Jaden Moneyhun:
Maybe you need a mesh extender or something to boost that Wi-Fi signal to get a more consistent viewing experience. Whether it be while you're watching Netflix and there's buffering, you can go ahead and check the app and see it from there. There's so many features in the Kosciusko Connect app, it almost takes my job because you can see quite a bit and be able to test out a lot of things yourself before you even need to pick up a cell phone and call us.

Andrea Melton:
Welcome to Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect. Kosciusko Connect is a subsidiary of Kosciusko REMC. Since 2021, we have been providing lightning fast, reliable fiber to the home, internet service to rural portions of northern Indiana. On Connected Conversations, we talk about fiber internet, technology, community, and how to navigate the digital world in which we live. I'm your host, Andrea Melton. Thank you for connecting with us today.

Thank you so much for joining us today for Connected Conversations. This is episode two of Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect, and I'm very excited to have Jaden Moneyhun in the studio with me today. Jaden is my coworker. Hi Jaden. How are you?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Hello. I'm good. How about yourself?

Andrea Melton:
Pretty good. Pretty good. Can you tell me, tell us what is your official title here at Kosciusko Connect?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah, of course. So my official title is Fiber Support Specialist.

Andrea Melton:
Awesome. And what does that entail? What do you do?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So for the most part, I deal with the customers of the fiber internet that we provide at Kosciusko Connect. And I answer over the phone of any questions they have or if their internet's out, I'm usually the first guy to call.

Andrea Melton:
Wonderful. So not necessarily the first point of contact if we have a new customer, but anybody who has questions who might be having a problem, they get ahold of you, chances are, when they call us.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yep. Yep.

Andrea Melton:
Great. Well, today we've brought you in. We want to talk about what we mean here at Kosciusko Connect. When we say ultimate Wi-Fi experience, which is a wonderful phrase, but what does that mean? We want to explain that. It's my understanding that when we talk about our ultimate Wi-Fi experience, we're really talking about our hardware. So when we say hardware in the context of what's going on with my home internet, what are we referring to?

Jaden Moneyhun:
That is the router, the GigaSpire BLAST u6, and the mesh extender, which is the U4M.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. So I pretty much know what a router is, but if you were going to dumb it down and just explain, go back to basics. What is the router's role? What does the router do?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So the router is the main central hub where you get all your Wi-Fi. Basically, that is what all your devices are connecting to.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. So what sets specifically the GigaSpire u6 router, what would you say sets it apart from other routers in the market? What makes it special? Why do we have it?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So the main thing that makes it special is that it's running on Wi-Fi 6, which is basically the latest version of Wi-Fi to simplify things, and that is the fastest and most consistent Wi-Fi that we have on the market so far.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. So there are other routers that don't run on the Wi-Fi 6, they're still on the previous.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yep.

Andrea Melton:
Gotcha.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Mm-hmm. There's plenty of routers that are on the Wi-Fi 5 and even previous iterations of that. Another thing that I'll have to explain a bit is that our router runs on dual-band.

Andrea Melton:
Okay, explain that dual-band.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Okay. What that is there are two types of frequency in a router. There's 5.0 gigahertz and 2.4 gigahertz, and think of it like a spring for the frequencies. 5.0 is really short and really fast and like a constricted spring and 2.4, it's like a string stretched out. It goes really far as a long signal, but it's slower. So usually when you're walking further from your router, you can notice, hey, this Wi-Fi is slower, but it's still connected. That's probably because it's on a 2.4. A lot of routers only have one or the other. They usually just have the 2.4 and they're very slow. But with this one, it knows the distance that your device is. So if you're really close, it'll jump you on that 5.0 gigahertz and it will just be able to give you the fastest internet that you can. And if you're further, it'll automatically detect that and let you jump onto the 2.4, which will give you a slower connection, but it'll be consistent.

Andrea Melton:
Right. And longer. When you describe the difference between those, 2.4 is the slinky, the longer... Did you play with the slinky when you were a kid?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrea Melton:
That's what popped into my head. You've got the short stripes springs and then you have one longer like a slinky. Okay, that makes more sense. So the GigaSpire BLAST u6 router, it's the top of the line right now. It does make a difference. And then when we talk about our mesh extender, I've wondered about that. It's self-explanatory, it's an extender, so we're extending that signal or that connection, right? We're making it go further with that extender.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yes.

Andrea Melton:
Is it literally made of mesh?

Jaden Moneyhun:
No.

Andrea Melton:
Why is it called mesh extender? I've been wondering.

Jaden Moneyhun:
So the reason why it's called mesh is because it seamlessly meshes the two networks together where-

Andrea Melton:
Oh, okay.

Jaden Moneyhun:
If you've used a Wi-Fi extender in the past, basically it does nearly the same thing. It boosts a signal, but with that one, it has a second network that shows up that you have to separately connect to. Say you have a network called Johnny One, when you have a Wi-Fi extender, you have to create a whole new network called Johnny Two, and you have to either choose to connect to that one or connect to Johnny One. And it's all right for devices that are stationary, but if you're using something like a phone and you're going back and forth between those two, you're going to have to change your network every time you get closer to either the Wi-Fi extender or the router. With the mesh extender, it basically just boosts the signal on one network. So no matter where you are, it's always just going to show up as John one, and you don't have to do that switching between.

Andrea Melton:
Cool. Okay. So if you take your device, your cell phone, and you travel from inside your house out into the backyard, you're maintaining that constant connection?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yes.

Andrea Melton:
Because of that mesh extender?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah, there's going to be no drop off in connection.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. Awesome. What about other extenders that are on the market? Can customers use third party extenders with our hardware? Is that possible?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah, customers can use third party extenders if they desire. It will connect to our router and they'll be able to use it however they want. If they already have some extenders, they can go ahead and use those. The main drawbacks with using a third party extender would be for repairs and maintenance and support. So with our home mesh extenders, you can give me a call, say your Wi-Fi you think is acting funny, or your Wi-Fi's out or something, you can give me a call, and if you're using the Kosciusko Connect brand mesh extenders, I can go ahead and pull up your account and I can see that you're using that and I can diagnose the best I can and it'll tell me everything that's going on with that mesh extender.

Andrea Melton:
Oh, wow.

Jaden Moneyhun:
With a third party extender, it's usually a bit more hidden. I could see maybe the signal of that mesh, but I can't see the devices that are connected to that mesh extender or if anything's going wrong with it more so, it covers up more what I can see if it's a third party one. Say you buy this mesh extender for however much you want to buy it for. 60, 80, a hundred bucks. If it's third party, if it goes out, it goes out. If you're using one of our mesh extenders, you can just give us a call and say, Hey, my mesh extender's acting wrong, acting funny, and if it is, and we can confirm that, we'll send you out another one free of charge.

Andrea Melton:
Awesome. Well, that seems much more preferable to me to having that reassurance and have that handled on a local level. Sure.

Jaden Moneyhun:
You don't got to find the receipt or the warranty, you don't got to dig through paperwork.

Andrea Melton:
Absolutely. Can our customers just buy one of our mesh extenders outright. Instead of renting, I know we rent out the extenders.

Jaden Moneyhun:
So for right now and into the foreseeable future, I believe it still is renting the mesh extender. I believe that way it fits within our product ecosystem a bit better where we can keep track of what mesh extender you have, and if you want to replace one, it just makes it easier to do so through renting. A nice thing about renting too is that say you get it for a month and for whatever reason you don't like it, well, you can go ahead and send it back and it'll only be that one charge, as opposed to if you go out and buy a $70 extender, if there's no way to return it or anything, then you're just stuck with it.

Andrea Melton:
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So $4,95 a month for the mesh extender, that doesn't seem bad at all, and you have that confidence in knowing that if there's an issue with it, we can take care of that, address that, figure it out, diagnose it immediately almost.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yep. And it can be changed out whether you have it for one year or 20 years, we'll always change it out for you.

Andrea Melton:
Very cool. Very cool. Let's talk about, as we think about this ultimate Wi-Fi experience, a big component of that is our Kosciusko Connect app. It's a very powerful tool for our customers. Can you tell me how does the app help users effectively manage their home network? Can you maybe walk us through some of its key features and functionalities?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah, so the Kosciusko Connect app basically gives you a great bird's eye view of everything that's going on with your network. When you log into the app, right away, you can see the devices connected and everything that's on your network. So if a device is currently running, you can immediately see it and usually see the name of the device that's on there as well as the signal. For other features, there's plenty of them going from changing your Wi-Fi password and the name of your Wi-Fi network to running the speed of your router to other things, even creating guest networks.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. So one of the features, the ability to view and manage all of the devices that are connected. Can you tell me a little bit more about what level of control that offers? What control do you have over these individual devices that, well, we're probably thinking along the lines of that are spread out between your children? What control do you have over them?

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah. So as we all know, kids are using technology more and more today, so sometimes you want to limit them, whether they're trying to play games when they're not supposed to or they need to do their own work and they're on their phone or just getting chores done. What you can do is you can look at separate devices and see if they're being actively used, and if you want to, you can just manually pause that device and it won't be able to connect to the internet at all. Otherwise, if you want a set schedule for that, there's also a feature that allows you to schedule the devices to be paused at certain hours, whether it be, like I said, the bedtime or hours to do homework, or you want to turn the devices on for a certain amount of hours to give your kids some leeway to play video games or other things.

Andrea Melton:
That is very convenient. So if I'm cooking dinner and it's homework time, I don't have to every night remember, oh, now I'm going to pause his phone or his device. It can be on a schedule and happen automatically.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah.

Andrea Melton:
That is wonderful. What a wonderful feature. Okay, so tell me, if you have a child who has multiple devices, they've got a cell phone, they've got a tablet, they've got this and that, how does that work? What functions are there taking that into consideration?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So in the Kosciusko Connect app, you can group devices by different profiles. So say you have two different children, but they have two separate schedules. Well, you can add one child to a profile and have all of his or her devices added onto that one section. That way it'll make it easier if you want to schedule that gaming time or turn off those devices, you can just do it from one click instead of having to go through each and every separate device and turn them on individually.

Andrea Melton:
Okay. And that would make a lot of sense, especially if you have children of varying ages. Your 16-year old is probably going to have a much different schedule and access probably permissions than your nine year old, so very handy. Very cool. Creating a guest Wi-Fi network can be a very valuable option for many of our users. Can you explain how the app enables our customers to set up a guest network and what the benefits of setting up a separate network for your guests are?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So there's plenty of reasons that you could use a guest network for. I'd say the main reason that a lot of people use it for is those security reasons. Say you have somebody in your house that wants to use Wi-Fi, but you're not a hundred percent trusting of them, of whether you want to give them your Wi-Fi password. Right?

Andrea Melton:
Right. Fair enough.

Jaden Moneyhun:
So you create a guest network and you can either just preferably have it a different password than your main one, and they can connect to that and be able to use all the features of the internet, but not be directly connected to your network. That just adds an extra layer of security that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Andrea Melton:
How does the Kosciusko Connect app help customers assess their internet speed and troubleshoot any potential issues they might encounter? I know we have some functions relating to that.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah. So what the Kosciusko Connect app can do is if you find your internet is running a bit slow, what you can do is you can pull up the app and you can go to network and you can find the speed test. And what the speed test will tell you is if your Wi-Fi is running slower than usual and you can go ahead run that speed test, and it'll test the connection and signal and the speeds, and it'll go directly to our servers here providing the most accurate information.

Andrea Melton:
In your experience as a fiber internet support specialist, what are some common challenges customers face with their home networks, and how would our router and app assist in resolving some of those common issues or challenges?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So as a fiber support specialist, the main call I get is people forgetting their Wi-Fi password. It just happens to us all. We got to keep track of so many passwords today.

Andrea Melton:
Very true, very true.

Jaden Moneyhun:
That sometimes you just forget or lose that little piece of paper that you have stuffed somewhere, and Kosciusko Connect app makes it easy as long as you log into that account, you can just go into your network and change the password or the name of your network from there.

Andrea Melton:
Okay.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Other than that, you can also check just the signals if you have a TV or something that is running slow. You can go ahead and check the signal of that TV and see if maybe you need a mesh extender or something to boost that Wi-Fi signal to get a more consistent viewing experience, whether it be while you're watching Netflix and there's buffering, you can go ahead and check the app and see it from there.
There's so many features in the Kosciusko Connect app, it almost takes my job because you can see quite a bit and be able to test out a lot of things yourself before you even need to pick up a cell phone and call us.

Andrea Melton:
Yeah. Do you have any success stories or memorable interactions with a customer where our app or our hardware really just positively impacted someone's internet experience?

Jaden Moneyhun:
We deal with a lot of people getting internet in rural areas, and just that experience. I've heard so many customers say that they've been running on a satellite dish for their internet and fiber internet is so much faster than that and so much more consistent that they're able to do things that they've never been able to consistently do before, which to hear the joy in their voice and the excitement when talking about, it's just happiness in itself.

Andrea Melton:
Very cool. In this day and age, it's just so necessary to have that reliable connection. So many things we try to accomplish in our lives, we need that internet connection to get them done effectively. So it's wonderful to hear that people are sharing those experiences with you and just to know the difference that the fiber internet is making. As technology continues to evolve, how does Kosciusko Connect stay ahead of the curve in terms of offering cutting edge hardware and services to our customers?

Jaden Moneyhun:
So we are always looking for new ways to improve the experience for our customers. Obviously, we don't want them to be unsatisfied with their experience or anything like that, and me and a few others on the IT team are always looking for new solutions, whether that be even newer hardware or updates that we can push through. I feel like at least once a week, we're watching some video or webinar where somebody's explaining the brand new features that can improve people's Wi-Fi experience. So to stay ahead of the curve, we're just keeping notified, keeping tabs on everything and seeing how we can best improve our customer's Wi-Fi experience to get that ultimate Wi-Fi experience that we offer.

Andrea Melton:
Well, I think that we've come to the end of our conversation, and I believe that we've done a good job of exploring what this ultimate Wi-Fi experience means, what it entails, and Jaden, just thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to sit and talk with me today and explain this to me and our customers and anyone listening.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Yeah. Yeah, it's no problem at all. I'm happy to be here. Getting calls from customers, you get to experience everybody's different perspectives and different points of view, and it's just nice to see everybody enjoying their Wi-Fi experience, and I've heard plenty of great things about the service, so it's a pleasure to be able to interact with the customers every day and talk and chat with what's going on with them.

Andrea Melton:
Awesome. Well, that is wonderful to hear. Thank you, Jaden. Have a great rest of your day.

Jaden Moneyhun:
Thank you.

Andrea Melton:
You've been listening to Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect. From all of us at Kosciusko Connect, thank you for connecting with us today.