CenturyLink, based out of Monroe, LA, has been consistently working hard to help both residential and business customers stay connected. The argument could be made that all internet service providers (ISPs) do this. That is, after all, their main job. Because an ISP who doesn’t keep their customers connected will not be around for long. Despite this, there are still the okay, the good, and the exceptional ISPs. The difference between the ISPs who are exceptional, and those who aren’t, is not defined by awards. Sure, awards are nice. And it’s easy to point to them and say “we won that because we did X really well.” In fact, CenturyLink earned Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Excellence Award for 2018. And earned their Top Hybrid Service Provider in the Asia-Pacific region for the fourth year in a row. And that’s just naming the awards won for this year. But it’s not about the awards. The mark of a good ISP is when they can deliver this service without anyone noticing. In the ISP industry, as with many others, customers are quick to point out when things go wrong. Even if it’s a minor detail, there is always that “one” customer who will make a fuss about it. This is where the bulk of customer complaints/reviews come from. While these are helpful in deducing quality, they’re to be taken with a grain of salt. Reviews are usually written by someone who’s upset and wants to vent about it. As the old saying goes “You only notice it when it goes wrong.”

When It’s Obvious

Think of a college football game. There’s the team you’re rooting for, most likely your alma mater. If not your alma mater, then you’re most likely rooting for the team that’s playing against your most hated rivals. Anyway, there are the offensive players, charging up and down the field as they work to score points. And then there are the defensive players. These guys are tasked with keeping the other team from scoring points as well. They battle each other on the field, scoring, intercepting, kicking, and this is where the main action is. Throughout all of this, what’s the one thing in the background you can count on? The marching band. Each team brings their band with them to play the school fight song, covers of current pop hits, and other tunes to get the crowd involved. These bands work hard to do this every week. And these efforts usually go unnoticed. That is until someone makes a mistake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFB7y5j8UWc

When It’s Not

CenturyLink is the band that’s not making mistakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_oZOiUwBM Go Warhawks! On a side note; I would have highlighted Texas A&M’s Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band. Not because it’s my alma mater, but because many of my in-laws went there. To keep peace in the family, I root for them when it’s appropriate. In this instance, however, priorities are different.

Back to CenturyLink…

CenturyLink, just like the Warhawk Band, consistently helping the team out on the field. And during halftime, they get to show off their stuff. But the “marching band” metaphor can only go so far. CenturyLink is not only working and earning awards for it, but they’re also helping their local communities. Back in June, they held a campaign benefiting Fight Hunger. By the end of the campaign, they’d raised over $2.4 Million for Fight Hunger. Beyond that, they helped during Hurricane Florence. CenturyLink offered free Emergency Call Forward to its North Carolina customers during the event. This service allows customers to forward calls to their wireless number to an alternate number. It’s a “just-in-case” plan for when residents need to evacuate or can’t get service to let their families know what’s happening. They may never use it, but it’s nice to have it for peace of mind. And CenturyLink provided this service for free.

By the Numbers

With a presence in 39 states and 7,339 zip codes, CenturyLink is one of the top ten largest ISPs in the nation. They’re working to expand that presence, hence, the recent merger with Level 3. CenturyLink is also expanding overseas. They have a presence in other countries and are looking to reach out into more. But let’s focus on just the United States for now. CenturyLink provides internet, cable, and voice services through three technologies. What they’re best known for is their DSL service, which is consistently ranked as one of the best in the nation. When it comes to fiber, CenturyLink has fiber connections in fifteen states, offering Gigabit Download speeds. Lastly, CenturyLink also offers fixed wireless. This service is available to both rural and urban customers. It’s a good option for those who don’t want a DSL connection, fiber is unavailable, and don’t want to go with satellite. Check out the best internet deals to find out CenturyLink’s availability in your area. The common complaint with ISPs is their speeds “as fast as” marketing. This means that the speed they’re advertising is not always the speed you get. When it comes to CenturyLink, they’re ranked in the top 60 ISPs when it comes to speed during peak hours. Peak hours are generally between 5 pm and 10 pm. This is when Netflix notices higher than average downloads through their service. They monitor each provider to see how fast they’re downloading during these times and post the results online. For CenturyLink, from August 2017 to August 2018, they averaged 3.31 Mbps for both their fiber and DSL services. This is a good score.

Businesses

On top of earning awards from Frost & Sullivan, CenturyLink was also named the top ethernet carrier in the US for 2017 by Vertical Systems Group. It was the first year that a network provider other than AT&T won the award. Thanks to a merger with Level 3, CenturyLink was able to vault from fifth in 2016 to first in 2017. By working with Level 3’s established connections and adding their own grit to the equation, CenturyLink came first over all. To earn this award, Century Link offers a wide range of business solutions to customers. Services like Networking, Hybrid IT & Cloud, UCaaS, Managed & IT Services, as well as security. For those small to medium-sized businesses, CenturyLink is a smart option. With an established ISP like CenturyLink providing a wide range of services, newer companies are in good hands as they work to grow.

Connect with CenturyLink

Even if you’re not a marching band fanatic, the fact remains- CenturyLink is working hard to help both residential and business customers.

It is impressive, however, how drum corps’ work to choreograph and orchestrate these halftime shows. To do so takes a lot of time and effort to perfect the routine. Marching bands showcase this skill with yearly competitions, giving them an opportunity to shine. It’s too bad they don’t get as much attention as football does. CenturyLink, while not a marching band, is working hard to make multiple pieces move and work together with little or no issues involved. It’s not easy, nor should it be. And to earn awards means that someone’s watching. So if you’re in the market for a new ISP, be it for your home or your business, check out CenturyLink. It’ll be worth your time.

The University of Texas at San Antonio announced an expansion to their cybersecurity and data sciences programs. This creates opportunity for outliers.

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) recently announced an expansion of their cybersecurity and data sciences programs. This ambitious project is aimed at fulfilling a need in the future- qualified cybersecurity specialists and data scientists. The University of Texas Board of Regents approved a $70 million investment in the program. Graham Weston, founder of Rackspace and a San Antonio-area investor, has also contributed $15 million. This new center will be creating thousands, possibly millions, of career opportunities in the cybersecurity industry. There is another opportunity, albeit indirectly, that UTSA is creating. An opportunity for an outlier.

Outliers

Back in 2011, Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the bestselling "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking", published "Outliers: The Story of Success". In "Outliers", Gladwell argues that successful people, though hardworking, were uniquely positioned in history to take advantage of a new opportunity.

NHL All-Stars

Within the first chapter, Gladwell breaks down the rosters of the NHL All-Star Team. These are the players who consistently outperform their teammates and rivals, the best-of-the-best. And Gladwell points out a commonality among most of them- their birthdays. Most of the NHL All-Stars have birthdays that fall within the first three months of the year. The reason for this is junior hockey leagues have the age cutoff on January 1^st. All players born during that year end up on teams competing against each other. Gladwell points out that players of the same age are not all the same. Those born in January, February, and March will have a slight age advantage. Thanks to their early births, they develop a little bit more than those born in the latter part of the year. Thanks to this slight age advantage, these players perform just a little bit better than the rest. And when it comes time to pick the players to join the traveling teams, these are the ones who most likely make the cut. Thanks to this slight advantage, they find themselves on a team with dedicating coaching. Now the slight advantage becomes a more noticeable one. This doesn’t mean all NHL All-Stars are born between January and March. There are still All-Stars whose birthdays fall between April and December. Gladwell’s simply pointing out that they’re in the minority here. These players who have a slight advantage were able to turn into an even bigger one when the right opportunity came along. Gladwell goes on to identify other outliers who followed a similar path.

Bill Gates

Thanks to his enrollment in a private school, Bill Gates had access to technology few others had- the computer. He was part of a coding club at the time, and they were given a computer to work on during club meetings. They also were given a block of coding time at General Electric Computers. Thanks to this computer and the coding time, Gates and his fellow club members found coding interesting and fun. By learning to code at a young age, Gates already had a firm handle on the topic when he reached Harvard. When his friend Paul Allen approached him with a business idea, Gates seized on the opportunity. This would eventually lead to Microsoft and Gates status as creator of the personal computer. There was an opportunity and Gates jumped on it. At the time, coding wasn’t a well-known hobby, at least, not for kids. For Gates to have experience at such a young age, Gladwell marked him as an outlier. The remainder of Outliers is full of examples of people, or groups of people, who fit into a strange criterion identified by Gladwell. This set of criteria is mostly hindsight. Because who would know that computers would be such a hit? Or that coding would become so important? There is one thing Gladwell keeps circling back to- seizing opportunities.

What’s UTSA Doing?

The University of Texas at San Antonio has been aggressively expanding their programs and working to establish themselves as a top-tier school in the United States. On September 6^th, UTSA announced plans to expand their cybersecurity and data science programs, as well as create two new facilities; The National Security Collaboration Center (NSCC), and the School of Data Science. A new facility will house these two new schools. This new facility will be part of an ongoing plan to expand UTSA’s campus in downtown San Antonio. According to Sean Attwood, the Senior Director of Workforce Management for SA Works, the new center will fill a widening gap in the cybersecurity industry. As the tech sector grows, there’s a need for more and more qualified specialists in this field. Some sources state that by 2019 there will be two million jobs in this field without qualified candidates to fill them. UTSA’s expansion will go a long way in filling that need.

The Silicon Valley of Cybersecurity and Data Science

The creation of the NSCC is only part of San Antonio’s potential. As more and more cybersecurity and data science jobs are required, UTSA is going to need to fill the classrooms first before they can offer qualified applicants. But plans are already in place to fill that need. UTSA, as well as school districts in and around San Antonio, has launched initiatives to help students get a jump start on the learning curve. Schools already have coding classes and specialized programs to promote interest in this growing field. A common practice among area schools is for students to pick a specific career track. Based on their choice, students will receive focused instruction for their chosen career path. Getting students to think about this choice earlier is part of a larger initiative to create quality enrollment for colleges. Especially UTSA. With quality enrollment, students are more likely to enter a field related to their degree. Thanks to these initiatives and efforts, San Antonio is poised to be the cybersecurity capital of the nation. The city already has the second largest concentration of cybersecurity and defense professionals after Washington DC and UTSA is first when comes to cybersecurity education.

Further Advantages

Having the 24^th and 25^th Air Force Wings within the city limits is also a huge plus. The 24^th Wing concerns itself with the global cyberspace capabilities of the Air Force, specifically, cybersecurity. The 25^th Wing of the Air Force provides security throughout the Air Force overall. With these two wings stationed in San Antonio, there’s an above-average number of trained professionals in cybersecurity, as well as data sciences, in that area. As a result, there is an abundance of cybersecurity companies and consultancy firms with headquarters here. According to Attwood, over 90% of those companies are working on government contracts. What about the commercial side? When commercial companies catch on to this, San Antonio will explode with potential.

Providing an Opportunity

As cyber security and data sciences grow in importance, the stage is set for another Bill Gates-like entrepreneur to rise in the ranks. It’s likely this person (could be either a woman or a man) has already been born and is in grade school right now. As they grow and see the need for innovations in cybersecurity, they’ll most likely think up the next big thing. One more point Gladwell made in his book- timing. Gates, NHL All-Stars, and other successful people were typically born at the right time to take advantage of a new opportunity. If they were born too early, they're following the “old ways." If they were born too late, they're too young to take advantage. The timing had to be just right. As UTSA builds the NSCC and expands their Data Sciences department, don't be surprised when an outlier appears. And it may not be one, but five, ten, possibly a hundred outliers who come through the San Antonio area and end up changing how we see cybersecurity and data sciences. Check out what’s happening with UTSA and the San Antonio area by getting the best internet deals. You can also find and download Gladwell’s Outliers to learn more about the opportunities that could lead to success and monumental change.

Are the Emmy's Relevant Anymore?

Ties