EntryPoint Networks
About Us

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About Us
What We’re About

EntryPoint provides Consulting, Project Management, and Automated Open Access technologies to municipal governments (cities, towns, and counties) and municipal electric utilities seeking to implement Advanced Fiber Optic Networks.

EntryPoint was founded in 2010 as a Research and Development company – focused on merging the Open Access Network Model with Software Defined Networking & Network Automation. EntryPoint Consulting Services was launched to assist municipalities with planning, implementation, and operational management of advanced fiber-optic infrastructure. Most municipalities that engage EntryPoint do so because they prefer publicly owned open infrastructure and require technical assistance in planning, implementing, and network management.

The
Problem

Digital infrastructure has become essential in modern society, comparable to road system and utilities like water, sewer, and electricity. Privately owned digital infrastructure has proven to be prone to monopoly control and the consequent disadvantages of premium pricing, and a lack of local control or influence over community needs and interests. Until now, internet access services have been treated as an amenity or luxury item. The harshness of this reality was underscored by the COVID pandemic. Although the lived experience of people is that digital access and infrastructure are now essential, public policy, public financial tools, and the expectations of public leaders have not caught up with the reality that digital access and infrastructure are now in the same category as roads, electricity, sewer, water, and other essential services.

To compound the problem, a significant amount of federal money is flooding into the broadband market without agreement on the root problems the money can and should solve. Per federal rules, much of the money will flow toward systems that successfully provide nominal connectivity speeds. Broadband availability is being funded rather than broadband affordability. However, there is now data which that suggests affordability is a bigger problem than availability – particularly in urban areas.

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Our
Mission

EntryPoint’s mission and set of core competencies are organized around planning and implementing fiber-optic networks that are sustainable as long-term utility infrastructure. A core component of EntryPoint’s mission is to work with municipal partners to make digital access affordable and available to all residents and businesses through a very unique public private partnership (PPP) model, with public ownership of essential utility fiber infrastructure at the core.

EntryPoint’s model uses an advanced automated open access business model to drive competition, increase innovation, and operate this infrastructure as an essential utility.

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EntryPoint’s model uses an advanced automated open access business model to drive competition, increase innovation, and operate this infrastructure as an essential utility.

First Deployment
Ammon, ID

City of Ammon Fiber Optics - When media matters

In 2016, EntryPoint launched its first fiber-to-the-home project in partnership with the City of Ammon, in eastern Idaho.  Since 2016, more than 100 articles have been written about the Ammon Fiber Network.  In 2016, the Ammon network was named the Network of the Year by NATOA.  October 2017, Harvard University published a detailed Case Study praising Ammon’s unique automated network management technology. In 2019, Fast Company Magazine described the Ammon Network as “the Best Fiber Optic Network in America.” In 2020, the Open Technology Institute released its annual survey of global internet costs and listed Ammon as the network with the lowest cost for Gig internet access worldwide.

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Fast Company Magazine logo

October 2019, Fast Company Magazine named the Ammon Network as “The Best Fiber Optic Network in America”.

Fast Company Magazine logo

October 2019, Fast Company Magazine named the Ammon Network as “The Best Fiber Optic Network in America”.

Harvard University logo

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

“Ammon’s platform allows an extraordinary level of competition, innovation, and experimentation by businesses, local government, and residential users alike.  And Ammon’s model provides very little, if any, financial risk to the city.”

“The use of virtualization technology to enable retail competition is rare in the United States, and Ammon’s use of virtualization is especially sophisticated.”

Harvard University logo

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

“Ammon’s platform allows an extraordinary level of competition, innovation, and experimentation by businesses, local government, and residential users alike.  And Ammon’s model provides very little, if any, financial risk to the city.”

“The use of virtualization technology to enable retail competition is rare in the United States, and Ammon’s use of virtualization is especially sophisticated.”

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Open Technology Institute logo

July 2020, the Open Technology Institute released a comprehensive report documenting “The Cost of Connectivity 2020” globally.  Ammon, Idaho is listed as having the lowest cost of fiber-optic broadband in the entire world… ahead of Bucharest, Riga, Paris, Seoul, London, Zurich, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Toronto, etc.

Open Technology Institute logo

July 2020, the Open Technology Institute released a comprehensive report documenting “The Cost of Connectivity 2020” globally.  Ammon, Idaho is listed as having the lowest cost of fiber-optic broadband in the entire world… ahead of Bucharest, Riga, Paris, Seoul, London, Zurich, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Toronto, etc.

EntryPoint’s
Model

The dominant model for delivering internet access in the U.S. is broken. Gaps in network capacity, reliability, availability, and affordability are a product of the structure of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) industry and a misalignment between the incentives and interests of the industry and the needs and interests of consumers. The results of these misalignments include inconsistent reliability, overpriced offerings, lack of competition, lack of choice for consumers, and continued emphasis on what is minimally acceptable rather than what is optimally possible. Much of the country continues to be served by antiquated cable infrastructure when fiber optics are a far superior infrastructure for speed, reliability, and enabling functionality that is necessary in a digital economy.

EntryPoint is focused on helping municipalities transition from minimally acceptable infrastructure to infrastructure that costs less and delivers much greater value to subscribers. Our model is not to suggest mere cosmetic changes to the infrastructure or to accept the dominant incumbent model as a viable path forward.

Three key ideas
behind EntryPoint’s philosophy are:

Fiber Optics provide a media that is orders of magnitude better than all other media (including cable).

Broadband infrastructure is essential infrastructure and should therefore be treated as utility infrastructure.

Open Access Networks are a proven method for lowering costs, creating competition, and giving consumers choice.

EntryPoint designs and implement networks that bring maximum value to consumers by leveraging technologies and open network management systems to dismantle the current power structure and move control to the subscriber. The overarching flaw in today’s incumbent model is that the near-monopoly control of the ISPs leaves the customer nearly powerless. We use technology to reverse this power structure.

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EntryPoint
Leader
ship

JEFF CHRISTENSEN

President (CEO)

BRAD BANYAI

Finance Director

JEFF PETERSON

Technology Director (CTO)

BRUCE PATTERSON

Operations Director

BEN MILLER

Project Management Director

NICOLE BANYAI

Business Development Director

DEVIN COX

Marketing Director

ROBERT PETERSON

Tech Strategy Director (CTS)

NEXT GENERATION NETWORKS

In the next 10 – 15 years, the technologies that are in their infancy now will move from science projects to mainstream society. These are things like self-driving cars, the blockchain, a grid that is dominated by renewable energy, education and healthcare automation and virtualization, and virtual reality technologies. The construct that is “the internet” is going to look very different in 10 years than it looks today. Many of the large technology companies (Tesla, Apple, Facebook, and Google) are focused on a different set of fundamental technologies than we have today. An important question every municipality should be asking is what kind of network will be needed to support these emerging technologies and how can the community anticipate these emerging technologies?

The technologies and models used in municipal networks today have seen very modest changes in the past 20 years. Most networks built today still follow the model established decades ago of shared infrastructure (neighbors share a network connection), asymmetrical (much slower upload than download speed), using very little network automation and virtualization, suffering from vendor lock-in, and are hardware defined rather than software defined. These networks are organized for profitability rather than utility and the lack of a competitive threat has allowed incumbents to preserve the status quo.

Further, in legacy hardware-defined networks, the network is siloed, and you must build a new physical silo for every problem you want to solve. With a Software Defined Network, problems get solved in software at a much lower cost and much faster speed.

A key economic development value differentiator for networks going forward will be resilience to future technology. Networks that are software defined, open to any service or innovation, organized as utility infrastructure, and designed with a data center architecture will likely offer distinct economic development advantages over static networks missing these attributes.

A municipally (publicly) owned fiber network provides the resilience, flexibility, and cost savings needed to attract and foster businesses dependent on advanced digital infrastructure. This also allows municipal leader to put in place long term solutions to lower costs and connect all residents and businesses. The key enabler to connect everyone is for municipalities to own and control its digital infrastructure. Setting policies and utilizing powerful technological tools gives community leader the ability to drive desired outcomes.

Municipal utilities exist to provide services that are critical for societal success. Like water, sewer, and electricity, internet access is crucial in today’s modern economy. Providing digital access as a public utility will result in the maximum level of service at the lowest possible price. The need for a utility-based approach stems from the fact that ISP-controlled internet access has led to gaps in affordability, availability, and quality of service at the lowest possible price. The need for a utility-based approach stems from the fact that ISP-controlled internet access has led to gaps in affordability, availability, and quality.

MODELS THAT WILL NOT SOLVE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

  1. Rent Seeking
    • Monopoly / Duopoly Control
    • Cartel Pricing
    • Treated as an Amenity
    • Unreliable Legacy Infrastructure
    • Vertically Integrated Systems and Services

    MODELS THAT CAN SOLVE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

    1. Seeks Highest Value at Lowest Cost
    2. True Competition Among Service Providers
    3. Competitive Market Pricing
    4. Treated as am Essential Service
    5. Dedicated Fiber Optic Connections (not shared)
    6. Infrastructure and Services are Separated
    7. Infrastructure Managed as a Utility