Locations

Winter Tour Stops include:

  • ITS Fiber | Stuart Florida (near Fort Lauderdale) | February 11th
  • To be announced | TBA | Early March 2015 – exact date TBD

Stay tuned for information about the venue, hotel accommodations, etc.

Support the Tour – Information

Sponsor this site with a banner and a link.
Sponsor this site with a banner and a link.

This website will be the central portal for the 2015 ViodiTV Heartland Tour – Beyond Fiber.  Be part of the excitement and help educate operators as by being a sponsor of this tour.

Click here for more information on sponsorship opportunities or to learn more about hosting an event.

Or feel free to call at 408 676 6496 for an old-fashioned conversation about this unique opportunity.

About

Featured

Example of an audience from a Viodi-produced event.
Audience at a Viodi-produced event

The 2015 ViodiTV Heartland Tour – Beyond Fiber is about providing the latest insight as to how broadband operators can use their fiber networks and other assets to create an offering that cannot be matched by other providers. This will be a multi-city tour hosted at operating companies, where many of the ideas are already being turned into action. This will be a great opportunity for operators to meet broadband ecosystem partners and to exchange ideas for maintaining a competitive edge. Each tour stop will have an agenda built around the strengths of a given operator.

Winter Tour Stops include:

  • ITS Fiber | Stuart Florida (near Fort Lauderdale) | February 11th
  • Gila River Communications | Near Phoenix | Early March 2015 – exact TBD

Click here to pre-register.

Operators – Interested in hosting a tour stop? Contact Ken Pyle at 408 676 6496 or contact us using the form below.

Possible Agenda Items

Note, these are possible agenda items for the February and March tour dates of the 2015 ViodiTV Heartland Tour – Beyond Fiber. It is not expected that all of these will be covered at either event. If you want to weigh-in on what items you would like to see or have ideas for other agenda items, please let us know by completing the pre-registration/survey found at this link.


Tuesday Afternoon Tour

Visit the “Mount Everest” of south Florida with a special tour of ITS Fiber. Located in the middle of the Sunshine State, see first-hand how ITS Fiber leverage its assets to build a world-class data center and fiber network through the combination of existing new assets. Through its relatively sheltered location in Indiantown, FL and its extensive underground fiber network, ITS Fiber is able to provide unmatched reliability and bandwidth to businesses from the interior to the coastline.
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Beyond Fiber – Building A Business Model That Your Competition Can’t Match

A robust fiber optic infrastructure can be the proverbial “camel’s nose under the tent” for providing high-value business services. The fiber network serves as a gateway to an operator-owned data center; a data center optimized for a given market. The combination of these two elements creates an opportunity for exponential revenue growth of relatively high-margin services for the operator that provide increased value, reliability and cost savings for the end-customer.

Jeff Leslie, CEO of ITS Fiber, will discuss his how company has built a “whole-product” centered around their robust, underground fiber network, their unique geographical position and a culture that is Noticeably Better. He talk about their approach that leads with fiber to generate new opportunities and to grow revenue by solving problems throughout his customers’ business. [Note, this session will be available only in the event hosted by ITS Fiber].

Speaker: Jeff Leslie, CEO, ITS Fiber
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Infrastructure Challenges – Creating an Extraordinary Network

Building a Fiber Network That Meets the Demands of Business

Business services are a growth area for operators. For instance, Infonetics predicts one slice of the business services market, Cloud PBX and unified communications services, could have a market size of $12B by 2018. The operator with a fiber network will be at an advantage over those with copper-based connections.

This session will look at different ways operators are bringing fiber to the business; how they are designing and building the network, the type of network they are deploying and the business case. It will also look at the types of features that will help an operator differentiate their fiber network from the traditional carrier, as well as different use cases (e.g. multi-tenant, wireless backhaul, corporate campus, etc.)
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Extending Your Network into the Business

With a robust and reliable fiber network, the operators’ challenges move from the last and mid-mile to the last 100 feet. The in-building network becomes an opportunity for the operator to garner additional revenue as well as create a closer working relationship with the end customer; essentially becoming or augmenting an operator’s IT staff.

This session will examine how operators are creating in-building wired and wireless networks that meet the need of various types of business customers; how operators can differentiate from the competition; and what are the revenue and margin opportunities.
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Infrastructure Challenges – The Differentiated Data Center

Creating a Data Center Culture

A data center is more than software, servers and bandwidth. To be successful, the data center has to be built around a philosophy and culture of quality, security and privacy, as organizations are often entrusting their corporate jewels within the confines of the data center’s virtual and physical walls.

Panelists will discuss what is needed in terms of compliance with laws for meeting various types of storage requirements, as well as customer or industry-driven requirements, such as SOC-2, Type 2 compliance.
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From Central Office to Data Center

The central office is the original data center in the sense that had many of the attributes for what a data center requires, such as reliable power, physical security and bandwidth. With the collapse of the switch from racks of equipment to virtually nothing, much of the space in many central offices sits idle.

This panel will look at what needs to be done to convert a C.O. to data center and look at things such as:

  • How to differentiate from the data center behemoths
  • The typical upgrade costs and typical revenue per square foot that could be expected.
  • Typical physical modifications necessary to meet data center demands
  • Scaling beyond the central office – what happens when you have success.

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Pathways to Virtualizing the Data Center

SDN (Software Defined Networking), NFV (Network Function Virtualization) and VM (Virtual Machines) provide the potential to use lower cost, white label servers, while dynamically applying resources when and where needed. This session will provide a high-level view of where the industry stands with this still developing technology, how operators can benefit from it and resources to help.
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Luncheon – Securing Your Business in the Wild West Days of the Online Frontier

[Note: This session will be open to local customers and host-invited guests]

The Internet revolutionized the business world by increasing efficiency and improving business’ ability to serve customers. With higher speeds and always-on connections, the so-called cloud is further increasing efficiencies by allowing businesses to shed non-core activities, such as software and server maintenance.

And the cloud is begetting the Internet of Things, which offers new ways to manage the physical things and improve energy efficiency, improve security and better manage things such as inventory.

But there is a dark side of the cloud; a place where there are pirates and bots and phishers of personal data. This is a place where businesses can be destroyed and reputations ruined. Security, privacy and reliability and trust should be the priorities for any business with any portion of its business relying on the cloud.

This session will provide a checklist of useful tips for any business with some or all of its operations in the cloud.
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Services – Understanding Your Customers’ Needs before They Do

Knowing where to invest in infrastructure has always been a challenge. With tight budgets and competitive markets, it is more important than ever to identify the highest returns on investment.

This session will explore the relatively new bandwidth and software tools available to network planners and marketing staff and how they are able to work together to target network investment, as well as shape service packages that optimize the value for their business customers and provide for stickier relationships.
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Services – Apps to Help Your Customers Be More Productive

Hosted or cloud voice is a natural for entities that have had switching as a core part of their business. It is a great value for the customer, as it removes the hardware and eliminates the associated maintenance. Hosted voice is just the start and there are a host of applications that can be built on this offering.

This session will examine opportunities service providers have for customizing applications to better meet their customers needs. It will also look at the process for how operators have customized applications for specific businesses and the type of revenue and return from this sort of offering.
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Services – Disaster Recovery – A Natural for Companies Built on Reliability

With multiple forms of power back-up, buildings that are physically secure, central offices and the telephone company mentality are built around disaster recovery. Is there a market for extending these built-in strengths to other local businesses? How does DR tie into off-site backup, hosting and other services a business might have with a local provider? What is the value in doing so and what are customers willing to pay for this new form insurance?  This session will address these questions associated with this emerging business opportunity.
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Services – Opportunities to Virtualize the PC & More

With the rise of tablets, smart phones and networked computers, it is easy to overlook the staying power of the PC and associated software in businesses. Maintenance of such an infrastructure is a huge pain point for businesses. Virtualizing the PC to centralize software into robust and redundant servers is possible, but not too practical when the data center is a thousand miles away. The addition of a fiber network with its inherent low latency, speed and reliability, is the missing link.

This session will look at the viability of a virtualized PC offering, what is required to overcome customer concerns and the business model for such a service. It will also look at how this complements the demand for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).
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Beyond Fiber – Marketing Business Services

Despite what Kevin Costner’s character said, build it and the customers won’t always come. Often, operators moving into business services are the “new kids on the block.” People won’t necessarily recognize their name and, if they do, they might associate it with a 100-year-old company, instead of an advanced managed services provider.

This panel will give examples of how operators have built a brand that reflects their new service offerings. It will also provide ideas for how to market and get the word out about these new services. It will also look at the small things an operator can do, beyond the core product, to differentiate from their larger competitors.
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Beyond Fiber – Closing Roundtable

After a long day of sessions, the closing roundtable will be an opportunity for participants to share ideas. With a series of starter questions from a facilitator, this is sure to be a lively session.
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