Faced with one of the lowest connected states in the country, Diamond State Networks (DSN), which is 100% owned by electric cooperatives, has made it their mission to take Arkansas from one of the least connected states to one of the most connected states. They are investing more than $1.6 billion to make that happen.
We sat down with DSN CEO Doug Maglothin and had asked him five questions about their journey.
Five Questions with Diamond State Networks
1. How did Diamond State Networks get into the fiber business?
We like to say that DSN was born from necessity. First, our cooperative members responded to a dire need for their members to have access to fiber internet services. During the deployment process, they found that their wholesale costs for connectivity were excessively high and their options for redundancy were limited at best. Hence the idea for DSN came into play as a way to not only serve the needs of our cooperative ISP’s, but also as a wholesale provider that will help ISP’s of all shapes and sizes to get access to more affordable and reliable services around Arkansas. In the end, we see ourselves as a platform that encourages broadband growth to all corners of Arkansas.
2. Tell us what’s new at DSN – what’s next?
The DSN Team is growing quickly! We have hired 20 new folks ranging from engineers to project managers and more, so each day we are getting bigger and stronger. Also, DSN just launched its first major network upgrade allowing us to now offer 800G services across a major section of Arkansas! Next, we plan to complete our second major upgrade which will cover another very significant portion of Arkansas in the coming months. Each upgrade increases speed, capacity and reliability, so we are thrilled to see these major network initiatives which have been planned for multiple years finally coming to fruition.
3. What plans/projects did you have in motion when you started shopping for fiber management software?
Implementing a middle mile platform comes with a completely different set of challenges from implementing FTTX services. The level of inventory detail required and the geography that we cover are both significant, so we took a very cautious approach to selecting our fiber management platform. Probably our toughest consideration was around how we would bring together 13 discrete cooperative mapping sources into our central view where we could visualize, update and manage the deployment of our solutions around the entire state.
4. Why did you choose VETRO?
VETRO is already used by many of the DSN member companies, which helps when it comes to resource and information sharing. Also, the VETRO Team was very eager to learn our model and flexible in presenting solutions that helped to fit our very different set of needs as a middle mile provider. Moving ahead, we feel very plugged-in with VETRO as they set their roadmap and feature sets for development.
". . . the VETRO Team was very eager to learn our model and flexible in presenting solutions that helped to fit our very different set of needs as a middle mile provider."
5. What is your favorite feature of VETRO FiberMap
I personally am primarily a ‘view only’ type of person as I’m pretty sure none of my team wants me to be able to access anything that matters! My primary opportunity for using VETRO is in opportunity identification as DSN looks to expand its sales pipeline.
About VETRO, Inc.
VETRO builds software that makes it radically simpler and faster for broadband providers to plan, design, deploy, and operate their fiber optic networks. Our map-based SaaS platform is easier to use and more powerful than traditional tools, and enables network owners, operators and sponsors to benefit from a modern, integrated, and connected digital hub for their physical network assets.
