Steve and Buford

How does a Wireless company compete in the ever changing world of technology? Steve Schneider, CEO and President of Hilbert Communications does it with a little help from a friend named Buford. Bug Tussel Wireless, a subsidiary of Hilbert Communications, believes in delivering high speed internet options to rural areas providing an even playing field for all internet users despite where they may live. Whether you work from home, your home is downtown or you are manning the family farm, Steve Schneider believes you should stay connected without compromising speed or quality of service.

While building a network to serve rural areas, Mr. Schneider began developing the idea of serving customers in a little different way than a traditional brick and mortar store. He wanted customers to get the same feeling and ongoing service as some of the most successful rural insurance agents. Instead of making the customer come to him, he envisioned him team going directly to the customer. Their time, their space, their dime.  He knew in developing the brand that using an icon can be extremely impactful and help put a face to the name Bug Tussel. Enter Buford J. Tussel, the orange bug.

Similar strategy has been used successfully by companies like Kellogs, Jack in the Box and Aflac. “People identify with images and personalities” says Schneider.  Bug Tussel Wireless, with the help of a branding agency, created a new and improved Bug Mascot/Icon. Buford will be used to spark interest, make customers smile, attend community events and deliver the corporate vision and mission.  Of course, Buford can’t possibly be everywhere at all times which is why Bug Tussel Wireless has hired a Community Marketing Representative in each of the territories along with Independent Account Representatives. Customers can contact Bug Tussel through our Customer Service Center, located in Hilbert and request information.  One of the Representatives will come directly to the customer home to discuss options and in some cases the customer can be installed the same day! In launching the new look, feel and Customer Service Strategy, Bug Tussel is also launching a new website later this month. Currently, information can be viewed at www.bugnet.net. The company is gearing up to begin several promotions and opportunities within the local communities one of which is a computer class called Bug Basics. One of the team members is conducting this class at the Brillion Public Library early this month. We are committed to not just providing quality products and services but to make sure our customers understand how to use it. Education is one of our key strengths and can be seen in several of the activities we offer as well as on our new website that is launching. One of the Customer programs Bug Tussel Wireless is rolling out is BTU – Bug Tussel University. Customers can register and attend different events and educational based activities that further expand their Tech IQ.  Along with BTU, Bug Tussel is rolling out several other customer beneficial programs.  Look for Buford and the team at upcoming community events and parades!

Bug Tussel Wireless currently provides service to residents in Calumet County, Fox Lake, Dyckesville, Lodi and Sauk County. The company is launching service in Waushara County later this month.

This article appeared in the Chilton Times Journal

Giving a report to the county board’s economic development committee last week, Schneider said he had received word from a person in the Federal Communication Commission that approval to use its towers for broadband were expected to be approved by the end of the day last Thursday, Feb. 25.  However Schneider said his company will be testing the system for 30 days to get the bugs out before it  goes commercial.

He reported broadband sites are up and ready to go at Hillpoint, Tower Road, Lake Delton, Spring Green,  Sauk City and Happy Hill. Those will be the first areas to receive the high speed internet service Hilbert is  offering.

Additional broadband small tower sites are being worked on at Merrimac, the Ho-Chunk Casino, the Lake  Virginia area, Plain and lime Ridge. Schneider brought with him one of the small receiver units that is placed in a home or business to receive the broadband signal and demonstrated its use for the  committee, which was meeting in the West Square Building in Baraboo.

Hilbert Communications did apply for $5 million from the federal stimulus bill to expand broadband coverage in rural areas. However the company was turned down, though Schneider says it will try again.

Bringing broadband to all of Sauk County is a $40 million project and Schneider said finding financing to fund the infrastructure for it is a challenge. Receiving the stimulus money would have sped the process  up.

Other sites besides the ones mentioned above are also being worked on, he said. The company has hired  three people, Ken Phelps and Meredith Medvesek and Laurie Napawocki, who are working with the Sauk  County system. “Our goal is to get out there as quickly as possible,” he said.

Hilbert Communications, based in Calumet County, is working with Sauk County because it is leasing  fiber lines in the fiber optic loop the county had built to service its radio communications system. Hilbert uses strands of line in the county system and has connected them to a main internet hub in Chicago and a switching center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Eventually it will also offer cell phone and other  services through the system it is building in Sauk County.

Committee chairman Marty Krueger asked Schneider if help will be available to assist people with  technical and computer issues when they sign on. Schneider said there will be.

Persons wanting to sign  up for Hilbert’s internet service can go to the web site: bugnet.net and click on the “I want internet now” line at the top right of the screen. Schneider said those who do so will be contacted within 30 days. Another way to get information on the system is to call 877-227-0924.

This article appeared in a March 2010 issue of the Reedsburg Independent

Hilbert is based in Green Bay, but it has grown rapidly through aggressive deployment of cellular base stations in rural areas such as Calumet, Sauk, Columbia and Douglas counties. In the past year, it has ignited a new growth phase with BugNet, the first broadband wireless data service available to its subscribers. When the company surveyed prospective customers at a local county fair in the summer of 2008, it found that virtually all of them were very excited by the potential for broadband wireless since they were still using dial-up Internet connections. The company has since amassed a sizeable subscriber base from sparsely populated farming areas.

Since 2007, Hilbert has rapidly scaled-up its wireless network – the underpinning of its roaming business – with a commitment to maintaining the highest levels of customer service. But as it has grown, the company discovered cellular site backhaul to be a weak link in the original design of its network. Hilbert has used terrestrial T1 connections to link roughly half of its 200 cell sites to its core network. Unfortunately, the connections are neither reliable nor robust enough to handle the growing load from new subscribers, and with the addition of broadband data services, the company needed to provide IP-based backhaul as well as traditional TDM.

“The leased T1 lines were turning out to be the least reliable part of our network,” says Kevin Kluge, director of network design for Hilbert Communications. “Our immediate need was to improve the reliability of the backhaul between the towers and our fiber-fed aggregation points, but we also realized that with the broadband mobile data rollout, we would need IP data service and a lot more capacity.”

Microwave backhaul seemed like the ideal solution because it can deliver both IP connectivity and more T1 capacity, and it would also free Hilbert from spending $700-$1,500 per month per tower for T1 lines. “Microwave allows us to own the whole network and eliminate a lot of recurring costs,” says Kluge.

Initially, the company tried microwave systems offered by major cellular infrastructure vendors, but these proved to be less reliable than Kluge had hoped. That’s when he turned to Exalt. “We tried a lot of different radios before we went to Exalt, but Exalt simply has a better product and we’ve standardized on it,” he says. “The other systems we tried seemed to be more enterprise-class systems, whereas Exalt’s systems are carrier-grade all the way.”

Hilbert began deploying Exalt systems for the 5 GHz band in 2007, and currently has about 40 of these in operation. The systems each support up to four T1 lines and up to 200 megabits per second (Mbps) of Ethernet data. As currently configured, they carry four T1 lines and from 10 to 50 Mbps of Ethernet data over distances of up to 20 miles.

“We like the idea that we have a capacity buffer built in,” says Kluge. “We can perform a software upgrade remotely to go up to 200 megabits per second per link if we need to.”

Every Exalt system performs flawlessly, and Kluge likes the remote configuration tools that make it easy to fine-tune frequencies for each of the radios to optimize performance and reliability. Exalt’s unique CarrierTDD™ and anti-interference technology features also enhance reliability, enabling Exalt to guarantee throughput on each link with 99.999% link reliability.

Based on his success with the Exalt systems configured for the 5 GHz frequency band, Kluge has begun using Exalt systems configured for the 11 GHz frequency band for network backbone deployments. These links can also deliver up to 200 Mbps per link.

Today, Kluge is continuing toward his goal of eliminating all of the T1 connections in the network. By moving to Exalt-based T1 and Ethernet, he can support significant subscriber growth on both the GSM and WiMAX networks. The early success of the WiMAX network in Calumet County has prompted neighboring Columbia and Sauk counties to request the service in those areas as well.

“Exalt systems configured for 5 GHz make it easy to swap out T1 connections very quickly with a more reliable and higher-capacity system that handles both TDM and IP, while the Exalt systems configured for 11 GHz give us the throughput we need for backbone services on the WiMAX portions of the network,” says Kluge.

After disappointments suffered with other manufacturers’ microwave backhaul products, Kevin Kluge and Hilbert Communications have found a microwave company they can rely on to execute their business plans. By leveraging Exalt’s rapid scalability and carrier-class reliability, Hilbert and its BugNet service are destined for continued success.

“We tried a lot of different radios before we went to Exalt, but Exalt simply has a better product and we‘ve standardized on it. “The other systems seemed to be more enterprise-class systems, whereas Exalt’s systems are carrier-grade all the way.”
–Kevin Kluge, director of network planning, Hilbert Communications

Challenges

• Improve reliability of backhaul connections and reduce recurring costs.
• Enable TDM and IP connectivity for WiMAX data services.
• Provide easy scalability to expand traffic as subscriber base grows.

Solutions

• Deploy Exalt systems for reliable throughput over ranges of up to 20 miles.
• Use Exalt’s Ethernet transport to carry up to 200 Mbps of IP-based traffic while supporting up to four T1 lines of native TDM per cell site.
• Bring the whole network under company control by eliminating leased T1 lines.

This article appeared on RCRWireless.com on February 18, 2010 – click to visit original article.

By combining microwave backhaul systems with intelligent routing, a rural wireless GSM and WiMax operator expects to save millions in operating expenses by eliminating the 150 leased T1 lines that it uses to connect its cell sites.

“We have the opportunity to stop our op-ex from growing and actually reduce it, so I think it’s a smart business decision, and we’re making our network more resilient,” said Jake Brown, CTO of Hilbert Communications, a Green Bay, Wis.-based wireless operator that offers roaming network services throughout Wisconsin for about 30 carriers. “We’re able to completely get rid of the incremental cost to upgrade to 3G.”

Hilbert launched the microwave backhaul project — playfully dubbed “Operation Badger Sky” as a nod to the University of Wisconsin-Madison mascot, the badger — when it became evident that an all-T1 network could not support a transition from 2G to 3G and 4G, according to director of network design Kevin Kluge.

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By Rick Berg, September, 2009

Steve Schneider, president and CEO, Hilbert Communications

On a clear summer morning, Steve Schneider stands atop the Bellin Building in downtown Green Bay and casts his eyes northwest, to the horizon and beyond, to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. He can’t really see Alaska from here, except maybe in his mind’s eye. Behind him, mounted on a pole, is a satellite dish that can see Alaska, where about 300 people on Adak Island are counting on Schneider, the Bellin Building and Bug Tussel Wireless to provide them with wireless service.

A long-time Cellcom executive until he struck out on his own in 2001, Schneider has never met a communications dead zone he couldn’t bring to life, whether it’s Calumet County or the Aleutian Islands. Filling those gaps in the communications network and bridging the digital divide that separates urban and rural America became Schneider’s reason for being not long after he launched Intelegra, a communications consulting firm, in 2003. Before long, AT&T came calling to fill some of its “white spaces” in Wisconsin. By 2004, Bug Tussel Wireless was born and Schneider was on the fast track to what has quickly become a $20 million-plus company.

One of the first beneficiaries of Bug Tussel’s rural venture in Calumet County was Todd Thiel, president of McKinley Reserve, an international investment firm based in Hilbert – a village of about 1,000 in central Calumet County. Thiel, who moved his business in 2001 from Chicago to his hometown, was so impressed that in 2007 he threw the weight of McKinley Reserve’s vast investment resources behind Schneider’s startup. Together, they formed Hilbert Communications, a company that now has a private stock offering, with more than $23 million already committed and another $4.5 million targeted.

What impressed Thiel most was that he had spent five years trying to get Cingular, AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile to provide adequate cell phone service to Hilbert, with no success until Schneider entered the picture in 2006.

“He had it up in 60 days and I couldn’t be happier,” says Thiel. “I call Steve and his team ‘farm kids’ because I love their work ethic and their creativity. That’s what farm kids do – you just shut up and get the job done.”

That was in stark contrast to his experience with the national and international providers.

“When I moved the business back home to Hilbert, one of the first things I found was that we didn’t have great or even good cellular service,” says Thiel. “Sometimes I would have to stand by the window with my head cocked a certain way to get reception. It was very challenging. I had projects in the Middle East and Europe, and when I traveled I had to have three phones – one for the Middle East, one for Europe and one for the U.S. We needed GSM [Global System for Mobile Communications] service so I could use just one phone wherever I went, and I also needed reliable service. I deal with people of substance and they have certain expectations. I began a massive lobbying effort and it finally looked like it was going to pay off in 2006, but then they told me it wouldn’t happen until 2010. I just came unglued and so the people at AT&T contacted Steve and told him there’s this nut in Hilbert jamming them on this and could he do something about it. And that’s how I got to know Steve.”

Paul Gehl, principal and former president of Lunda Construction and a senior advisor for McKinley Reserve, was also impressed with Schneider’s work – so much so that he became an investor and board member in Hilbert Communications.

“The first thing that attracted me was Steve himself,” says Gehl. “At Lunda Construction, we’ve always talked about investing in people first, and Steve has surrounded himself with top-notch people. I think visionary is a good word to describe Steve, both for the people he chooses to work with and the projects he goes after.  He sees opportunities everywhere and because of that this is a company that’s going to continue to grow and be successful.”

Schneider would be the first to admit that none of this has been part of a well-crafted 10-year plan.

“I would say that just about everything we’ve done has come about by accident,” says Schneider. “Our motto has become ‘see a need, fill a need.’ There were so many areas where there was no service, and so there was a huge need. And then as we’ve gone forward other opportunities arose.”

From the beginning, Schneider’s career in telecommunications was, by his description, accidental. He was casting about for career options when an opportunity arose with Northeast Telephone Company in Pulaski – the precursor to Cellcom. Schneider got the job and then spent the next 11 years helping Cellcom grow its customer base by more than 40 times.

After serving Cellcom as chief operating officer and vice president of wireless services, Schneider left in 2001 to start a communications consulting business, renting office space in the Bellin Building for $80 a month. He had nothing more in mind except to make use of the knowledge and experience he’d gained to advise other communications companies, but fate had other plans for him.

“My first account was Cellcom, helping them divest of some assets in Iowa, but then AT&T came along and said they needed someone to fill in some of their ‘white spaces’ in Wisconsin,” says Schneider. “My intent was to take that idea to some other companies and see if they were interested, but no one was. So, I went back to AT&T and asked if they’d mind if I did it myself. They asked how many towers I had. I said I didn’t have any. They asked how much capital I had. I told them I had some savings. They said, ‘Well, if you can get 10 towers up in Door County within six months, you’ll be our hero.’ Six months later we got it done and that’s how Bug Tussel was born.”

The name, Schneider says, came from a late-night brainstorming session.

“It was just a group of us sitting around one night, trying to come up with a name that described rural areas,” he says. “Someone said, ‘Timbuktu’ and someone else said ‘Middle of Nowhere’ or something like that, and eventually someone said we should use the name of that town the Clampetts came from on “The Beverly Hillbillies” – Bugtussle – so that’s what we went with, only we changed the spelling.”

AT&T gave Schneider more tower projects to work on, “and then finally they said, ‘Why don’t you just do all the white spaces south of Highway 29?’ So we’ve done that.”

Schneider is proud of the fact that a lot of his “towers” are actually existing structures.

“We do erect towers,” he says, “but I am not one to clutter the landscape. Where there are already existing structures that can be utilized, it is both more cost-effective for us and more aesthetically pleasing for the general public to use rooftops, grain elevators, water tanks, silos and any other structure that can provide enough height to get signal into hard-to-get spots. This also helps with zoning, and when we do need to build a tower, municipality and county zoning authorities know that we only build towers if we absolutely have to.”

Along the way, Schneider began buying spectrum rights in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa and Illinois to provide frequencies to transmit cellular service for roughly 4 million potential customers. To protect his investment, Schneider acquired Beaver Dam-based Lightpoint Networks, which included fiber-optic cable from Chicago to Minneapolis, and he began creating fiber-optic rings that would also connect Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac and Wausau. By the end of this year, Schneider says, the fiber ring will include Shawano, Clintonville, Marion, Wausau and Thorp. In the process, Bug Tussel spawned other companies, including Cloud 1, Dakota Wireless, JustKake Investments and Michigan Wireless. SpiraLight Network was created by the acquisition of Lightpoint.

The project to upgrade wireless service in Hilbert was the happy circumstance that has allowed Schneider to expand well beyond what he imagined when he started Intelegra. The partnership with Thiel, Gehl and McKinley Reserve has helped bring Bug Tussel and its offspring under the Hilbert Communications umbrella and provided the deep-pockets investment to fund continued growth.

“When we saw what Steve had done in Hilbert and elsewhere, we saw that there was a tremendous opportunity,” says Thiel. “If I’m this rabid about wanting services in a rural area, there have to be a lot of others, and Steve just needed to be able to bring it all together. That’s the role we have been able to play, to secure the investors, to put together the package so that investors could see the compelling story that we saw.”

Opportunity led Schneider to Adak, Alaska, after Adak Telephone Company contacted Lemko Corp., an Illinois provider of switching and routing equipment, for assistance. Hilbert Communications and Lemko had already formed a partnership, called Node Two Networks LLC, which is now Adak’s link to the world.

Accidents also brought Schneider into the commercial real estate business. With a love for old buildings and needing a high point to position hubs for microwave networks, he formed a corporation to buy the historic Bellin Building in Green Bay in 2006 and the equally historic Zuelke Building in downtown Appleton in 2007. (See “Building on Success” on page 26.) “The wireless microwave then drops into our fiber-optic network for long-haul transport to Chicago, Minneapolis or points beyond,” says Schneider.

Schneider says more opportunities and “accidents” will continue to provide growth for Hilbert Communications, especially with billions of dollars in federal stimulus money available for developing rural broadband communications. His vision for Hilbert Communications is to build on the early growth, eventually developing 3,000 miles of fiber-optic cable, 400 more towers, more spectrum and advancing communications technology, especially in rural communities.

“I grew up in Reif Mills, Wisconsin, where the sign coming into and going out of town is on the same post,” says Schneider.

“Really, it is. All across the Midwest, I see small towns dying because people move to larger communities where amenities such as high-speed Internet are more readily available. I believe that the quality of life in a small town far exceeds that of life in a large urban population base and that by not having a full plate of services in these small communities, we take away their ability to be economically viable. Hilbert Communications is an equalizer – making economic development in communities of 200, 500, 1,000 or 5,000 people just as viable as Milwaukee or Chicago.”

This article appeared on the Insight on Business website – Click here to read the article

The new company, to be called Hilbert Communications LLC, will have significant operations in downtown Green Bay. Thompson, a senior advisor to McKinley, said the new company will be acquiring the equity interests of Bug Tussel Wireless LLC, Spiralight Network, LLC, Intelegra, LLC and several related companies.
According to Thompson, Hilbert Communications intends to grow from 26 employees and $20 million in revenue to several hundred employees and more than $100 million in revenue over the next few years.

McKinley Reserve president, Todd Thiel said, “We have been discussing the rural telecom market for some time and have spent the past year in discussions with the Bug Tussel group.  Bug Tussel’s commitment to the rural market and its management experience make it a desirable target to enter the telecom investment arena.”

Bug Tussel Wireless president Steve Schneider said, “With over 200 wireless sites by the end of the year and close to 1,000 miles of access to fiberoptic facilities, the group of companies is well-positioned to take advantage of synergies and to continue growing the base that has been developed over the past three years.”

Bug Tussel Wireless provides wholesale cellular service to large national carriers such as AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile. Bug Tussel will provide retail wireless, high-speed Internet and other telecom offerings in selected rural markets in the near future.

Thompson said, “McKinley brings together the resources and execution to create a world-class telecommunications company.”

This article can be viewed at biztimes.com

McKinley Reserve and Bug Tussel Wireless recently announced the formation of a new telecommunications company: Hilbert Communications, LLC. The new telecom company will operate in downtown Green Bay and Hilbert, Wisconsin.

The new provider is one of the largest rural telecommunications firms in the country, the two companies said.

Todd Thiel, president of McKinley Reserve, said that the company is entering the rural telecom market with the Bug Tussel group of companies because of its commitment and innovation in the rural telecom markets.

Steve Schneider, president of Bug Tussel Wireless, explained that his company’s short-term plans involve deploying more than 200 wireless sites and close to 1,000 miles of access to fiber-optic facilities by the end of 2007.

Bug Tussel Wireless, which provides wholesale wireless service to large national carriers such as AT&T (News – Alert) Mobility and T-Mobile,  plans to add to its services retail wireless, high-speed Internet and other telecom offerings in select rural markets.

“McKinley Reserve and its family of companies bring together the resources and execution to create a world-class telecommunications company,” said Governor Thompson in a statement.

Thompson continued: “Hilbert Communications is charting exponential growth over the next five to seven years, bringing quality telecom services to un-served and underserved rural markets. The new company will invigorate the local economy with many new jobs and provide long awaited wireless technology to the region.”

McKinley Reserve is a Hilbert, Wisconsin-based private equity firm with interests in a number of diverse worldwide business activities.

Bug Tussel is a Green Bay, Wisconsin-based wireless carrier serving rural Wisconsin.

This article appeared on astricon.net in October 2007 – Click to read the article

Tommy G. Thompson, Senior Advisor to private equity firm McKinley Reserve, former President G.W. Bush cabinet member and long-term governor of Wisconsin, announced the formation of the new company from its Green Bay office.

Hilbert Communications is expected to be one of the largest rural telecommunications firms in the country. “We are entering the rural telecom market with the Bug Tussel group of companies because of its commitment and innovation in the rural telecom markets,” said Todd C. Thiel, president of McKinley Reserve. “The Midwest is the last frontier in connecting people to wireless technologies.”

Steve Schneider, president of Bug Tussel Wireless, added, “Our short-term plans are to have more than 200 wireless sites and close to one-thousand miles of access to fiberoptic facilities by the end of 2007.”

Bug Tussel Wireless provides wholesale wireless service to large national carriers such as AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile. Bug Tussel will be adding to its services retail wireless, high-speed Internet and other telecom offerings in select rural markets.

Governor Thompson added, “McKinley Reserve and its family of companies bring together the resources and execution to create a world-class telecommunications company. Hilbert Communications is charting exponential growth over the next five to seven years, bringing quality telecom services to un-served and underserved rural markets. The new company will invigorate the local economy with many new jobs and provide long awaited wireless technology to the region.”

About McKinley Reserve

McKinley Reserve is a Hilbert, Wisconsin-based private equity firm with interests in a number of diverse worldwide business activities. Its affiliates, Capital Partners FZ, Buena Vista Equities, Prophecy and Divinity, have U.S. and international offices. The companies provide private investment in real estate, privately held companies and private investment partnerships to develop opportunities with potential for the greatest return at acceptable levels of risk.

About Bug Tussel Wireless, LLC

Bug Tussel is a Green Bay, Wisconsin-based wireless carrier serving rural Wisconsin. Bug Tussel has affiliates with spectrum in North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan. Bug Tussel serves as a primary carrier to low-density, rural markets and as a service enhancer for large nationwide providers. Its affiliates include Spiralight Network, Intelegra, Michigan Wireless, Dakota Wireless, and JustKake Investments.

This article appears on MarketWire.com – click here to view the article.

McKinley Reserve is a Hilbert-based private equity firm and Bug Tussel Wireless provides wholesale service to national telecom carriers in Green Bay. Both companies bring valuable experience and a vast knowledge of the telecommunications industry and how to successfully run a business in a rural area.

Former Governor Tommy Thompson and senior adviser for McKinley Reserve made the announcement of the new company atop the Bellin Building in downtown Green Bay where the company’s engineering and  operations will be housed. The building is owned by Steve Schneider who is also the president of Bug  Tussel. Customer service and corporate offices will be based in Hilbert.

“It takes three farm kids to come  with up with a way to figure out how to bring technology to rural America,” said Todd Thiel, chief  executive officer of McKinley Reserve. Thiel, Thompson and Schneider all grew up in rural farming  communities.

Hilbert  Communications will offer wireless, highspeed internet and other telecom services in select rural markets.  The company is looking to have over 600 cell towers within the next two years in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa,  Minnesota and the Dakotas. These new towers will result in up to 200 new employees in the next two to  three years.

This new venture will benefit development initiatives in Calumet County and other rural communities looking to improve their business climate across the Midwest.

This article appeared in the Calumet County Business Trends Newsletter in Fall 2007