The leading telecommunications industry advocacy group, INCOMPAS recently named its Board of Directors for 2023. I am delighted to be re-appointed to the INCOMPAS Executive Committee of its Board of Directors for another year. Congratulations to my fellow Executive Committee appointees: Michael B. Galvin (chair) of Granite Telecommunications, LLC; Kurt Van Wagenen of FirstLight Fiber; Brian Worthen of Mammoth Networks; Gillian Leytham of Zayo; Ronald Mudry of Uniti Group, Inc.; and Gary Watts of Fuse.Cloud.
I am proud of what we accomplished last year with several key wins, including Multi-Tenant Environment (MTE) that ended monopoly practices that blocked broadband competition in apartment complexes, condominiums and office buildings. As a result, open competition among telecommunications companies should provide more choices, more responsive service and lower prices for consumers and businesses.
Competition is key to delivering fast and affordable broadband to all Americans and this year INCOMPAS continues its core mission to advocate for competitive options to businesses and consumers across the country, bridging the digital divide, especially in rural and remote areas. It’s exciting to be part of this important endeavor and as chair of the INCOMPAS Policy Committee, I am looking forward to another busy year.
Another aspect of improving and updating our infrastructure is the retirement of copper wiring nationwide. There are over 884 million standard legacy POTS lines globally, 36 million in the US, mostly supported by copper wiring. POTS replacement, or POTS Transformation as we call it, eliminates the need for hard wiring while improving the resiliency of connectivity and significantly lowering the cost of service. JCPenney has recently installed it in all 600+ stores in the US. For over 25 years MetTel has been providing competitive communication alternatives to its business and government customers, and our POTS Transformation solution is proof of our commitment to continue to service our clients with competitive, leading-edge solutions.
