Pat Riordan

HISTORY: Nsight traces its roots to 1910, when it was known as Pulaski Merchants and Farmers Telephone Co., a local exchange carrier serving a small rural community. Today the company earns 85% of its revenue from its wireless business, Cellcom.

OWNERSHIP: The Riordan family has owned a majority stake since 1923.

EMPLOYEES: 450

ENTERED WIRELESS BUSINESS: 1987

REVENUE GROWTH: “When I joined the company in 1975, revenues were $1 million. This year, we should hit in the area of about $156 million. Most of that growth has come over the last 15 years. We were doing just over $3.5 million 15 years ago.”

WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY USED: “We offer CDMA and fixed wireless over EV-DO. We put in a Wi-Fi router so customers can plug in and use three to four computers on the EV-DO connection in their house. Close to two-thirds of customers have access to EV-DO speeds, and we're expanding it to a lot more of our service area.”

OTHER SPECTRUM: Owns licenses for the entire Upper Peninsula of Michigan and parts of Minnesota that have not yet been turned up.

DIVERSIFICATION: After several acquisitions over the years, the LEC business now has 10,500 customers and operates five exchanges. Nsight also has an Internet business and a competitive LEC business.

COMPETING AGAINST THE MAJORS: “We call over 30% of our customers each year on a proactive basis to say, ‘Based on how you're calling, you'd be better off on a different plan, and we can make it retroactive.' Our churn is 0.8% per year. Verizon is at 1.3%, AT&T is at 1.7% and Sprint is at 2.5%. We're at 50% of the best the national carriers can do.”

PARTNERSHIPS: Cellcom is partly owned by several smaller LECs, but Nsight has operational control throughout Cellcom's service area. Next year, the company plans to offer a single bill for wireless and wireline with one of its partners.

WIRELESS/WIRELINE INTEGRATION: “Being on the same bill is critical, but it's not just a matter of getting on one bill. You also have to make it interactive by, for example, having a voice answering unit that answers fixed and wireless calls. We have the equipment in place; it's just a matter of making it work. If we don't do that, we will lose customers on the fixed side.”

INFRASTRUCTURE INITIATIVES: “There's a few fiber runs we need to make to save money and prepare for the future. We're also looking at femtocells. The goal would be to improve reception and provide a router for computers to move out of the home. We're also looking at enterprise femtocells.

“On the fixed side, we need to increase the power of our routers for IPTV. We have to be able to provide better HDTV, which means we have to get more bandwidth to customers.”