Interesting. Are their ads not compelling compared to T-Mobile, Verizon and Starlink?
-----Original Message----- From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2025 1:47 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Strategic Management, LLC I get Watch's advertising to my house. I was hoping for more smaller people to win our area so I could get some more middle-mile and upstream work. -- Mike Hammett ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2025 11:16:32 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Strategic Management, LLC Yeah, it's strange, Hinckley area south of you went to Comcast where the cable company in town is Mediacom, yet Comcast is not building south from DeKalb to your house. T-Mobile owns Metronet and claims to be expanding their fiber footprint. But I assume if they bid on BEAD locations they would do so under their own name. If you look at the Illinois prelim awards map, there are still giant circles in rural LaSalle and Kendall counties where no locations were eligible, so those folks aren't getting government fiber. I'm guessing it's because W.A.T.C.H. claims 400 Mbps with their Tarana stuff they built with CAF money. I only know of one WATCH customer and I think he approached them after he learned about them from his community college IT job. I have yet to see any advertising by them, I wonder if they are really connecting customers, or just making locations ineligible for BEAD fiber. Maybe CAF paid enough to build the infrastructure they don't need actual revenue. Maybe they're waiting on Tarana G2, because G1 wasn't expensive enough. Maybe they bit off more than they can chew. Public comments are due by Monday. The shortened comment periods are a joke. We don't need no stinkin' comments. -----Original Message----- From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2025 10:32 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Strategic Management, LLC They'll be building to my house, so I guess at some point, we'll see. -- Mike Hammett ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2025 10:04:09 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Strategic Management, LLC I saw that also. Has pretty much a placeholder website from last year saying it is a consortium. Searching the Illinois Secy of State business registration database, the only active entity with that name was registered in 2024 with an address of 120 W. LANE STREET, EQUALITY,IL. A search on that address comes up with Shawnee Communications. Equality is in middle of nowhere southern Illinois, about 50 miles east of Carbondale. Looking at the locations they were awarded, and given that the state broadband office awarded the most difficult locations to Amazon Kuiper, my guess would be these involve existing fiber ISPs building to areas adjacent to their current footprint. Otherwise it makes no sense to me they would bid on these dispersed locations and bid low enough to fall below the threshold for LEO. Maybe some grant writing firm rounded up a bunch of small ISPs and offered to create a consortium to bid for BEAD money. Focusing on areas they could expand into for cheap if they got some govt money. Just my guess, probably wrong. From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jason McKemie Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2025 9:05 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: [AFMUG] Strategic Management, LLC Anyone heard of these guys? They got a pretty big award for BEAD funding for fiber here in Illinois. -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
