Big River Communications riding the wave of tech change for two decades

Kevin Cantwell and Jerry Howe, the president and the C.E.O. of Big River Communications, respectively, say no one could have predicted the evolution of technology since they bought LDD Inc. — a long-distance telephone provider with dial-up internet service headquartered in Cape Girardeau — 20 years ago Tuesday.

Kevin Cantwell, Big River Communications president

"For example, Netflix was a mail rental DVD service when we started and now it's the largest entertainment provider in the world. Uber, whose rides you can summon by a telephone app, launched in 2010, and is now a multibillion-dollar company," Cantwell said.

"You can't tell in advance about the impact of technology on society," added Howe, who said Big River's "elegant solutions" branding is focused solely on the customer.

"We want to offer problem-solving that is easy for people to deal with, and by 'elegant,' we mean simple."

Cantwell echoed his longtime partner's explanation.

"Our slogan used to be 'real people, real service, real simple,' and we want to offer seamless solutions to businesses and individuals without the overwhelming jargon of words often found in tech."

Cantwell said when LDD was purchased in 2001, the privately-held company — then known as Big River Telephone — had 30 employees.

"Today we have 94 employees with revenues of about $150 million," he said.

Latest venture

Big River has launched a subsidiary, Circle Fiber, which aims to bring high-speed fiber optic communications to Cape Girardeau County — and soon, also to Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

"We just passed 1,000 residential (Circle) subscribers in Jackson, and the pace has been faster than we expected," according to Cantwell, who said Circle is also deployed in the City of Cape Girardeau.

Chris Foeste, who is Circle's vice president, said fiber optic is the future.

"It's truly about bandwidth capacity; it's about transmission speed and fiber is at the speed of light rather than a traditional copper-based or coaxial cable network," he said.

"The average home has 20, 25, 30 devices accessing data and you don't want to see your system buffering all the time because your bandwidth is too narrow," Cantwell said.

"You want a platform able to handle the capacity of running your garage door opener, your computer, your smart watch, your Echo Dot, your front door 'Ring' system and more. Fiber is about the ability to deliver data with the necessary bandwidth."

More information

Those interested in Jackson and Cape Girardeau may go online at www.circlefiber.com and enter their addresses.

"You'll be put into a zone which will tell you when the build-out of the network will begin in your area if it hasn't already," Cantwell said.

Reflection

"I look back at the last 20 years and one of the key things in the success of our company are the people who live and work locally in the communities we serve," Cantwell said, who added Big River has hired Southeast Missouri State University graduates.

"They're a compliment to our region," he noted.

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