Tough enough

Cutthroat Communications brings connectivity to a rugged Montana market

Most companies probably would not want to be known as cutthroat. But in one part of Montana, the cutthroat trout is a good catch, and Cutthroat Communications is a company providing high-speed communications lines to an underserved population.

The competitive service provider and wireless ISP had changed its name to the more lofty sounding TransAria — Latin for “across connected” — for its push outside Montana but in November went back to doing business under the Cutthroat label, mostly because its Montana customers prefer that name, said Todd Graetz, CEO of Cutthroat. TransAria remains the parent company moniker.

What Cutthroat provides is a combination of fiber optic and wireless services that brings broadband speeds to rural areas in a cost-effective way, enabling the company to compete, Graetz said.

“Our network is a hybrid of fiber optic and short- and long-haul wireless,” he said. “We use diverse fiber optic entry then wireless for a metro area network for the last mile, as well as backhaul for multipoint distribution services. It is very difficult to do this cost-effectively. If we did not use high-capacity wireless, we would not have nearly the luck.”

The key, Graetz said, has been leveraging high-capacity wireless technology and “reasonably priced but best-in-class” networking gear and network management systems to build a highly reliable network that doesn't require the company to be constantly dispatching technicians to its far-flung facilities.

“We don't have any TDM in our network; we convert everything to IP,” he said. “We are all-Ethernet. We control a great deal of our own traffic — you don't build a business model on the back of your enemy. But we do own a CLEC, and we do leverage CLEC assets in specific markets where the wireless facilities weren't as available or where we had the assets to build a redundant play.”

Given the nature of Cutthroat's customers — the company handles a lot of tele-medicine and education traffic, as well as businesses including telecommuters from Silicon Valley — reliability is a must.

“We have very aggressive [service level agreements],” Graetz said. “The network has to be extremely reliable or we would not have the type of mission-critical customers that we have. We have been through several renewal cycles with banks, insurance companies, broadcasters and hospitals.”

Also important for Cutthroat, in addition to bringing significantly more bandwidth to capacity-hungry applications like medical imaging and high-end telecommuting, is providing a high level of customer service, he stressed, and that has focused the company on building a highly reliable network.

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