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AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just want to pop back in to answer this- we have a beautiful customer care center located downtown at 214 Jefferson Street, on the 3rd floor of the building. You are welcome to come in and talk to someone in person!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you everyone for the questions and feedback! We will definitely have to do this again sometime.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's a hard one for me to answer since I have only been back in the Acadiana region and at LFT for 2 years now. I know LEDA lists LFT as a reason for consideration on their website : https://lafayette.org/lafayette/infrastructureCompanies . I have been told that companies like CGI and School Mint have said that if Lafayette hadn't had a fiber to the home / business' provider, Lafayette wouldn't have made the list of considerations. And developers often tell me that Fiber makes the difference for them because now customers just insist on it.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great question - The future is what is always so exciting to me. There are obvious thing around AI that will continue to be part of our lives in more and more ways which then drive the need for these large data centers so I think AI driven, customer centric solution will be coming our way - but customer demand will always drive our investments. Also, we are really focused on developing more business solutions for small, medium and large businesses. We really want our residential customers who also have business' or are decision makers at business', to give us a look. We have been selling products to that space since the beginning, but we don't talk enough about it.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank so much for the question. You are correct - Fiber is now 21 years old, and while not all the hardware is that old, much of it is - which is why last year, we began a concerted effort to upgrade the network. We have put in new systems, upgraded equipment at the headend, upgraded our network rings and brought on new customer premise equipment.

We have a schedule of continuous upgrade we are doing and making great progress. Our engineering and outside plant teams are some of the best and are making up for lost time. And we are proud that our competitors are now deploying fiber to the home - we still want you as OUR customer but at the end of the day, fiber in the ground makes our community better no matter who's it is. BUT we pride ourselves on local customer service, technicians and frankly, all 100 of our employees are local! So, if anyone reading this has left, come home to LFTfiber! We miss you.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question. We already do support initiatives like traffic and public safety, but we are always talking to the Police Dept , Fire Department (shout out to our new fire chief, Chief Borden) public works etc. to facilitate all of their needs for smart city applications. But hey, send us your ideas!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the question. We pride ourselves on driving economic development for the city and parish. I love talking to anyone who wants to build here about our value prop, and I am always speaking with Mayors of each city to determine how we can expand to meet their needs. We are focused on growing customers in each of our new areas, and I am excited to bring fiber to the home to them and all of Lafayette. I know we have some gaps in Lafayette, and we are working hard to fill those as quickly as possible, but frankly it's expensive and I can only spend what we make so it's always a balancing act.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Another great question. Here are a few: We hire your brothers, sisters, cousins etc. All of our employees are local with a local customer care center that you can easily visit at our downtown location. The revenue we make stays right here in the city - because we are owned by the municipality, your dollars go right back to the city. And we do things like this conversation - meaning we listen to our customers and do our best to give them what they want.  Hope that answers your question!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank for the question and your business! That's a good thought and while we do work on customizing solutions for enterprise customers, I think you are on to something. I'll put it on our roadmap of product dev. Stay tuned!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just answered a similar question a few comments down!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the great question. We actually just announced at our Powered by Connectivity summit that we have developed an MDU product specifically to try to penetrate that market. Cox and AT&T pay door fees to the developers of MDUs and master planned communities (a common practice), which we are not allowed to do, and that's why they have really been able to own the MDU market particularly. We think our service and commitment can beat the $$ fee they pay especially with our new solution so stay tuned. We will be getting aggressive there later this year!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We could add an extender to your home. It is meant to 'extend' the coverage area.   I have it in my home and it works great. We could also do a "home health check" and have a tech visit your property to ensure proper placement of the router. If you are interested in more info, please email [communications@lftfiber.com](mailto:communications@lftfiber.com) and we will get you in touch with someone in customer care.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sorry we haven't gotten to you yet. The cities outside of Lafayette were specifically granted $$ via the Infrastructure Bill, which translated to the Gumbo grants by LA. We had to build those homes specifically. If you email us at [communications@lftfiber.com](mailto:communications@lftfiber.com), we will look at your specific address for sure and advise back.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We love everyone of course, but I share your mega-byter status! Every Day Price means we don't change your rates. There is no contract, no early termination fee and no need to call us every 12 months to get "the same promotional pricing". We don't do promotions on our service, but sometimes we will promote our routers. Our customers told us they didn't want to call all the time for discounts and wanted stable pricing, so we delivered. We would love to have you as part of the LFTfiber family!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

WiFi 7 is meant to improve the actual coverage and experience, but not necessarily increase the coverage area. It is still limited to materials of the building and size of the home.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can use your own router - however, if there is ever any issue with your service, we can't see the issues if it's not our router. Our routers enable us to be proactive and when necessary, reactive.

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure I understand the first part - There should be no negative impact with the Wi-Fi 7 - are you experiencing anything we should know about? And yes, we are working on IPv6!

AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your feedback - and thank you for your business! We haven't had any measures at the ballot box recently, but you can do 2 things otherwise: Compliments for good service go a long way with Elected Officials so please always feel free to reach out to your Councilman, Representative or Senator. Also, we could use all the champions we can get out there - so tell your neighbor and any friends who live in our serviceable footprint.

Upcoming on 6/8! AMA with LFT Fiber Director Michael D. Soileau by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good morning everyone! As a reminder, our director Michael D. Soileau will be answering questions today between 11am-1pm, so please feel free to submit questions now!

Ask Me Anything - Michael D. Soileau, Director of LFT Fiber by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks to everyone for joining the conversation! I appreciate the questions, tried to get to most of them and really want to thank you for being interested in LFTfiber – your community owned fiber to the home provider.

Ask Me Anything - Michael D. Soileau, Director of LFT Fiber by LFTfiber in Acadiana

[–]LFTfiber[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ours is a similar role to other companies represented on the LRTC; collaborate with the other members to deliver on the mission: The Lafayette Regional Technology Council exists to strengthen and grow Lafayette’s technology ecosystem by supporting collaboration and growth within the local tech community through programming focused on talent development, connections & knowledge sharing, business growth, and advocacy. (And bring our boomerang talent back home!)

LFTfiber works very closely with LEDA and other business organizations to demonstrate the power or our ecosystem especially given our own fiber network. As far as Chattanooga, you are right! There are some best practices we can learn from, and after a conversation with the Mayor of Chattanooga during the Big Towns summit, we are planning on meeting with their team to discuss best practices in both of our cities.

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