mobility, they may still think primarily about company-issued cell phones. But today, businesses are connecting employees, vehicles, equipment, sensors, remote locations, and so much more.
So, my question for you is: how are businesses using mobility today in ways that go beyond simply employee cell phones?
The Evolution of Business Mobility
Dave Hanron – 00:01:30
That’s a great question.
You know, the landscape has really changed over the last, I’d say, probably five years or so.
Prior to that, the technology was always driven by land-based connectivity.
And the industry has done a really good job with the land-based connectivity, where they were able to go out and explain to IoT leaders the value of redundancy built into the network so you didn’t have single points of failure and things.
What’s happened in today’s market, fast-forwarding to today, is businesses are really relying more and more and more on mobility applications.
And with that comes the same challenges they faced ten years ago with land-based connectivity.
You try to avoid a single point of failure, but unfortunately, in the United States, the market has always been driven by the cellular providers, the big three providers, right? There’s literally been basically three networks in the United States, and we all know the names of them. I don’t need to go over them.
And all of those networks are good, right? I like to say all the time that each one of those big three networks is great until it’s not.
And where it’s not, is, you know, it can be a combination of a service outage; it could be a dead spot, a dead zone where they don’t have coverage.
The issue becomes: how do the IT leaders deal with their business-critical applications that run over mobility networks when they’ve got a single point of failure, right? That’s really the big question today.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:02:58
Yeah, that is. And we’re gonna dive even more into that on how you address those one item, and you sort of touched on it, right: the growth of IoT, and businesses and everyone wants more visibility into all of these connected environments.
So, can you share a little bit more about, like, the practical use cases, sort of setting the stage for how interconnected these are within an organization? And then we’re going to flip into: how do you ensure the resiliency of these environments?
IoT Growth and Connectivity Challenges
Dave Hanron – 00:03:29
Sure, I think when you open up this conversation, when you initially said mobility, people think of cell phones when you say mobility, right? That’s traditionally what people have thought of.
And in actuality, in today’s market, only a third of the mobility usage is actually cell phones. So, 67% of usage today is driven by IoT devices. And that can be anything from self-driving cars to sensors that go on fleet vehicles so that they can either maintain certain items there or they can monitor people.
There’s just too, you know, if you have remote, let’s say, energy sites or remote towers or something, they put IoT sensors in there so that they can monitor them.
All of these things are problems where, if I have a single network and it fails, I’ve gotta dispatch somebody out there. And it’s very expensive for an IT department to roll a truck to go out and see what happened to the sensor at the tower that’s seventy-five miles away up in the mountains.
So, what we tried to do is try to come up with a solution for that.
It took a little while to develop. As I said at the start of this conversation, the United States has lagged a little bit behind. Over in Europe, multiple cellular networks have been something that Apple and Samsung both, or I should say Android, developed. So, it’s just now getting to the United States. So that’s a big plus. But the important thing is: how do we get that out to the IT leaders?
Because, you know, it’s not their job to know what the technology is; it’s our job to kind of tell them what’s available, how it helps, and how it solves business problems.
So, it’s become more of a business solution, you know, discussion than a price discussion.
You know, land-based stuff has really become price sensitive. It’s really a commodity. Mobility hasn’t gotten there yet. It’s still a business solution.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:05:17
Yeah, and to that business solution point, you shared a really interesting example when we were talking earlier about the use of sensors on delivery trucks, and whether the hazards are turned on and the impact that can have.
So, I thought if you could sort of share that story again, because I thought it puts that point on that connection of how it impacts business and why it is an important part of what an IT leader needs to be thinking about.
IoT Use Case: Fleet Safety Sensors
Dave Hanron – 00:05:44
Sure, I work with a lot of salespeople that actually sell sensors, you know, their business is IoT stuff. And one of the unique ones that came to me recently was a gentleman that had contracts with multiple companies. We all know them; they all have delivery trucks that go out to your house.
And one of the needs that they had was that their insurance company requires them, when they stop at a house, to turn the flashes on, right? It’s a safety thing. And it gives them basically a discount off their insurance thing.
But how do you really, the business problem was: how do you get the driver to make sure he remembers to put the lights on every time he stops, right?
So, what they did was they came up with a sensor; somebody built a sensor that gets installed in the vehicle, and it actually will turn on the flashers. And then it goes a step further: after it turns the flashers on, it then reports back to the data center and says, truck, you know, one hundred four is at 100 Main Street at 2:54 in the afternoon, and the flashes are on.
And then, you know, when he gets back in the truck, shuts them off. When he goes up to the next stop, he’s at, you know, truck one hundred two is at 105 Main Street at 2:55, and the flashes are on.
So, it was a really smart application, I thought.
And the thing is, there’s so many of these, you know, some of these companies have thousands of vehicles, and that’s just one sensor that’s in there. Oftentimes they have, you know, I think the average is fifteen sensors per vehicle in a fleet.
So, you multiply that times one thousand; now you’ve got fifteen thousand IoT sensors out there. And that becomes a challenge for the IT department.
How do I manage this, right?
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:07:21
Yeah, that’s incredible. And the importance of the sensors is they need to be sending the data back. They need to be connected. So that all ties back into how you enable that resiliency.
Right. Before we get there, one other example that you had provided that I think is another sort of different industry, but an incredibly important use case was around healthcare and examples of visiting nurses and the importance of their tablets and mobility devices to be able to connect and be connected.
So, if you could share a little bit more about how you see that play out with customers and what reliable mobility looks like for those types of organizations.
Mobility Impact in Healthcare Services
Dave Hanron – 00:07:59
Sure. I think that’s a very important application because anybody that’s ever had any type of rehab where you’ve got somebody coming into your house, you can always notice that the visiting nurse or the rehab person comes in with a tablet and they have all of your information, you know, what your injury was or what the treatment plan is, all of that stuff is on their tablet. And then when they get finished, you know, they’ve got to enter, “Here’s what I did here. I did all these exercises.” “We were there for three hours, blah, blah, blah.”
The problem is, as I said at the start, if you’re in a dead zone, it’s difficult because now they’ve got to go out, get back in the car, go find someplace where they have service. But meanwhile, their appointments are, they’re stacked one after another, so they don’t have a lot of free time.
And they don’t wanna ask you, “Hey, Mr. Rehab, can I get on your home internet?” People typically don’t like to allow that because of the security risk, right? I had another example. I just had some HVAC work done at my house.
They put in a mini-split. And when they were done, they came in with a tablet. They were going through the warranty, they were going through all this stuff, and they got to the important piece where I had to pay them.
Meanwhile, they have no connectivity.
They’re sitting there going, oh my goodness, I can’t get on my tablet, blah, blah, blah. Sorry about this, sir, blah, blah, blah. So, I’m like, ugh, I said, don’t worry about it. Just call me when you’ve got it.
I’ll give you my credit card. We’ll pay for it, right? But it’s embarrassing to the company if the tablet doesn’t work. You know, you want that to be a seamless progression, right?
So, you know, we can get into how we’ve solved that problem later, but those are a couple of issues where you’ve got to have connectivity, and you see the impact that it has to the business when it doesn’t work.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:09:34
Yeah, and I think this is a good time. So, we would say most IT leaders would not intentionally build this type of single point of failure into their network, particularly their core network.
However, we see it within the mobility networks. So how can organizations solve this, right? Because they’ve done all these incredible innovations and investments to enable the workers to be able to have those devices to improve the customer experience, yet, they unintentionally have these single points of failure.
Dave Hanron – 00:10:09
Well, there’s two ways to do it.
If you think back to the way the United States wireless is designed, as I said, it’s the big three, right? We all know who they are.
Each one of them sells their network as being the best.
Okay, so you buy one of the networks; the IT guy goes, gets pitched by one of the big three, they buy the service, and this is gonna work great.
I got off the other company; I kept, had too many dead spots. Well, really, all you did is you changed your dead spots.
You may not have a dead spot where you previously did, but you’re gonna have other dead spots where it used to work. So how do you solve that problem?
There’s been two types of technology. I mentioned a minute ago that we’ve lagged behind Europe, really, in the cellular market. Apple and Samsung, or Android- I keep saying Samsung; it’s actually Android.
They have developed a thing, a technology where, opposite of the United States, where basically the carrier picks the network, what they’ve done in Europe is they’ve allowed the device to pick the network.
So, the device actually has the ability, and these are the same phones and tablets and things that we buy here in the United States.
It has the technology in there where it can select its own network. And an example of that is if you’ve ever experienced an outage on your cellular phone, you still see that little thing on the top where it says SOS, and it allows you to make a nine eleven call. That’s actually the device built in there for emergencies, where it can select the network that’s actually working.
So, it might pop off of, you know, big carrier number one, but yet big carrier number two will work for 911. So, it allows you to use that other network. You can’t make calls, you can’t send texts, but you can make emergency calls. So that technology exists.
I think it’s anything just on the cell phone, anything past the iPhone 14, or it might be iPhone 11. I forget the exact model. And then Samsung, I believe, is anything newer than the S17 or 18, I think, has that capability built in there. So that takes care of the cell phone.
Multi-Carrier SIM and Signal Strength
Dave Hanron – 00:12:09
When you get into data devices like tablets and things like that, there’s technologies out there now where you can buy actually a multi-carrier SIM.
So, some of the SIMs will go up to about six hundred different carriers worldwide. And what it’ll do is it’ll roll from, you know, it’ll basically pick up the signals. Wherever you are, it’ll pick up the next signal. If one loses, it goes to the next one.
You gotta be careful with those, though, because some of them, some of the companies will sell it based on least-cost routing, which the IT leaders should know what that is. Basically, it goes from one network to the next based on price.
Other carriers will actually sell it where it goes signal strength. So, it goes from the best signal to the next best signal to the next best signal without any consideration of price. So those are the two techniques that have been used to solve the problems.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:12:57
No, that’s great.
So, I think that the idea of going to the next best network, then to the next best network appears to be the logical one, as it increases reliability.
Dave Hanron – 00:13:06
Right.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:13:10
Clearly, organizations may not know to ask that question. So, we’re saying ask that question. Are there other ones that they may not be asking that they should be, as they’re thinking about adding this resiliency?
Dave Hanron – 00:13:22
I think the way it switches carriers is probably the most important, right?
Because as I said earlier, it’s not a price discussion because when you get into price, okay, you might save a couple pennies a carrier to carrier to carrier, but the issue is what’s the cost if one of your networks goes down and your employees can’t use the devices?
That’s the real cost, right? So that’s a business decision.
So, I personally recommend going with a carrier that’s gonna go best signal, the best signal, the best signal. And that’s probably the most important question I can ask. You know, beyond the point, you have multi carrier SIM?
Are you able to provide redundancy on my cell phones? That’s another thing.
But, you know, making sure that the business critical systems work, I think is really the number one and most important. And anything else from there is just kinda, you know, frosting on the cake, right? It’s all the same.
Marybeth Hamilton – 00:14:18
Now for this next question, you’ve answered it a number of different ways, but I want to put a point on it. So, a company might ask why a current carrier simply can’t provide access to another carrier’s network when coverage is poor? And why haven’t they figured this out? So, can you talk about why solving this problem usually requires an aggregation provider rather than working directly with one carrier?
Dave Hanron – 00:14:43
Great question. I mean, it’s kind of a simple answer.
The big three carriers that have, you know, the most recognition in the industry, they’re not gonna let you use somebody, they’re not gonna let you use their competitors.
So, if you lose service on, let’s just say, AT&T, they’re not gonna let you use Verizon or T-Mobile. They’re gonna say, “Hey, if you lose network, we guarantee it.” There’s a new commercial out. We guarantee the service.
We’ll give you credit if you lose service. Well, okay, that’s great. I get twenty-five bucks, but what about my business-critical systems that didn’t work for half a day? How much money did my company lose?
Right? They have the ability; they just don’t do it.
So, you can’t switch network to network on them.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:15:24
So, let’s say we have clearly demonstrated the importance of this. What does it look like if I wanted to move to a multi-SIM type of scenario in order to add resiliency? What does that change look like for my organization?
Dave Hanron – 00:15:39
It’s typically, I mean, it’s typically, depending on the company, it can be done as, once you get the information and there’s reports you pull that have all your device information on it and contract information, once you have all that, and this gets loaded in the system, the actual switch takes maybe fifteen minutes because it’s all done by eSIM these days.
There’s no more physical SIMs. You don’t have to push the- remember you used to have a PIN, push it in to get this little, teeny SIM card out? That’s gone now. It’s all just done electronically on the phone. So, the actual switch takes about probably fifteen minutes.
The background work to get the account set up and all that stuff’s gonna vary by company.
You know, we do it in three or four days once everything’s signed. So probably a week to, you know, outside maybe two weeks to get it all done.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:16:27
Sounds like a relatively easy solve to adding considerable resiliency to your IT.
Dave Hanron – 00:16:34
It is. It is. And it solves major business problem for the IT directors.
Retiring Copper Networks and POTS Lines
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:16:41
So, let’s switch gears to another topic that is getting more and more attention, but definitely want to shine the spotlight on it while I have you here. And that’s talking about POTS lines and the retirement of copper networks. Businesses have been hearing about the retirement of copper networks for years, but have continued operating without seeing an immediate impact, which has delayed action in some cases.
At Bluewave, we are seeing more and more clients understand the importance of it and take action. So, want to have this conversation so we can continue to help educate and understand help leaders understand what’s changing and why they need to be paying closer attention.
So that’s my question for you. What’s changing now, and why do IT leaders need to be paying attention to this?
Dave Hanron – 00:17:30
So, it’s a topic close to my heart. My company managed a lot of lines in the day. We were the largest aggregator of POTS lines, had well over a million of them under contract at one point.
But what’s really happened- I mean, POTS lines were the network for the incumbent Bell companies for over a hundred years. There’s copper running all underground. Everywhere you look, there’s copper running around. The problem that caused, what’s happened is that old copper is deteriorating rapidly.
Know, today when you think fiber or you think like electrical wire, it’s got all this real nice rubber coating on it. Back in the day, copper was wrapped in horsehair cabling covers, right?
And that deteriorated once it got wet. When you go by a manhole, for instance, all you see is that metal cover on the street. If you’re in a city, those can go down four, maybe three to four levels.
And when you get down into the second one, it’s soaking wet. There’s typically standing water down there. Sometimes it’s completely flooded, and the water basically deteriorates all the copper. So that’s what’s happened.
And it just got to a point where it was too expensive for the Bell companies to maintain it. So, you know, they filed the orders years ago with the FCC, Hey, we don’t wanna maintain this anymore; we wanna go to fiber. FCC said, “No, you can’t do it because too many people have it, they rely on it.”
So, they started pricing everybody out of it, right? They just said, “Okay, you’re not gonna leave willingly. We’re gonna price it to a point where you’re gonna get upset about paying a thousand dollars for a POTS line.” And then people start leaving.
VoIP Alternatives and Analog Conversion
Dave Hanron – 00:19:04
They go, my God, what’s this? Right? So really what’s happened is people have come up with alternatives to run it over the new technology, which is VoIP, right? Typically, you know, voice over internet protocol.
And with that, they had to create an edge device of some sort that would convert voice, like we’re talking today, into VoIP and get it out to the public network.
And then on top of that, you had to there were all of these legal and fire requirements that you had to meet because a lot of people, you know, obviously, they were used on fire alarms, they were used on burglar alarms, they’re used on elevator phones, they’re at poolside, you know, they have the emergency phones there.
This was all stuff that was business-critical to companies, and if you didn’t have it, you couldn’t occupy the building. So, people had to come up with a solution that met all those requirements.
There’s various solutions out there, but basically what it is, it’s a device that converts it from analog to digital.
Most of them send it out to the cloud.
So, they switch in the cloud, and then they get it onto the PSTN network, and it just flows as normal, right?
We have a box that actually does it on-site, where it does all the switching requirements on-site. All of these devices have battery backup, typically 24-hour standby, you know, eight-hour talk time, relatively standard.
So, people are finally getting to the point where you have to do it because AT&T is actually decommissioning now. They’re actually shutting down the central offices in areas, and they’re not even giving you basically two weeks’ notice.
And typically not enough time to get the replacement in there. So, it’s something the IT leaders really need to focus on if they haven’t done it already.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:20:52
No, I think that’s- you hit on two points, obviously: notification that you have to do it, and then also the shock when the price increases considerably and unexpectedly are two catalysts.
The other item that you touched on that I think is important about a point on is what this is powering in terms of elevators, alarms, building access, and emergency systems. In some cases, those are managed by properties or facilities managers, and IT leaders may not be thinking about them; however, they should.
And so, you know, putting a point on beyond the impacts that it can have on the organization, can you talk a little bit more about why IT leaders need to be proactive in putting this into their IT roadmap and planning for it today?
Dave Hanron – 00:21:38
Well, it’s as you said, right? The IT leaders probably aren’t worried about parts lines. They’ve got other things on their plate, but the facility guys, they’re the ones that are worried about it because if you get somebody stuck in an elevator and the phone doesn’t work, gonna be on the facility, right? Somebody’s gonna come down to that facility guy.
The other problem is if a building inspector goes in there and they get inspected every so often, right? If you don’t have it working, then they’re gonna shut down your building until you fix it.
So, it is something that it definitely weighs on the facility guys more than the IT guys. And a lot of the IT guys don’t even see the accounting bills, right? The accountants just get it, and they pay it.
I mean, I’ve seen lines, honestly, I’ve seen parts lines up to fifteen hundred dollars per line right now.
So, it’s crazy expensive to keep them on top of it. So, while it might not be a focus of theirs, it should be something that they put on their roadmap to, you know, ask a couple questions about, you know, talk to your accounting department. “Hey, you getting, have you seen, like, drastic increases in the POTS lines?”
Talk to the facility guys. You know, are you having problems with this? How many of these, how many alarm panels do we have? You know, how many elevator lines do we need? All of that stuff. That’s definitely something that should take place internally, and it should be proactive rather than reactive.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:22:51
Absolutely. And what you touched on there in terms of sort of hits on the point that often there isn’t a reliable inventory for all of the devices connected. So, what’s the first step that an organization can take to understand the exposure to this?
Auditing and Inventorying Telecom Assets
Dave Hanron – 00:23:07
So, the easiest way to do it is you go to your accounting department because they have a list of what they’re paying.
They would have all the bills, or, you know, if a lot of the bigger companies will have an expense management company that can pull it. So, if you can get those reports, basically you get the report, you send it into one of the carriers, and the carriers will give you a price quote on it.
And then, at that point, typically the first step- I know at least in my company- the way we do it is the first step is we go out and we do a survey of the site.
So, we’ll go out there, look, get into the telecom room, find out, you know, do you have space for us to put our devices in? And then you start looking and doing an inventory of the lines. You’re not gonna tag and locate them because it’s expensive.
But typically, what we’ll do is as we get going, you find there’s a lot of lines that aren’t even connected to anything.
Like, I don’t know if you know it, but you know, on the sixty-six block, there’s two different sides: inside the building on one side, outside, you know, going back out to the network on the other side. A lot of them don’t even have breed clips on them anymore that connect.
So, they’re just paying for lines they’re not even using. And we find that a lot- probably 20% of lines that we find that we look at- we disconnect; we don’t even convert them because they’re not being used.
And that happens every year; it’s happened over the years. I mean, think about it. If you’ve been in business for fifty years, you’ve had probably ten different people ordering lines at least, and nobody knows where they are or what they’re for, you know, and a lot of them are just spider nests when you go in there.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:24:32
Yeah, and I think this is, you touched on it. And it’s a great lead into a little plug for Bluewave in terms of how we support our clients through a rapid assessment.
And it’s exactly that we take their invoices, we do an inventory, and we’re able to identify so many of those things.
And then we work with a company like Granite to be able to solve that problem for our clients to determine what is the better way, likely at least to cost savings, but it also leads to resiliency within the environment and ultimately, business outcomes that make everyone look good.
Strategic Next Moves for IT Leaders
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:25:04
So now we are moving into our final closing three questions.
The first one, since the topic and theme of this episode is around next move, from your perspective, for an IT leader that’s watching this, what is the one next move you encourage them to make?
Dave Hanron – 00:25:24
I would say the next most important move for them to make would be to ask a couple of questions regarding the POTS lines, because that is an issue that they need to address.
If they don’t address it, they’re not gonna like the outcome because it’s just gonna get lines shut off, and then their phone’s gonna be ringing off the hook from the internal people. But it’s a pretty easy process.
Check with the accounting department, ask them if they’re familiar with the POTS lines; if not, can they pull the POTS line invoices, see what the pricing is, because you may be shocked when you see what you’re paying for POTS lines. And then the other factor is you have to replace them.
There is no question about that. That has to be done. So that’s the number one, I would say that’s the number one priority right now. And it’s an easy, it’s really an easy process once it gets started.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:26:09
Perfect. The next one, what should they start doing?
Dave Hanron – 00:26:15
I think once they’ve got the POTS line piece handled, I think the next step would be to find out from someone internally, you know, what are your business-critical applications that are running over your mobility services? And what’s the impact if they don’t work? And then you can sit there and calculate what my business loss is if my guys lose connectivity.
I mean, if you think about it, if you’re an Amazon driver and you lose connectivity on your Waze or your mapping program, you can’t deliver your product.
You know, what’s the cost for somebody to sit idle like that? You can’t process inventory, you can’t process records, you can’t process payments. There are so many ways that impacts you.
So, I would say get a handle on what your business-critical systems are running on mobility, and then calculate out the loss- what the loss would be if they don’t work.
And then that’s gonna be kind of a wake up call too.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:27:30
I like it. And then the last one, what should they stop doing?
Dave Hanron – 00:27:19
Well, I would say stop ordering POTS lines, but you can’t order them anymore because they won’t install them. I think they should stop ordering services on, you know, mobility services on a single carrier.
Or at least if you’re going to order them, at least take a look at an aggregation play as well.
So, you can see, I mean, why would you have one network when you can have six hundred, right? That’s just kind of a good question to ask.
Aggregation came in. If you think back to the landline, it took a long time for the aggregation play to come into importance, but it solved a lot of problems because you were able to get the best service at the best location regardless of carrier. Today’s mobility is the same way. If you use an aggregation play, you can get the best network at the best location regardless of carrier.
So, I would say stop ordering single point of failure services.
Mary Beth Hamilton – 00:28:12
Perfect. I love it. It all comes back to ensuring that your resiliency across your organization; you’re making investments across the infrastructure; you can’t ignore the other parts, from mobility to telecom.
So, Dave, thank you for joining us today for the conversation.
I think you’ve given our viewers a lot of incredibly important advice for them to think about and good stuff to take forward.
So, hope everyone enjoyed it.
Thank you. And that’s a wrap.
