Indy Dossier: John Klatt

ILEC CUSTOMERS: 5000

EMPLOYEES: 20

RECENT PERSONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT: Management Achievement Award winner from the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association

KEY MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS: Lakeland Communications resulted from the 1997 merger of Luck Telephone Co. and Milltown Mutual Telephone Co., both of which were originally founded in 1908. The telcos already had acquired a cable television franchise in 1995, which serves most of Lakeland's ILEC and CLEC communities, as well as Frederick, Wis.

HISTORICAL FACTOID: When Luck Telephone Co. was founded, members thought telephone poles were too expensive. Instead, they cut tamarack and white oak poles from their own swamps and woods, receiving 50 cents for each 20-foot pole.

POPULATION DENSITY: About seven people per square mile

POPULATION TREND: Located 60 miles northeast of Minneapolis/St. Paul, the community has a mixture of full-time rural residents and upscale part-time residents rooted in the Twin Cities.

MAXIMUM BROADBAND RATE OFFERED: 2 Mb/s

BROADBAND PLATFORM: Fiber to the node

PERCENTAGE OF SERVING AREA WHERE BROADBAND IS AVAILABLE: Nearly 100%

BROADBAND TAKE RATE: 25%

NEW TECHNOLOGIES PLANNED: “IPTV is our next big project. We also have a new softswitch that we put in. We hope to roll out self-care so people can provision services at their convenience.”

BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “Our next step will be fiber-to-the-home. … Whenever they tear up the roads or do significant construction, that's when we'll do it.”

CELLULAR STRATEGY: Belongs to an independent consortium that operates as RSA One, d.b.a. Alltel. “The investment has been good for us. The partnership built all the towers, and we have a phenomenal amount of towers per capita.”

OTHER AFFILIATIONS: Member of the Wisconsin Independent Network, which provides the company with a redundant fiber connection to a Chicago Internet access point

RUS FUNDING: Took out a loan in 2007 but has not yet needed to draw upon it

USF FUNDING: “Minimally, on the Milltown side.”

TOUGHEST AREA TO SERVE: The Burnett County Barrens, an area near the Minnesota border that includes a large amount of county- and state-owned land

CURRENT COMMUNITY INITIATIVE: Persuading local authorities to free up some of the 3% tax on revenues that the company pays for its cable franchise to invest in capital equipment to support additional local channels. The company currently has just one. “We could do it for less than $5000 a community.”

COMMUNITIES SERVED:

Wisconsin towns of Luck, Milltown, Fox Creek and Cushing as an ILEC; Balsam Lake and Centuria as a CLEC.