Sparkplug CEO Dishes on Wireless Broadband Expansion, Differentiation

XC: Your investors have pumped a little more than $22 million into Sparkplug. How long will that funding last?

Malloy: The company is profitable today. Our strategy is one where we continue to invest in our networks to continue to grow today in each of our markets, as well as continuing to look at acquisitions that make sense for us, like wireless operators in areas we target. So a lot of our milestone funding is really driven off what we would do on the acquisition side, rather than being driven off what we would do with our organic business.

XC: Are you working to secure more private funding?

Malloy: We’re really focusing on growing the operations that we have. Again, as we look at larger acquisitions, no doubt we would look at different avenues in terms of our current investors, primarily, to fund that growth strategy.

XC: Who is your target customer?

Malloy: Our ideal customer in the business segment is the one that lives by its broadband. It’s well beyond voice. They know full well that if they lose their voice service today, as critical as that could be, far more important to them and far more horrendous is if they lose their broadband connection. Further, they’re reaching the limits of it. So it’s the business that knows it’s got high-growth broadband needs, feels it everyday. They’re typically adding applications as they go – they probably already have decided to put voice over their broadband connection, or they will. They transmit a lot of data, whether it’s from some specialized application because they’re in health care or some specialized application because they’re an architectural firm and they move large data files. Or they’re in media-related businesses and they do the same, or a law firm. The common denominator is heavy data usage both in and out of the business. They reach the limits of a T1 very quickly; they reach the limits of a bonded T equally as quickly.

XC: The intersection of health care and telecom seems to be getting a fair amount of attention lately. How much of this vertical drives your business?

Malloy: It’s a significant segment for us and it’s continuing to grow. You’ll find hospital groups, for instance, that just because of new applications for radiology, they’ll come to us needing as much as 45mbps of dedicated service from one point to another. And then you’ve got the satellite effect of all the doctors that work at the hospitals that are on the same application.

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