[V]anu CoverageCo, a company that in recent years expanded a cellular network into rural sections of Vermont, is working to restore downed microcells and crafting a plan to improve its service. But it needs the state’s help, and a deal with AT&T.
This week, CoverageCo’s Interim CEO, Richard Biby, spoke to committees in the House and Senate and met with the governor to present a proposal that he believes will help the struggling company right its ship.
Last month, the state learned the company was on the brink of dissolving and days later 70 of the company’s microcells had gone dark.
The likelihood of losing CoverageCo prompted concern from lawmakers and the governor that residents in 26 rural communities that relied on the service would soon be unable to make emergency calls on mobile phones.
But Biby said that in recent weeks, CoverageCo has worked to preserve its cellular network for at least the next three months and restore service to 21 microcell sites by negotiating with utilities and the companies that handle its call traffic.
CoverageCo has accumulated debt, due largely to coming well under the call-volume projections laid out in its business model, and owes many of these vendors back payments.
This week, Biby told lawmakers he hopes the state will provide CoverageCo with about $100,000 to subsidize the fees it must pay annually for E-911 geo-location services.
“We think it’s not an unreasonable ask of ours that the state help us with…our 911 costs,” he said in an interview.
Biby also hopes the state will help the company secure a roaming agreement with AT&T, the state’s largest carrier.
CoverageCo has roaming agreements with many carriers, which allows callers in range of its microcells to access normal cell phone service. The company, in turn, collects fees from the larger carriers.
AT&T, however, has declined to sign on with CoverageCo. And customers of the carriers that do have such agreements haven’t brought in enough proceeds to make CoverageCo financially viable. Biby estimates that an agreement with AT&T could bring in additional $100,000 per year.
“It would make a big difference in our income, taking us much close to breaking even if we had some income from AT&T customers,” he said.
In the immediate future, Biby hopes to keep as many of the company’s 160 Vermont microcells up and running as possible.
“It is our intention to get every site that’s down up,” Biby said. “I would imagine within two weeks we should have anything that we can get back up back up.”
Within three months, Biby said he will come up with a detailed plan to make CoverageCo’s network more efficient and then return to state officials.
The plan could involve reducing its number of microcells and repositioning them in a way that covers more land, “so we’re operating less sites but still have the same coverage or even better coverage,” he said.
The state has already invested $4 million in the microcells and owns the equipment. Gov. Phil Scott spoke briefly about his meeting with CoverageCo at a press conference on Thursday.
“It was a good meeting, learned a few more details, they have some resemblance of a plan, there’s details in the plan that would have to have considerable work done to complete that,” Scott said.
“On the other side, and I can’t announce anything at this point, but there are two others who are working on this as well, two other private companies who are going to help us out in the interim,” he said.
Biby said he didn’t know specifically what Scott was referring to in his comments. But he confirmed CoverageCo has been talking with companies who may be interested in acquisition or coming on as investors.
“We’re not opposed to anything that makes sense both for the investment that the state has made and hopefully with the investment that we’ve made,” Biby said.
Last week, the Department of Public Service said it was seeking another vendor to take over CoverageCo’s cellular network as soon as possible.
Clay Purvis, director of telecommunications and connectivity for the state, said the department would be putting out a request for proposals from interested companies.
But the department has put that off, for now.
“It’s something that we have and we can issue if we need it, but we do want to create the space for anyone who might be interested in CoverageCo to purchase the company or take over the assets of the company and maintain the network,” Purvis said Friday morning.
“That is the cleanest way to maintain service without interruption.”
