1. RidgeviewTel LLC Scaling the Rural Service Provider: Systems and Automation Enable Service & Growth Vince Jordan President/CEO RidgeviewTel

2. Rural Service Provider Challenges Much of the time the only way to provide service to rural customers and communities is through Fixed Wireless Infrastructure An effective wireless rural broadband service must meet rural market need Initial CPE costs Monthly Service Fees –Affordable for the end user –Cover large geographical areas at low cost –Reasonably priced backhaul at aggregation points –Quality of Service equal to metropolitan areas Network and Service must be stable to keep customer service call volume manageable

3. Rural Service Provider Challenges Customer acquisition (how do I get my customers into the systems?) Scheduling (where are my people tomorrow?) Network Growth and Management (what is my equipment doing?) Billing (oh yeah…it would be nice to get paid for all of this…) Customer Service (can I get my customers to take care of themselves?) Leveraging Access (how do I get the most utilization from my backhaul?) How do I achieve service area penetration?

4. Rural Service Provider Challenges Customer Acquisition Current Method - Customers call my office or mobile phone and I scratch something down on paper or type into a Word doc or FileMaker doc (this is not automation). Systems Based Method - Get customer to your website and have them work for you! Make sure website is integrated with your OSS!

5. Rural Service Provider Challenges Scheduling Current Method - Outlook? Calendar Software? Day Timer? Sticky Notes? Systems Based Method - Integrated OSS and Calendar * Have Customer record drive your Calendar

6. Rural Service Provider Challenges Network Growth and Management Current Method - Hang lots of radios and pray they work as the manufacturer stated they would, telnet into radios when you have to, buy expensive by the seat or by the radio management software, drive, drive, drive…. Systems Based Method - Integrated OSS & NMS provide complete Network View

7. Rural Service Provider Challenges Billing Current Method - Generate paper bills, lick (papercuts), stamp, mail and hope they send a check back. Enter received check in Quickbooks and deposit in bank account. Systems Based Method - Automated Electronic Billing

8. Rural Service Provider Challenges Customer Service Current Method - Customer calls office or mobile, asks lots of question, you jump between Xcel, QuickBooks, Word, Sticky Notes… Systems Based Method - Integrated OSS & Website with Customer Self-Care

9. Rural Service Provider Challenges Leveraging Access Current Method - Pay lots of money for expensive tower space and expensive backhaul in anticipation of HUGE customer growth to cover these costs. If successful, add more expensive backhaul and tower space, if not, go broke and open a Pizza Hut. (Actually, might not be a bad idea all things considered). Systems Based Method - Utilize backend systems that provide customer controlled bandwidth management, compression, caching, persistence, DNS caching, bandwidth utilization monitoring, load balancing, and what ever other technologies that can be applied to squeeze every last drop out of the backhaul!

10. Rural Service Provider Challenges Achieving Service Area Penetration Provide the Best service at the Best price Make it a “no-brainer” for a prospect to sign up for service Go for VOLUME - not recovering all of your costs up-front on each customer. The ONLY way to do THIS is follow these three simple steps: AUTOMATE

11. RidgeviewTel LLC Vince Jordan - President/CEO vjordan@ridgeviewtel.com http://www.ridgeviewtel.com vjordan@ridgeviewtel.com http://www.ridgeviewtel.com