Think Outside the Box with 5G Solutions (EP 795)

Steve Copeland Stereo Mix-auphonic
[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv back, continuing with day one at ASCII Edge in Orlando. And we just finished a break, so it might be a little noisy for a while until we get people cleared out and stuff, but I'm here with Steve Copeland, and you've heard his name many times before because Rhythms is my internet sponsor, why I'm out on the road with the internet in a box. Steve, how are you?

[Steve Copeland]
I'm good, how are you? I haven't seen you for a while. This is the first time I think, no, we did see each other.

[Uncle Marv]
No, it's the first time in 2025.

[Steve Copeland]
2025. God, I miss your face.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, but I've had your box out on the road. You've seen it. It was back here in Orlando for Zero Trust.

Yeah. It was up north for the Florida Man Games. I saw that.

I was laughing about it. It was great. And what's funny is I've already met two people here that were there.

Okay, good. And for some reason didn't come up and say hello to me.

[Steve Copeland]
Did you win?

[Uncle Marv]
I mean, did I win? No, I was there covering.

[Steve Copeland]
Oh, I just wanted to make, I just wanted to see.

[Uncle Marv]
It's a team event. You've got to register. Yeah.

There were like teams that got turned away. Okay. And then they actually, one team pulled out, and they actually drafted a team from the crowd to participate.

[Steve Copeland]
That is awesome. That sounds like it's right up my alley.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, you would enjoy it there. All of your costumes. Oh, I should have shown you a picture before we got started.

We'll talk about it afterwards. As we go on. But let's do this, because first we'll talk about rhythms just to get people understanding.

The people that are here or that see me at events, they see that it is a box. Yep. I have the box open, so they can see that it's set up with a router and everything.

They can do both wired and Wi-Fi. So tell us a little bit about, you know, more of what you're doing and any changes, you know, since you started here.

[Steve Copeland]
So we've got a couple different new models that are coming out. Pay as you go. We've got a cheaper piece that's coming.

But it's literally 5G internet modems in a box. We combined three of them. They're multi-carrier.

We are now going hardware agnostic. Oh. So we're not just going to be, we have hardware in there from Peplink, but now we're going to be with Cradlepoint.

We're doing a bunch of different work with that. And some of the other 5G modem pieces. We're making a big splash in the TECOM industry and making a big splash in the event industry.

So when we work with MSPs, it was just on stage talking about it. We do QBRs. We want to work with you.

We teach you how to sell it. Like that Florida Man game thing is perfect for that. And when I do my presentation tomorrow, the guys who do these 5G events are charging $1,700 a day.

Right. Each box. So it's really a new play for MSPs, and it leads.

We've got partners that are now leading in different things. We've got one guy who's great. And I love to learn from our partners.

I was an MSP, if you guys don't know that. The people that do know me know that. We're doing an MSP again.

But one of the cool things is he goes, I just started sponsoring the Chamber of Commerce events with the Wi-Fi.

[Uncle Marv]
And I went, oh, my God, that's brilliant. So you mentioned that because the first thing is when people look at it is, okay, what am I going to do with it? It's just going to sit in my office until I need it.

Well, if you position it right, you can become the Internet sponsor or the Internet provider for all those local events. That makes sense. But for most MSPs, they're going to have to think outside of the box.

[Steve Copeland]
Yeah, you do. And I just mentioned this up there too. Altadena, I don't know if you know this, there's a little fire in L.A. So we did, with one of our partners, we did a whole big piece where we brought the entire library back up, which I didn't know libraries were that important. They are. If you don't have Internet in an area, you go to the library. You go to the library, yeah.

So they're using it. They love what we're doing with it. And that's become a fun, multiple different piece that we're doing.

But also the coolest part is going out to, like, the Chamber of Commerce. The thinking outside of the box to bring in and using it as a lead referral to your MSP is one of the coolest things. And we've been around for a year now.

So it's fun.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Most MSPs think of this as more of a backup Internet. So if something goes down and stuff like that, and I just had somebody, and I'm not going to throw their name out, but I'll mention that they said, well, we have Starlink boxes.

Because they can turn those on and off. They can have the customer sign up for the account, use it for the 30 days or whatever, and then turn it off and it goes back on the shelf. And they don't use it.

And they don't get charged for it when it's not in use.

[Steve Copeland]
So we just came up with that. So now we have that with 5G. We also do Starlink.

We're a Starlink authorized partner. But Starlink, the biggest problem is the technical problem. It's upload.

It's not the download. It's upload. It's the same thing.

You're always going to have a problem with satellites because the upload stinks. So we came up with that. We've made it so it's cheap for our partners to do it.

It's a per gig thing. It goes on and off. It's our own SIM cards, multiple different networks.

The biggest piece with that is using AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile gives you the ability to do it. I think you're on a T-Mobile or a Verizon card. So here we can use different technologies and we bond it together.

That same technology is on the ability to turn it on, turn it off. There's a cost for the box. I think it's like $130 for a rental piece.

You can bring it right out and turn it back on. Now it's got some bandwidth limits because we had to because we can't do it that way. But we can watch the bandwidth and warn you.

I'm like, hey, you're going to hit. We have extra SIMs in there. We either need to turn these on or we need to turn them off.

So it works out that same way. It's the same thing as you would get the 50 gig plan from Starlink. Same kind of moment.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. I'm going to go off board here. Let's go.

First I'm going to show you the picture.

[Steve Copeland]
Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing.

[Uncle Marv]
I'll put a link to the picture in here. I'm showing him the picture of the Shrunk 3D character. And he walked around all day in this monkey suit.

[Steve Copeland]
Dude, that is hot. I know how hot that suit is.

[Uncle Marv]
It was hilarious. That's awesome. So this is your second year technically in business.

Yes. And you are attempting to dominate the Ascii Edge scene for the year. Is that an accurate statement?

[Steve Copeland]
I don't know. I think, you know, year one, we started. I had an idea.

And with that idea, we wanted to make sure that we worked with our partners. We worked with you. We worked with other people I knew.

And we were like, hey, this would be really great if we just listened to what people are doing with it. And then by doing that year one, we didn't really start sales until Boston, I think. And I just listened and kind of learned from it.

And I think if more vendors did that, that would be great. But even when you're as an MSP, learning from your clients is important, right? So when we did that and worked with that, I think that's starting to kick in now.

And as that's starting to kick in, we're starting to see that MSP grasp. And we won some medals. It was interesting.

I think it was also because it's my home crowd. Like if I'm in Costa Mesa, I know every MSP there.

[Uncle Marv]
We'll see. We'll see. So you may not get that same count here in Orlando.

[Steve Copeland]
I think we're different. Like I walk on stage, the first thing I say is, all right, I'm here.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, you are different, Michael.

[Steve Copeland]
Let's just call it what it is, okay? I'm a little special in a lot of ways. But I do walk on and I go, hey, I'm going to have you replacing your entire MSP tech stack.

And you're going to do this. And then I get a laugh. And I think it's fun.

We're new. It's different. But to our side of it, from the telecom side, we're very big in there.

We're doing a lot of different pieces with Sandler Partners, Telarus, and a bunch of different sites. Our biggest new piece, though, is to bring that into the MSP side. And I think my biggest issue, and I've said this to you privately, I've said this on stage.

I'm trying to show you how to make money with things you're already getting blamed for. The first call you get, the Internet goes down. They're calling you.

They're not calling Cox. They're not calling this. They don't blame some weird fat-fingered guy at Cox Communications or AT&T messing up a router somewhere.

They're blaming you. So how do you make it so that they don't?

[Uncle Marv]
Or they call their provider, which happens a lot down in my area. They call Comcast. And Comcast is like, well, we can get to our device, so it must be you.

Which, of course, means it must be us.

[Steve Copeland]
Yes, exactly. And the first thing they do is they throw it on you. I've been there.

I get it. It's a horrible spot to be in. So what if you can eliminate that?

And our big piece when we're talking is I go, you know, wouldn't it be great if you get to call them up and go, hey, your Internet's going to be slower. It's Comcast. But I've still got you up.

And the response back is, our Internet's not that. It's fine. No, no, it's going to be a little slower.

Just turn off Netflix. Like, hey, stop streaming Spotify for a minute, right? And that's where a lot of our partners are really winning more business.

We give out proof of concepts. You know, I'm an ASCII event, so I'm going to say this. As an ASCII member, you get six 14-day proof of concepts.

They're absolutely free. Six? Six.

Okay. In a year. Next year it resets.

That's a big outline for you, isn't it? Yeah, because it's zero cost. I ship it to you, and I provide the box back.

The people that are using it are members that have really jumped into that. 85% close rate for them. Nice.

I've had 15% of the boxes come back, which I'm not worried about. All right.

[Uncle Marv]
So, we'll have to talk more later. Okay.

[Steve Copeland]
I literally just watched Marv's wheels start spinning. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, I'm looking at my box, and I'm like, okay, I've been carrying this thing around. So I need to look at some opportunities there for my clients.

[Steve Copeland]
I think it's going to be fun. And one of the things I just talked about is we do QBRs with our clients. I'm going to do them with you.

Okay. So I'm going to book myself for the next year. We're going to plan it out.

We're going to do QBRs with each one of our partners.

[Uncle Marv]
Do you tone yourself down enough to come into some of my law firms?

[Steve Copeland]
Yeah. Yeah. I actually do well in law firms.

Really? Yeah. Nice.

I actually do very well in law firms. That was one of our verticals. We had a bunch of after-car market.

I had West Coast Customs, Coast Airbrush. I had a bunch of after-car stuff. It was funny when I had the MSP.

I went after stuff that interested me. I didn't care what vertical. I was like, you know what?

I really like cars. I'm going to go after car guys. And I just did.

And then it worked. And then, hey, I'm going to go after law firms. So I was pre-med at Penn State, which means I had a law degree.

I'm just kidding. It's a joke from Animal House.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm sitting here thinking, okay, first of all, I don't believe pre-med.

[Steve Copeland]
I was pre-law, actually. So, yeah, Penn State, I was pre-law.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Steve Copeland]
I've worked for a couple different companies. One of my people is that.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm going to make a note of that because that sounds like a story for another time. Yeah. And I want to dig into that.

[Steve Copeland]
We could do that, yeah, personally. I was involved with law firms. Not in the way you would think, Marvin.

[Uncle Marv]
Not in the back seat? Is that what you said? I was in the front seat.

We will definitely talk about that. All right. So you've got the ASCII benefit.

So definitely have people look into that. Be able to get six 14-day proof of concepts.

[Steve Copeland]
Light paper shipping there and back.

[Uncle Marv]
That is awesome. And now that you've got some more capacity stuff that you're doing, the bonded carriers. We'll have to check my box because, you know, full disclosure, I have had some issues.

And I've reached out to you. Sometimes they got fixed right away. But sometimes I think it's location.

I was stuck in a bunker.

[Steve Copeland]
There is. If you're in a bad spot and we just don't have 5G, we can upgrade some of that stuff. So there's some cool stuff.

Oh, do you want an exclusive? Yes. You want a really cool exclusive?

Yes, please. I cannot fully name what we're doing.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, that's not an exclusive then.

[Steve Copeland]
It is to a degree. So one of the companies we work with is a vodka company. If you guys didn't know, if you've been to an event, you will.

Okay. Yeah, you will know because I bring it with me. But one of the cool things that we're doing is that vodka company is involved with Formula One racing.

Nice. There's also Formula Drift, Formula This. There's a bunch of different things.

So one of those things that I mentioned, we may become the official media sponsor of some of these events. I will be working with our partners because we do not sell direct. But I will be working with my partners to bring that in.

[Uncle Marv]
So can I get the Florida territory?

[Steve Copeland]
You know, it's going to be a little hot contested territory. But you know, maybe we bring a couple of partners to do that.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. We'll have to chat about that too. All right.

So when will that be official? Are we close or in the works? Probably Saturday.

Okay. We're real close. So by the time you hear this, folks, it will have been announced and I'll have to come back.

[Steve Copeland]
Yeah. Hopefully. Oh, my gosh.

It really was.

[Uncle Marv]
It'll be cool.

[Steve Copeland]
I'll tell you off mic, not camera.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So sweet. There you go, folks.

Rhythms. And spelled not the way you would think it is. R-Y-T-H-M-Z.

[Steve Copeland]
Yes. I was cool and tried R-Y-T-H-M-Z.com. I was cool and tried to do the uber spelled wrong thing.

But really it wasn't. Yeah, I was drinking and I spelled it wrong by accident.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Steve Copeland from Rhythms, an official Internet sponsor of the IT Business Podcast. Thank you for hanging out here.

We'll see you tonight at the partner dinner.

[Steve Copeland]
Absolutely. Thank you. We're taking everybody.

If you become a partner, we take you to good places. We're going to go to McDonald's.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Big Mac City.

[Steve Copeland]
All right.

[Uncle Marv]
Thanks, Steve. Later, folks. See you soon.

Holla.