As RiverStreet evolves with the changing telecom landscape , RiverStreet Networks ’ CTO tells us about the company ’ s digital transformation journey

R iverStreet Networks was established in 1951 to create access to telephone services in rural North Carolina . The Communications Act of 1934 ensured that having access to a telephone is an inalienable right , leading to companies and cooperatives being subsidized to build telephone infrastructure . “ Our mission at the time , although we didn ’ t know it , was to serve the unserved ,” says Jody Call , the firm ’ s Chief Technology Officer ( CTO ). Until 2014 , the company had around 10,000 customers . This changed when the government began reducing subsidies due to a lack of access lines as a result of the proliferation of mobile devices . “ We had a lot of attrition of our access lines and our company was growing as more of a broadband provider . We had overbuilt our entire network in our cooperative footprint of about 10,000 customers with gigabit fiber to the home , and we had pretty much captured the market here – so we started expanding outside of the county ,” he adds .