HITT- Mid-year review of network and mobility trends- June 24, 2025

In a mid-year review, Graeme Scott, VP of Advanced Networking and Mobility, discusses key trends in network and mobility for 2025. The presentation highlights the growing importance of AI, the shift from POTS lines, and the rise of wireless technology, particularly 5G and C-band solutions. With 70% of new internet connections being wireless, businesses are increasingly exploring IoT solutions, although many face challenges in implementation. The speaker emphasizes the need for tech advisors to help clients navigate these changes and capitalize on opportunities, especially in POTS replacement and mobility spending. As the market evolves, timely action is crucial for securing customer transitions.

Transcript is auto-generated.

It is time for today’s high-tech intensity tech training. And as always, your comments and questions are welcome in the chat window for live q and a both during and after the presentation.

Mid-Year Network and Mobility Review

Today, we take a little time for a mid year review of the network and mobility front and explore what’s happened so far and the top trends that you need to understand in order to capitalize on these opportunities through the second half of twenty twenty five. We know what your clients are going to be asking about and we’re giving you the information needed to have those conversations.

I am very happy to welcome back to the Tuesday call our Telarus VP of Advanced Networking and Mobility, Graeme Scott, with today’s Tuesday Call HIT training. Hey, GrahaGraemem. Good to see you. How are you?

Hey. Good morning, Doug, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. As Doug said, we are already well into June.

And, I heard this little stat the other day. It’s hard to believe we’re past the halfway point of June, which means we are closer to the year two thousand and fifty than we are to the year twenty twenty. So, kind of crazy when you think about time going by and and things are happening quickly here. So, real happy.

I don’t feel like I’m aging a bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Not at all.

Right? So, real happy to be here with you guys today. Excited to sort of take a look at where we’ve been so far this year. Talk through some of the things that are going on and some of the things that I’ve been seeing.

A lot of these are obviously gonna be tied to my practice, network and mobility, as well as IoT. But I’m also gonna touch on a few things that are just going on in the industry at large, and really kind of just highlight a few of the trends that we’re seeing. So Chandler, if you wanna go ahead and move to the next slide. Those of you who joined me on my last Ascend know that I’m a big Dave Letterman fan.

I know Doug and I both share that love. You guys remember the top ten list that he used to do? Go ahead and throw a ten in the chat for me there. If you remember what the, the top ten list were.

If you remember Letterman or a fan. So we’re gonna kinda do this breakdown in a fun way. We’re gonna go through these just like we do a top ten list, a classic Letterman style. Have a little bit fun with this.

The Dominance of AI in Networking

So let’s go ahead. Number one, what’s going on out there? AI, AI, and more AI. If you read the title for this one, I talked a little bit about AI fatigue, and certainly, I know some of you guys are seeing that.

But you cannot start any recap of what’s going on this year without touching on AI. Right? It’s such a big part of every conversation we’re having out there. It’s almost like it’s sucking out all the oxygen in the room.

So what I’m gonna talk about here with this is AI as it pertains to network. So we’re seeing a couple of different things happening in that regard.

Some of you may have joined us for the hit call that I did on AI ops a couple of months ago. Very popular topic. We’re seeing that. And really what that speaks to is how AI is impacting the network space, individually.

So AI actually has a tool within a lot of the network providers we’re seeing. We were joined by CBTS on that, and we talked a lot about how AI is being used to help manage networks, help repair networks, and looking for trends and and and issues and correcting them right away. In addition, we also talked about how live, natural language models are being used within network for everyday average Joe’s to be able to type into the AI interface, what they wanna happen with the network, and then the AI goes ahead and does that. So you’ve got this ability where you’ve really kind of created access to powerful network tools for the average, person through AI.

So it’s been super impactful.

But I think one of the things that we’re seeing the most, at least within our space, is network as an enabler of AI. So Sam’s been on this call a lot of times talking through a lot of the stuff that’s going on in contact center. I know Jason Stein talked about it last week. And Kobe, of course, is talking about what’s going on with AI and cloud. As we know, all of these products and services require a strong foundation in the network to function properly.

So we are seeing some massive opportunities come in from a network standpoint to support what’s going on in the AI space. So even if you’re uncomfortable diving in and talking through CCAS or some of these, you know, higher end solutions, your customers are looking for help on the network side to make sure the network can support that. Right? The network is the foundation of everything that’s going on, all of these other applications.

And we need to be asking our clients, do we have the right foundation in place to support that? So that’s what we’re seeing with AI so far. Pretty good. Lots of opportunity there, so make sure you keep your eyes on that.

POTS Replacement: A Major Opportunity

Let’s go ahead and take a look at number two. Number two, pots replacement. Okay? Get ready for the land grab.

So this is a massive opportunity that’s out there. I’ve had pots replacement topics a couple of times on the hit call. The reason being, there is so much money being made in this space. If you’re not taking advantage of it, you really need to be.

Depending on who you ask, there are somewhere between twenty five million and fifty million pots lines out there, and estimates show that these are being phasing out over the next two to three years. So if we say twenty five million pots lines out there, and we’ve got two years to move off of these things, that’s forty three thousand a day that need to be swapped. That’s a huge number. And that, of course, counts weekends and stuff.

So if you talk business days, it’s even more than that. I’m actually in Boston right now attending an event with the folks at Granite. They tell me that they do between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and fifty epic installs every single day nationwide. So there are massive opportunities out there with pots replacement, and these things are gonna be phased out over the next two to three years.

We are approaching the land grab state where everybody is gonna be just out there trying to get a hold of these, do these. The opportunities are everywhere, but particularly where we’re seeing big opportunities is this within government, SLED, and higher education. So if you’ve got customers in those areas, you really need to reach out to them and talk about POTS and POTS replacement. And if you go to the next slide, we’ve got some good news for you.

We have just launched a guide for POTS replacement called Copper Sunset or here for our friends in Boston, Copper Sunset. So we’ve got this guide that just came out. It is hot off the press. Basically, first couple pages talks a little bit about what’s going on in the space, what’s happening.

And then at the end, we’ve got a compendium, a bunch of guides from the suppliers in our portfolio that offer pots replacement solutions, where you can have everything in one place. So we want you guys to go ahead and have access to that. Go ahead and scan the QR code. This is hot off the press.

You will also be getting an email in the next couple days that gives you access to this. Check it out. Let me know what you think. Would love to get your feedback on it, but a good guide for you guys there to take advantage of what’s going on in POTS replacement.

Alright.

This is the COPPA sunset guide is wicked smart. Way to go, Chris.

Using that guide is wicked smart. Yeah. I gotta get get get that COPPA. Love it. Awesome. Let’s go to the next slide here.

Revival of Old Techniques in Networking

This one is, I think really kind of speaks more to sort of a trend that’s going on overall, but what was old is now new. For those of you guys who caught Adam on the air spring panel of the state of the channel, one of the things he talked about is network is cool again. Right? All of these things that were sort of old news and everybody was moving on, they’re cool again.

Everybody’s talking about network now as an enabler of AI and of course other things. The other thing that I’m seeing a lot of, cold calling is back. Right? You talk to partners who are having some success out there.

They are making good old fashioned dialing for dollars calls and generating a ton of opportunity.

So the old school is now the new school. So take advantage of those old techniques, brush off those phoning skills, and start making some calls, and you can definitely dial for dollars. I think AI has really kind of made email marketing, something that a lot of people just tune out. Right?

We get so many emails now, and they’re all AI generated, and it’s very obvious that they’re AI generated. Partners who pick up the phone and make those phone calls are cutting through the clutter and getting the attention of their buyers. So what is old is new, and network is a great way to get yourself in the door there. So it’s like we’re going back in the nineties.

Right, Doug? I mean, back in the day where people were dialing for dollar and flipping people over from from, t ones to cable. Now we’re seeing it again. We’re seeing it again.

We we do see it again and I think it’s going to change a little bit as AI continues to develop. But for now at least, I and a lot of people that I know find it fairly easy to determine if something has been AI generated or not. And we tend to skip over it, whether it’s something to do with marketing, a pitch from someone, or even just on social media. I am very likely to skip over what I can tell is an AI generated piece as opposed to something that’s been put there by a human being. So, for all of the things that it does well, I don’t know that, it’s going to be a a real help, in terms of reaching out the way we try to do individually and bringing in clients and bringing in people that we can talk to one on one and sell these great services. Just my thought. Absolutely.

Yeah. So what is old is new. Right? Brush up brush up those phone skills and start dialing.

Market Consolidation and Its Implications

The opportunities are out there, and we’re seeing it all the time. Let’s go to our next trend here. This one, I think, is is something that we’ve all noticed over the last little bit, and you guys probably saw the news that, Cox and Charter are planning to merge. You also probably saw on the news that, Lumen just sold a big piece of its network to AT and T.

Of course, yesterday, or we got the news that the acquisition of NITEL by Comcast is official, and, of course, Zayo buying Crown Castle.

Lots and lots of consolidation going on in the marketplace. Now generally speaking, consolidation, I think, is not a great thing for us as tech advisors.

We tend to lose choice in the market when we have consolidation, and our industry thrives on choice. So these are things that I think we’re we have to keep an eye on and and have some concern, as the individual who really kind of, is responsible for the portfolio around network suppliers. I’m constantly looking to make sure that we’re adding additional options for you guys as we start to lose them. Consolidation is something that we really need to keep an eye on and keep keep pushing, things like net neutrality.

Those kind of things are also really important in this regard. So we’re seeing a lot of that. The other thing that we’re seeing is convergence. These are the two c’s.

And what this means is that you’ve got, more solutions being offered by a single provider. And I think the reason that we’re seeing this a lot is because that’s how customers wanna buy. If you start to look at surveys somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of customers prefer to buy more solutions from a single provider versus splitting it up across a number. So I think that’s why you’re seeing companies like Comcast really broadening their portfolio and getting into SD WAN and Sassy, and they’ve been extremely successful doing that.

If you haven’t, talked to them about that, you should. And a lot of other, providers doing the same thing, offering additional services because that is how customers want to buy. Somewhere between eighty and ninety percent. Now I think a lot of people are right to ask, is that a little bit like the fox run-in the hen house?

Right? Should we be buying our security solutions from our network providers, or do we want a little bit of a division there? I think those are fair questions to ask and things that you can walk your customer through. But the fact of the matter is we need to be aware that it is our customer’s preference, most of the time, to buy from a single source provider.

So consolidation and convergence are two trends that we are seeing a ton of within the network and mobility space. So let’s go ahead to our next trend here.

The Rise of Aggregators in the Industry

The rise of the aggregators. Right? I think, you know, when I talk about consolidation, we’re seeing a lot of that going. That has led to a lot of you, tech advisors, to really lean into the aggregators.

And this slide, it it sounds like it could be a movie title. Right? The rise of the aggregators. I love it.

But, we’re seeing it a lot. So three of our top ten suppliers across the entire Telarus portfolio are aggregators.

And I think that’s kinda surprising to a lot of people. You know, you’ve got some massive players in there, like the Lumens and the Comcast and the ATTs of the world, Zoom’s, those kind of kind of folks. But three of our top ten suppliers are aggregators. So that tells us that you guys are really leaning in hard there, and the aggregators are just doing a really, really good job with our customers.

So I think that’s something that we need to keep an eye on. And if you’re not working with an aggregator, if you haven’t talked to an aggregator, you should. There’s a lot going on there. They’ve got a lot of value, a lot of positive things that they’re bringing to the customers that they’re serving, and, we’re seeing it with the trends.

A lot of these massive, massive deals are coming in, and they’re going to aggregators.

In addition, if you take a look at the Comcast acquisition of NITEL, they are now playing in this space. So companies like Comcast can almost be considered an aggregator because they can work nationwide and sell all of those circuits. So we’re seeing a ton of this. Our top three of our top ten, definitely something you should be looking at.

If you’re not working with aggregators, you should. You should be talking to them because, again, this is what customers want. So we’ve hit the halfway point here. That’s our first five trends.

Folks, go ahead and throw a six up in the chat for me if you’re ready for number six. Doug, how am I doing on time? What do we got?

You are doing fabulous on time. I’m just sitting here stunned that you’ve been able to get through five of a top ten list without using words like jello, pants, or appendectomy.

I think those are the top three. Sounds good. Yeah. You’re doing great.

That’s that’s the Letterman style, and you’re right. I should have thrown some of those in there just as an homage to the man, the myth, the legend himself. Yeah. Letterman, I miss him on TV. I gotta be honest, man.

I I was a fan of his shows, missed him.

The Growth of SASE Solutions

So, alright. We’re good on time here. Let’s go ahead to our next trend here. Number six, things are getting sassy out there. Right? We are seeing a lot of development of sassy. Global sassy sales were roughly two and a half billion dollars in the first half of twenty twenty five alone.

Massive, massive growth there. The, the industry itself is expected to grow tremendously. And why we’re seeing this is because as Josh, Hazelhorst always talks about, SaaS is not necessarily a product. It’s more of a framework.

And I think what you’re seeing is that companies have got a lot of these pieces and a lot of these applications out there, and they’re looking for something that can bring them all together for ease of management. And that’s what SASE is doing. SASE is a framework where you can bring in things like z t n a and other elements together with your SD WAN appliances and manage it cohesively.

So companies are looking for that. Another couple trends we’re seeing with it, again, Sassy sales, two and a half billion for the first half of this year. That’s up seventeen percent year over year. So we’re seeing companies adopt this single vendor SaaS solutions. And again, that goes back to my last point about convergence.

Single vendor SaaS solutions are up twenty one percent year over year. So shows us that you got that we are customers are wanting to buy from a single source, and they are looking at solutions like Sassy for ease of managing and, at, you know, all the different applications and and network, things that they’ve got going on. So if you’re not talking about SaaSy, if you’re not looking at SaaSy, do so. Obviously, SD WAN is an important piece of that as well.

Our engineers are here to help you. We’ve got all kinds of content available through Telarus University. But sassy things are definitely getting sassy out there, and we wanna make sure that you as our TAs are taking advantage. So let’s move on to number seven.

The Wireless Revolution

Wireless is the here and now. So you guys have probably all heard me say this. If you haven’t been paying attention, wireless is here. It is five g, c band, all these solutions.

Companies are looking more and more to wireless for their connectivity needs.

Seven out of ten new internet connections are wireless connections.

Some providers call them fixed wireless, FWA. We have a different word, but essentially we’re talking about internet provided over the mobile network. And seven out of ten new Internet connections are wireless connections. Between T Mobile, Verizon, and AT and T, they are expected to add over three million fixed wireless connections in twenty twenty five. And that compared and contrast to what’s going on in the broadband space with the cable providers, they are relatively flat year over year. So we are definitely seeing an adoption of wireless as a as a chosen technology.

And one of the things that I think is really important to see is that we are seeing incremental connections come in there. So it’s not just people leaving broadband and going to wireless, although certainly we are seeing that. But we’re also seeing a lot of new connections come online. And a lot of that’s being driven by things like IoT and that.

But, you know, a lot of things that were not able to be connected previously are now being connected, and we’re seeing that drive a lot of opportunity in the wireless space. So again, if you’re not talking about wireless with your customers, you need to be. All of this is happening. The SMB space in particular is really being dominated right now by wireless connections.

And a lot of stuff that, you know, maybe you couldn’t connect for your customers a couple of years ago, Now you can connect it with things like wireless, and then even solutions like Starlink are out there as well to take advantage of that. So wireless is here. It is the here and now. We are living in the wireless age.

And as I say, anything that can go mobile will go mobile. That is the way people prefer to connect. So definitely make sure that that is part of your conversation with your customers. Alright.

Emergence of IoT Opportunities

Let’s move on to number eight. This one’s for you, Ben. I know you wanted to hear about IoT.

IoT is the next train at the station. So I know people like Graeme, you’ve been talking about IoT since you got here three years ago. Right? And I have.

You’re right. But we are finally starting to see IoT opportunities come in, and they are big opportunities. We are seeing more and more operate opportunities come in. We are also seeing new industries being opened up to us through IoT and things like the MDU space.

Right? Where a lot of, mixed use properties are going up, and they are looking at smart home, cameras, all kinds of connected appliances, and, and things going on at these properties, and IoT is it. The World Economic Forum every year comes out with its lists of jobs that are coming and jobs that are going, by the year twenty thirty. IoT specialist was number ten on that list.

And I would guess when we see that list next year, IoT specialist is gonna be a little bit higher.

Your customers are looking at IoT solutions.

You wanna make sure that you’re taking advantage of that. I can promise you it’s happening. The adoption is coming up. Ninety percent of executives tell us that they’re looking at IoT solutions to see how they can improve their business, and they need your help.

Those of you who’ve seen the Ascend know that between fifty and sixty percent of IoT rollouts fail. The reason they need your help. They are trying to do all this stuff internally without the expertise, and they need someone to come in and help them. So great opportunity there.

IoT is the next train at the station, and I wanna make sure that you guys are on board.

Let’s move to number nine.

Understanding Client Financial Priorities

The almighty dollar. You know, those of you guys who have seen me do an ascent, I talk about businesses care about two things, making money and saving money. And that is true and has always been true. So what we’re seeing here, and a lot of times I have conversations with, with you guys, and you’ll talk about wireless or mobility.

You’ll say something like, you know, I don’t really do a lot of it. There’s not enough money there for me. And you know what? In some elements, that’s true.

Right? The compensation for some things like IoT, there’s some one times. The compensation is as big as something like a cloud or whatever. But you gotta understand from your client’s standpoint, from your customer standpoint, a dollar is a dollar.

A dollar they’re spending on mobility, or a dollar they’re spending on an IoT solution means just as much to them as the dollar they’re spending on a cloud solution. And we as TAs may make more on one versus the other, but for your client, that is that dollar is the exact same dollar, and it’s just as important. The average client spends one and a half to two times, their telecom spend in mobility. So for every dollar they’re spending in telecom, they spend one and a half to two dollars on mobility.

And again, those dollars mean a lot to that business. So you should be in there, you should be talking to them, you should be trying to, you know, understand what’s going on in that business, and help them save money. Lots of opportunity within mobility, lots of opportunity within network to cut costs and free up money for other projects and other resources. But again, when you save your clients money, when you come in and help them, those dollars mean a lot to that business.

And again, businesses care about two things, making money and saving money, and we need to make sure that we’re hitting on those things. Alright. We have come to the end of the list. Number ten.

Navigating the Current Tech Landscape

Guys, this is the best of times. Tim Bossa talks about this all the time. He says there is no better time to be a tech advisor than right now, and I could not agree with him more. Things are evolving so fast.

I talked a little bit about IoT. I started talking about AI. There is so much complexity in the market right now that your customers need your help. They need help going through the solutions.

They need help understanding what’s going on. They need help understanding how AI is gonna impact them. You know, our tech trends report comes out every year, and we’re having the new one should be out here shortly.

If you guys remember that, there’s a huge number of businesses, SMB and mid market, that really look to advisers for help. The numbers bear this out. It’s somewhere in the ninety percent range of SMB and mid market customers lean on advisors for assistance. So we want you guys to be feel good about the industry you’re in, feel good about the resources that are here to help you.

This is a great time and a great place to be right now. We are truly in the best of times of the channel. And with that, that is our top ten. Doug, I know we got a lot of questions going on.

What’s going on out there?

I had good comments and, great questions in there. I I listened to this list that you put together, Graeme, and I see nothing here but opportunity, both in terms of what advisors are now being called on to do for and with their clients, as well as the resurgence as you brought out of some of the technologies that our advisors have been working with for a long time. Who would have seen that network would surge again the way it had in the past because it literally drives everything that’s happening with AI, and nothing happens in AI unless you got a strong network. What do you see as some of the greatest opportunities for advisors who’ve been in the game a long time, as well as for new ones just coming into our world here?

Yeah. You know, and I think you raise a really good point, Doug, because I know that AI and a lot of the applications that are driven by AI can be very complex. And a lot of our tech advisors don’t necessarily wanna wade into those waters. IoT is another area.

Right? Even if you don’t wanna talk about IoT, IoT requires connectivity. Right? It has to be connected to work.

Just like AI, just like Cloud, everything needs that band that bandwidth and that backbone. So, you know, most of our tech advisors, I think eighty percent of our tech advisors, their first sale is a network sale. Almost all of our tech advisors are selling network or comfortable selling network. It is a great opportunity to get yourself into some accounts and have that with something that you’re comfortable talking about and something that you know they need.

So the opportunity there, you know, yeah, you can ask about what’s going on in the AI space. You can take a look at what’s going on. Hey, are you doing any IoT projects? Do you have any IoT sensors or data that you’re having trouble getting connectivity to?

Just driving at that backbone, that piece, that foundation that runs it all opens up a ton of opportunity.

Wynton had a, great comment here in the chat, saying you can’t manage what you can’t measure. We’ve all heard that many times, but helping you find that pain point. I think one of the ironies of technology today is that we have this brilliant technology, especially AI driven technology that can help us manage so many things, but we still need the IoT if we’re not doing it manually to find what those things are that we need to measure and then manage using AI. So IoT, I think, is a huge part of this right now.

Absolutely. You know, I as I say, every business tracks something. Right? Whatever it is. If you’re Starbucks, you’re tracking how many people are in your lines, what time they’re there, how long they’re there for, all these things.

Every business tracks something. So your customers are tracking something or want to track something. Right? And so finding out what information that they’re collecting from the field, from their environment, and how you can get it from there to somewhere where they can do something with it, that really is the IoT conversation.

Right? So you need those three components. You need something that’s collecting the data. You need something that brings the data from there to here.

And then you need something that you can use, to make sense of it. And that’s another area where we’re seeing a huge impact with AI. Right? The ability to compile and analyze tons and tons of data from a bunch of different sources, that is a strength of AI and one of the big areas where we’re seeing an impact.

So, yeah, there’s tons of opportunity with IoT just by asking that simple question. Hey. What kind of information does your business track? What kind of stuff are you collecting from the field?

What kind of information do you wish you had? And there that will open up a lot of opportunities for IoT. And I think, you know, the point that, Quentin made is is bang on. Right?

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. So if you’re you don’t have the ability to measure data, you can’t manage to it, and businesses need to be able to do that.

You talked a lot about wireless in the presentation as well, and the, the surge that we’re seeing in those opportunities. The statistic that you brought up about, businesses spending a dollar and a half to two dollars for every dollar they spend in general telecom, that is a phenomenal growth in wireless. And the thing about wireless, it’s so all encompassing. We tend to think of it in those little areas that we, you know, may work in or have some familiarity with, but it goes all the way back to basic connectivity as well. So everything from network up until the most advanced technology, wireless plays a huge role in that. Talk about what advisors need to be learning to be able to adequately present that.

Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, another thing that I talk about a lot in the Ascend is that you can approach your customers with almost one hundred percent certainty that they’ve got mobile phones in their environment. Right?

And probably not just mobile phones, but all kinds of other devices. I mean, my pest control guy comes by the house. He’s got six different devices in his car. Right?

He’s got a tablet. He’s got, his phone. He’s got something that tracks the, the car where it is. He’s got so there’s all of these things that exist in the environment of our customers.

We really need to just dig in there to find out what’s going on. And so when you start to add all that stuff up, it gets really easy to see where your customer’s money is going, where they’re spending their money. Right? And that’s what I was talking about when I’m saying the almighty dollar.

We really need to dig in and find where our customers are spending their money and understand that even if that area is not something where we maybe make a lot of money, at least initially, the value we can provide for our customers by helping them with something that’s so critical and so important to them will open up additional opportunities for us. Sell the customer, not the product. Right? Kobe says that all the time, and I think it’s a great expression.

Sell the customer, not the product. Find out what’s going on with them. Find out what’s going on with their business. Where are they spending their money and see where you can help save them money or create opportunities for them to make money.

Ben Walters put a comment in here while you were talking. He said, I’m staging and kidding four cameras for a T Mobile customer as I’m listening to this on the call. Talk about walking the walk. There you go.

There you go.

And Julie said later in the comments, this is her favorite Tuesday call ever. So I’m assuming that she’s heard more than one, but either way, we’ll take the compliment. I appreciate it.

Either that or she’s a huge Dave Letterman fan. So maybe Yeah.

It could be that one as well.

I wanted to go back to comment that you made at the beginning. I think it was number two in your list, and that’s pots replacement.

The Shift from POTS to Modern Solutions

We don’t talk about this enough, I think. And, there are some folks that are doing really well with this. But I think this is a little bit more of a limited window in terms of how long you can take advantage of this. The time is really now to be pursuing that technology and talking to your clients about pots replacement. Correct?

Yeah. For sure. So there’s a couple of things that are happening there. Right? Number one well, so just to to to to back up at the beginning, what we mean by POTS replacements is all the legacy carriers have come out and said, we are no longer going to support copper lines.

Okay? So a couple things has happened in regard to that. Number one, we as tech advisors, if you’re selling copper lines through the the carriers, most of them aren’t paying you for it. Okay?

Secondly, they’re not even offering it in a lot of cases. And third, they are not maintaining or supporting the infrastructure that’s there. K? So all of those are bad for our customers.

Fourth thing that’s happening is they are raising the prices on these tremendously to force customers to make a change. Right? A lot of these things are life safety applications. A lot of them are using critical things.

So they don’t wanna just cut them off because obviously that could create an opportunity for liability, things like that. They are trying to force customers to make a move. And so I was talking to somebody yesterday here in Boston. They had a customer that’s paying nineteen hundred dollars for each pots line.

They had No. Something lines at this location. Dollars nineteen hundred.

That is a huge amount of money. So then all of a sudden you turn around and move them to a pots replacement product, somewhere in the fifty to a hundred dollar range. Think of how much money you’re saving them and think of how much, you know, opportunity that creates for you to spend other things. So that’s what’s happening.

Right? And and, the areas where we’re seeing major opportunity. Yeah. Of course, you’re seeing it pretty much everywhere.

It’s across the board. But really areas where you’ve got a lot of legacy tech. So think things like government, SLED, higher education. If you guys play in those spaces, there are tons of POTS lines in those areas.

And then think about a lot of businesses that have been around for a while that have been established. That’s typically where you’re gonna see opportunities for POTS replacement. You know, the shop that just opened a couple of years ago, they’re probably not gonna have POTS lines in there. Right?

Targeting Established Businesses for POTS Replacement

They’ve probably started out with a newer technology. But the chain retailer that’s been around for thirty years and has two hundred stores across the city, I would almost guarantee you they’ve got POS lines in those stores because they’ve that’s just what was available back then. Maybe for faxes, alarm lines, elevators, anybody that’s got elevators, there’s a huge opportunity there. But there is a lot of money being made right now in the POS replacements.

But But as I said, Granite’s installing between a hundred and a hundred and fifty of these every single day across the country, and we need to switch these things at a at a rate of, you know, several thousand a day to really kinda make a dent in what’s out there.

To talk to the time frame, it is limited. Right? Eventually, these suppliers are gonna say, we’re done. We’re cutting it off.

We’re we’re finished here. As I said, they’re not even maintaining the infrastructure now to begin with. So right now, it’s kind of a land grab. Right?

Ensuring Customer Transition to New Solutions

At some point, your customer’s gonna have to make a change, and we wanna make sure that they’re making it with you. Right? You’ve maybe got revenue tied up with there, and we wanna make sure that that transition is happening. That’s why we put out the guide.

We wanna make give you guys all the tools at your disposal to go out and have those conversations, understand the different offerings. I know a couple people referenced Ooma here. Great provider for that solution. Something that they are really, really good at.

But there’s a lot of options in the portfolio. Right? We’ve got a number of them. And so that guides there to help you guys go through it, to see what’s available.

Just get a taste for each of the different offerings and, you know, we’ve got links to more details if you want them.