FAST FORWARD

After serving as Usurf's chairman for the past seven months and engineering the acquisition of Sovereign Companies, Dave Weisman last week took on the role of CEO. The former CEO and chairman of Eagle Broadband, Weisman plans an aggressive expansion and is looking to put the finishing touches on a revamp of the service provider's business model that will bring it closer to large real estate developers. Weisman spoke with Telephony's Vince Vittore about his reasons for taking on the new role, the challenges ahead and various technology platforms.

On his reason for coming to Usurf: What I tried to do at Eagle is come on board [and] try to make some pretty strong partnerships. We cleared the decks, and I hit my point and I wanted to come over to Usurf and try something different. Usurf has been a technology company, and they've had a bit of trouble. Over the last six months, we engineered the acquisition of Sovereign, and that made a big difference. They focus on building a high-end telecommunications network with the [real estate] developers, but it's different. Instead of leaving when the last unit is sold, you continue to take money out of it through services.

On expansion possibilities: We've brought in some key folks like Dan Ryan, who built Charter's Western operations and he managed hundreds of thousands of subscribers. We're going to greatly expand our service provider business. We're going to be very acquisitive. We didn't bring in Dan Ryan to sit on his hands. I need to have 10,000 subscribers really fast just to be in the game. We're also eyeing some very strategic partnerships.

On expanding the company's back office: We've got a call center now, but it's not as scalable as it could be. We need a 24/7 facility, but I'm not going to invest in that until I have these deals in the can.

On the new business model: At Eagle we didn't really understand the development world as well as we should. All the developers don't know anything about service provisioning. None of the technology guys understand the development business. The idea is to bring a menu of services to developers. The developer wants a partner. We make margin implementing [the network], and we want to make margin operating it. But we put the impetus on the developer. In return they've got the potential of making something like $11 per month, which is revenue they haven't traditionally gotten.

On comparing the new model to the former building local exchange carriers: The BLECs ran out of money. What we're doing is not putting up the capital for the big developers. We're making it so they can charge more for their dirt. In some of these high-end developments, the smart home is becoming almost a requirement. The nice thing is you can build in a telecom access fee into the mortgage.

On using Usurf's existing wireless technology: In many cases, it's going to be wireline only because of the bandwidth associated with multimedia. Usurf has done some really good work in wireless, and we're going to expand on that. We're heavily involved in the Golden [Colo.] urban renewal project, for example. They came back and said they wanted to build a wireless overlay. It's not an easy business to make money at, but it's something we can do easily.

On getting content for Usurf's video offering: The one thing I did at Eagle I was very proud of was negotiating with 50 programmers to get a full channel lineup. Having that kind of channel lineup, I have a lot of flexibility. But we're not going to do what Eagle did, which is building this big headend and distribute it all over the place. Every project is different. In most cases, we need to build a headend out there, but headends have gone down a ton. It used to be $1 million minimum, but it's down to somewhere around $350,000. I can do a lot of different things with that.

On the type of development the company wants to serve: We understand building from doing the multi-dwelling units. If it's a ground floor opportunity, that's great. There's millions of dollars to be made in that situation. In those cases, the developer pays for everything, but that's one where we sign a contract with them and then wait for customers to sign up. The ones where we're coming in after the fact, we'll have to look at very carefully. We're looking at development from 2000 homes and up. I've gotten killed over the years going after the 700-home development. You've got to get critical mass.

For insight on service quality management, watch our Webcast featuring OSS Observer's Patrick Kelly.
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