CEO Tim Bryan: “We Have to Build Solutions”

In his speech to the NRTC Annual Meeting this year, CEO Tim Bryan described in a few words what NRTC’s chief aspiration. “We have to build solutions … to offer deeper value-add to our members,” he said in Nashville on Sunday.

That is not the way that NRTC always has operated. At one time, NRTC served more as a reseller. “We were looking for things that other people had and then if we liked it and it was good, then we could aggregate the buying power of all our cooperatives,” Bryan said.

But over the years, NRTC has gained the talent necessary to assess members’ diverse and sometimes unique technology needs, help them design a technology project, build the network and assist in its operation.

For example, NRTC’s expanded in-house capability gives members a powerful technology planning resource. Since late 2021, NRTC has been working with members to develop 10-year technology “roadmaps” to plan smart grid deployments. “We’re close to five dozen technology planning assignments. It’s been a huge success,” Bryan said.

He offered other examples:

• NRTC acquired Telispire (currently NRTC Mobile Solutions), a mobile virtual network operator, in 2009. It offered rural providers a way to offer consumer mobile communications without having to build their own networks. In later years, NRTC acquired Telispire’s largest competitor to build scale and built a back-office system integrator. “Our mobile solutions are in-house. Whatever our members want, we can do it at NRTC Mobile Solutions,” he said. It allows NRTC members to compete with large, national carriers.
• In 2013, NRTC offered basic internet services. That was the year it began acquiring a series of companies to expand its geographic coverage and technology offerings. Today, NRTC Managed Services provides a much wider array of internet, video, cybersecurity, marketing and other services nationwide.
• Satellite internet services once were NRTC’s only broadband offering. “We made a big move when we acquired Pulse in 2017, CrowdFiber and here lately, Axin Global, which is our in-house GIS design capability,” Bryan said. “This combination has given us a huge amount of in-house experience.” Many broadband projects currently in progress started with feasibility studies by in-house NRTC experts. NRTC also has experienced staff who can help members prepare applications for government grants and loans to finance broadband projects.

NRTC’s Smart Grid Solutions still works with partners and resells some key utility devices. But here again, NRTC has in-house expertise that makes a difference. NRTC assisted Itron as it developed its newly announced Fiber Mini Access Point. “We went to a number or our members who had already deployed fiber so we could figure out the best way to do this … to allow members to leverage their fiber networks for smart grid purposes,” Bryan said. The result is a fiber-fed RF mesh device that will support higher-speed utility data transmissions.

“We’ve built in-house expertise to help you,” he told the annual meeting audience. “Whatever it takes for you to evaluate, build and manage a network is what we’re doing at NRTC.”