Inside Scoop | Episode 002

Episode 002 of Inside the Channel introduces our new Inside Scoop segment...your real-time pulse on what’s happening across the channel.

Host Terra Bastolich sits down with Miles Hensel to break down what we’re hearing from partners, vendors, and carriers right now...from acquisition activity and increased carrier investment to recent FCC developments and their impact on the market.

Inside Scoop is designed to capture what’s actually happening across the channel in real time. Our content and topics will be built from conversations with partners, vendors, and carriers. These episodes serve as a regular “state of the market” check-in...highlighting key themes, challenges, and opportunities shaping the industry.

These aren't guest-driven conversations... instead, more of an insider or "voice of the channel" perspective. We’ll break down what we’re hearing most often, what partners are worried about, how vendors are impacting the ecosystem, and the broader strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats impacting the ecosystem. 

Enjoy a quick, insider look at the trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the channel today.

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to episode two of Inside the Channel. This is Inside Scoop, a recurring segment focused on what's actually happening across the channel right now. It's built from real conversations with partners, vendors, and carriers, giving you a clear pulse on the market. Think of it as a regular and timely check-in on the themes, challenges, and opportunities shaping the industry. This isn't guest-driven. It's our perspective from inside the ecosystem. What we're hearing, what partners are navigating, and how the landscape is shifting. The goal is simple: pull back the curtain and give you an honest, real-time view of the channel. So with that, let's kick things off by sending it over to our CMO, Tara Bastilich.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Hey guys, Tara here. Just wanted to come back to you for Inside the Channel. Today we are going to have our first segment of Inside Scoop. And joining me is Miles Hensel. Hello. Of our regional sales uh team here. Miles, you want to give us a quick introduction of you and your role?

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Sure. Well, you might already know me, I would imagine. But uh for everybody back home, my name is Miles Hensel. I am the central regional sales executive that covers Minnesota down through Texas. Uh, I've been here for eight years now, I get wireless, and I've been everywhere from writing your orders for you to uh handling small accounts to now the uh the major account role. So I've been around the block a couple of times.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

We love having Miles here and in the office. He's always a smiling face. I think many of you have probably met him over the years at some of our events. And um always great to have you here as a cheerleader for the Gat Wireless team.

Setting the Stage

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Thank you. That's something I I've tried to be, and I hopefully I'm good at it, you know. But uh thank you very much for that. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

So today we're gonna get to dive in a little bit on topics that we're seeing within the channel community. And so each time we have the segment for inside of the scoop, I'm gonna bring one of our regional sales managers or somebody from the Gat Wireless team to join me and help me bring that pulse to you and what we're kind of hearing. We feel like we're a conduit in the middle of the channel, allowing us to get information and hear kind of the challenges, the things that are happening from our vendors, but also mostly from our channel partners. And we want to uh bring that information to you, um, share it. We're not gonna know the answers to every one of these problems. We're not gonna have great insights in every one of the challenges that may be facing or opportunities that are out there, but we just want to be a communication path and platform for our customers. And so it's great that we've got a lot of partners that are out there talking to our teams like Miles that are feet on the street. We call them boots on the ground, talking to customers. So we're excited to share some of those today.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Yeah, oftentimes I think of my job as the phone switch operator from like, you know, back in the day, you call me, you say, What can I do for you? And I move you over to the right place. A lot of my day is like that, but that's between the customers, the internal resources, and then the vendors and the carriers. I have to know everybody. So exactly what you just said is exactly my day job. It's just knowing everybody or knowing how to get you to somebody who can help. If I don't have the answer, you nailed it for sure.

Acquisition

SPEAKER_01 3:10

It's it's one of those things we've said for a while is we really appreciate being the middle of the channel. And when you're in the middle, you get to see a lot of different pieces of it. Um, so we're gonna jump into the three themes that we found. So, as we've talked to customers throughout this period of time, and we're gonna make this somewhat timely. The idea is that we're gonna do this quite often, maybe every month, every quarter. We're gonna make it timely of what we're seeing in this period of time. And the first one that came up is if you look at the last three to six months, we've seen a major theme around acquisition, which we find very interesting. It has impacted us in our business. It's impacted six of our partners that have come into three larger organizations. Um, and so it's really interesting and exciting. And I know, Miles, you've personally worked with some of these customers. So, what's your take on it?

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Yeah, no, it's uh, I mean, that's just the last three to six months. I mean, we've been, you and I have been at this company for several years, and we've seen it, uh, it's been cyclical over the last couple of years. But uh as far as the ones I've been handling, it's it's interesting. There's there's a few months where, you know, there were some growing pains and getting to getting to know the new systems or whatever that might be. But it's exciting to see the uh the company being acquired by the newer one or the the larger one, so to speak, because they have all these new tools and resources and dollars and people in in positions where they can help uh uh the old company out or the uh acquiring company out, rather, and some of the stuff that they couldn't do before. So it's overall really good. It's just uh it's just a few months of growing pains, and after that, you can see the huge potential that everybody has. But I understand we're having a show on that here pretty soon, right? We are.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

I mean, I think it's um it's a it's probably the largest topic that we've seen as we look at from a distributor talking with our vendors um from our perspective of one of the impacts and themes that we're that we're seeing. And it's really interesting because it we're gonna dive into it a lot more. We've got a segment coming up. We're gonna actually interview some of the partners that have been impacted. We've seen companies like Source and INS, we've seen Simple Innovation Group and Masters Telecom, um, CSG and 5G store is probably the most recent. So again, we're gonna we've asked them to join us on the show.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Sweet.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Um, we're gonna really dig into that uh in the coming episodes and get their perspective because it's really interesting the diversity in the channel community and then what that looks like when they come together.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Well, I know you said there was these are our large partners, but I think it's probably worth noting these are our top 10 partners, everybody that you're kind of just listed out. These are all somewhere in our top 10 on some level or another. So that's that's pretty it's a huge thing that you know it's not just you know our number one buying our number 50, it's you know, our number one buying our, you know, whoever, and so on and so forth. It's it's it's a lot of movement for sure. And we gotta be well positioned to make sure that they're staying with Gay Wireless and they're not, you know, moving their their buying practices somewhere else, you know, once they get acquired, right? That's that's number one thing on my mind. But it's it's gonna be exciting to see what you guys uh uncover on that episode. I'm I'm I'm gonna be a watcher for sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, it's I think it'll be great, especially for our partners that may be considering that. You know, there's always an opportunity to look at what's the next step in your business. A lot of the traditional demographic of the channel partners that we work with are small businesses. They're looking at ways to grow, they're looking at ways to be more efficient. Um, they're looking at areas that may be weak in their business that could be strong for somebody else and how they could they could come together. I think the other piece is that one of the themes that we've had overall with Get Wireless and really in part of the inside the channel is these are some really great people as well. And the people in our channel community get to know each other and they trust each other. And there's a lot of business conversations where they help each other out, and then that leads to something that becomes a little bit more official, right? That has some dollar signs and probably some lawyers. But but there's a lot of times those conversations start because they all know each other in our community.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Yeah, what's the whole saying? It's uh same face, different logo, different polo, whatever, whatever it is. Yes, always. I've only been here for eight years and you've been in the industry for longer than that. And I'm I mean, the number of people I've seen with the same face, different polos, it's it's constant, you know? So you gotta make sure you're always keeping them happy and never burning any bridges because next thing you know, they'll be part of a bigger, you know, company, or you'll see them down the road, right? So a hundred percent important.

Carrier Momentum & Investment

SPEAKER_01 7:31

I think that's that's the key. So we won't go into it too deep because we've got a whole nother segment coming. Um, we'll we'll be dissecting that very much so and having some really great guests and speakers coming on to join us. So tune in for that. Um, the next theme that we'll kind of move into is really this this carrier, carrier momentum that we're seeing. Um, this is really important to me. Um, I as I he am here leaning into our strategy with the carriers and what we're seeing. Um, I find that the carriers in general, I will go on record to say are leaning in more than they ever have. And there's always been this perspective of where sometimes they're saying they're leaning in. And, you know, there is, I don't know that the rubber is hitting the road and we're actually feeling the impacts of it, but I can say all three tier one US operators we work with as a part of our connectivity program and our business development strategy are leaning in. Um, do you feel like you see that with the partners and in the field?

SPEAKER_03 8:34

Yeah, it's interesting. This obviously there's three tier one uh carriers, like you just said. And it's interesting seeing all three of them do the same, or trying to solve the same problem and then their own flavor, right? And so I think since I've been here, since you've been doing the coastal mobility program and everything you've been doing with the carriers, it's just interesting seeing some are trying to emulate others, some are doing it better than others, some are attacking it from a different approach. So it's just uh, I mean, really, I feel like half of my lead source at one point or another starts and ends with the carrier, right? And so I mean, I know you uh adopt that philosophy pretty well. But truly, I mean, anytime I have a partner-led thing, there's a lot, a lot of times it's it's let started with a carrier. And then of course, beyond that, the partners and the VARs and whoever else might be can do obviously has their own lead sources, but most of the big ones almost always have an element with the carriers. So um, just to make sure I heard you right, you said you're gonna have one episode for each of the three coming up?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yep, we will have episodes for each of the carriers that are gonna be joining us. So I think that the prelude coming into um timeliness of this coming out is right before we go into channel partners. Channel partners this year is gonna be, I keep joking, it's kind of the prom of the industry. We've seen a shift from other events that were strategically more important to some vendors and to some wireless, you know, participants and different kinds of organizations, not only distributors, not only channel partners, but um, we see channel partners will be is an indication, again, back to that same structure that we're seeing of the carriers leaning in. Yeah, the carriers are doing more. We never saw that in the past. If you go back 10 years, that was not the case that we saw. Um, and I think we're so we're really excited about it. We think it's been good as we've we've been there for many years and watching this momentum. Um, but we're also now gonna actually sit down with each one of them, um, do a segment. So we will have a segment for each one of those. Um, but I want to circle back to one of the things you said is uh the partners have their perspective on what they're looking for and working with a carrier. And it's interesting because the carriers all have their own strategy. But most recently, we've been able to actually work with all three carriers together and kind of even putting them back to our partner summit. We put them on a panel together where they all came together, and that's something you wouldn't have seen in the past. And this was their idea. And one of the reasons they said is we're all we all have the same goal. We all are here to show our commitment from our executive level down to show that commitment coming into the partners. Um, and they were okay with sharing that stage, like jumping off of each other's messages, working together on building that message into the community.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

And it's very interesting because we all know they're very competitive.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Yeah, absolutely. But but on this on the flip side, if you look at some everything we sell, I don't think we sell a single router and gateway without two sim slots in it, as an example. So while you're not gonna get the first one, you know, that they have a secondary one for a reason. Or if you have a dual radio device, that's two actives, right? Right. And so there's no reason why it can't be an ATT primary deal and Verizon and T Mobile on the back and the second sim, right? Yeah. So to your point on everybody being one big, you know, happy family, while they're competitive, you know, they it's only smart of them to, you know, see themselves as friends too. Because otherwise they're gonna miss out on a bunch more opportunities than they're than they would realize if they're you know putting themselves uh you know as as the only competitor and have to bring them down a peg and everything like that. Instead, with the resellers, they have them all under one umbrella and then look at what do you know, this VR2 Pro or this XR90 or whatever it might be with two radios in it will have uh you know two tier one carriers. So it makes sense to be friends for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Well, and I think they're finally having their same goals in mind and they're setting aside any differences or any competitive third to say this is for the good of the channel community. Um the piece I'll just mention is before, you know, again, we'll get into these sessions and we'll talk with them individually, they'll all share their perspectives. But it's really nice to see that we're getting a lot of executive support because there's always been channel communities at every one of these operators. But this is really resonating with some of the new leadership you're seeing in the tier one operators, which I think is great and it's exciting for me because obviously I believe in it. I've believed in it a long time. Um, we see great success. Any partner that's out there, I encourage you to continue to work and build relationships with the operators. They know where deals are, they can be advocates for deals, they can be also um a problem in a deal. If they don't know you, they don't trust you, they don't trust the product, they don't know the product that we've recommended.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

And you wouldn't believe how much I mean it's constant that people are dealing with these huge projects and then they don't know the the carrier rep that might live, you know, 10 miles away from their own address, right? That are doing that million-dollar thing or you know, the 10,000 piece, whatever. You know, it could be any story for the large ones. It's just it's it is surprising to me that they don't all know each other. You just think they would. And it's easy to assume they would, but it's one of our jobs on our level is to help uh bridge the gap in the event that they don't know them. So it's it's an everyday thing for sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

We're happy. We're happy to make those introductions. So we find that customers can come to us, say, hey, this uh we'd like some introductions, we'd love to do a training with a local carrier team. There's lots of opportunities. So we'd love to encourage people to reach out to you or anybody on our team.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

What was the stat last year? I forgot. You guys did what 50 plus, or no, you get more than that for for on-site visits with the carriers. What was it 200?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, we did hundreds of on-site visits and like lunch and learns. Um, we did a lot of top golf. There's lots of great ways to engage with the carriers. So we encourage everybody to do that, and we're happy to be involved in that. But we're also, it's also great to see the channel community that builds those relationships on their own.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yeah, I would say that's something for my territory. As I just as a um a slice of the story, I need to be doing better about that, is getting your team engaged as far as getting my my resellers and integrators into those doors as well. So we're all doing the same activities on different levels, might as well just you know attack it from one place. So it makes sense.

Regulatory & Market Shifts

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Absolutely. So we look forward to hearing more from them. If you're gonna be at channel partners, I encourage you to stop by and see us because we will be there. But also, there's a bunch of sessions. All of the tier one operators, I believe, have a main spot on the stage. They will be talking and addressing the channel community. I think it's a great opportunity. If you're looking to sit down with one of them, we also can facilitate that. Um, we're gonna transition into another theme. I think as we reached out to the community and said, what's one of the biggest newsworthy things that you're hearing? Um, we got numerous uh references back to this FCC notification um that has to do with devices. In particular, as we know, Get Wireless's product line is focused around modems, routers, and gateways. So we took a quick look at this, obviously, a very um, as did a lot of our vendors. I'm assuming most most of our listeners have probably heard something about that if they're in the channel. But I'll recoup and then I um kind of what that said. So there was an FCC released statement on March 23rd of 2026. Um, the executive branch determined and noted that there are that foreign-produced routers, one, introduce a supply chain vulnerability that could disrupt the US economy, critical infrastructure, and national defense. Second, pose a severe cybersecurity risk that can be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt US critical infrastructure and directly from you directly harm US persons. Really, this comes down to I wanted to read it directly because there's a lot of people that summarize it. And I don't feel that I'm qualified to summarize that as my perspective on it.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Comment on it. We don't, we're not the whole year.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

We're not gonna comment on it. We're not gonna get political. The the idea here is to just to talk about a couple of the key pieces, and then I just want to have a little bit of a discussion of how we feel this impacts our partners. The piece here is really around they talk about the cyber threat, and then they talk about the other key thing is just supply chain. And I think there's you know, validity in both. There's some areas of of um, I think information that maybe isn't, you know, that isn't known or or or really addressed or identified yet.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Um, and then I'll just clarify too for the listeners that you know the FCC is impact, they have what they call a covered list. This is the list of communication equipment and services that are deemed to pose an unacceptable risk. So they update that list. So I want to always clarify what that means. To me, a covered list sounds like a good thing, not a bad thing. Yeah. As a marketer, and a I feel like that's an unacceptable term. It's a weird, it's a weird term to me. So I just want to say that to our listeners, but I'll kind of um stop there. And what was your perspective on it, Miles?

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Well, okay, that day was a bit of a shock. Because I mean, I don't know if anybody in our industry was expecting a uh a news story like that directly impacting everything that we could potentially be selling, right? So naturally, the um, you know, I sent off my articles to some some key people, and then next thing I know, I'm starting to get, you know, emails left and right about from customers, you know, rightfully so, that are concerned. But uh, I spent a good, shoot, I want to say four hours that day reading through the FCC site, news articles, watching what I can. And uh, I mean, uh you already touched on it. Our our our top, everything we sell, rather, is not gonna be impacted by that. Uh, that was those are some soft statements that I believe everybody has come back with. I'm not sure if there's gonna be any kind of PR blast saying that, but uh we're we're able to at least say that uh with confidence that nothing we sell is consumer graded, right? Which should not be impacted here. Now, the other thing is, you know, we don't know what's next. So all we can do is roll with the punches, but everything that I we can learn and and we have research and everything like that looks like we're okay. Right. But on the flip side, I wanted to, I would, you know, while this could be a negative to think about, I wanted to think about it more in a positive light. Because again, you know, being limited on selling different things on paper looks like a negative. But then I started thinking about it. You know, if this consumer grade stuff starts to become less available, if you can't go to like Best Buy and find some of the stuff you might get for your house, you can buy things that we we sell on our level and through a reseller that we sell to, right? So a lot of the stuff is you know enterprise and and uh you know, maybe prosumer or so on grade. Yeah. It's not going to be banned through what I can tell is being banned from the FCC. Right. So that could be a huge potential for all of our all of our you know listeners and and and current customers is I think this is you know huge potential for us if if you can't buy you know home home router of any kind.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Again, I don't know what that's gonna look like in the in the stores, but at a minimum, some if somebody's freaking out, we'll have you know, we have a warehouse full of stuff, our resellers have plenty of of their own uh stuff as well. So I it could be good. Yeah, I just don't know. I just don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

I don't think we know yet. I think the the key facts, and we'll just kind of go back to that a little bit, is is kind of what Miles said. There's this line between consumer grade routers and enterprise grade routers.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

It's pretty big.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

And it's the line is really fat, really great. Nobody knows, you know, again, it it it it became more relevant recently. We've always talked about it because we've seen opportunities where we've seen enterprise customers putting a consumer grade product into something. I mean, I'll go back to the perfect example is USB sticks and squad cars. Like that makes no sense to me, right? USB stick.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Oh, there's a and again, I don't want to butcher the stat. It's 40 to 60 percent of squad cars still use USB sticks. That's today, 2026 numbers. That's unbelievable. It's it's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

It's horrible, to be honest. Like it's horrible. And I think that's what we're so that's the interesting piece, and I think that's the thing that people need to understand. And when you hear statements like routers were put on the FCC, like that's not true. The the difference is that there is a difference between consumer grade products, those products. I think that line is clear. And then there's the difference between what's going to happen now going forward. Because just to clarify for anybody, so we don't go on record incorrectly, right? Existing routers are completely not impacted.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

If you're buying it, no matter country of origin, it's not impacted unless it was on it's it's new devices hitting the market, right? It's the new devices. So additionally, so just to clarify too, those devices will have software and firmware updates through they've got one year, could be longer.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yeah, also I was gonna say that's gonna be in my mind when this the whole thing maybe starts becoming more relevant. I think it's March 31st of 2027, is the first like uh tranche of dates for this this firmware. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

They're seeing that support level date. So, and that they said they said already that there's a possibility, so there could be an extension, but that is relevant. Customers that are managing their devices out in the field, they're doing firmware updates, they're doing for us to look into it. Yeah, that's gonna put a little bit of a timeline on this situation that I think none of us know at this point. Um, for enterprise. Price and cellular routers, customer equipment from companies like PepLink, SemTech, Digi, these customers that we know, obviously, SemTech, um, PepLink key brands in our portfolio. Um, they already hold FCC equipment. Again, there's no challenges to that.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

Um by the way, uh you already know this, but for our audience, a lot of our stuff goes into you know the three-letter agencies, state, local government. These things aren't just like going into a house, into a basement. They're going into somewhere that's you know, mission critical connectivity. And so I think it's pretty, pretty important to say that. And the other thing I was gonna say too is most of our lines, if not all of them, even after the device's end of life, there's firmware and security updates for at least five years on most of them. So, you know, while this is hitting this one-year security firmware update situations going on for the consumer line, if they were to upgrade into something that we do sell, most of our lines do have, you know, a five-year after-end of sale guarantee. So all I have to say is the stuff we sell is is secure today and it will be secure for years to come, which is good to know.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Well, and I think this is part of the supply chain challenges that we see overall, which is protecting supply chain, which I think a lot of this has got a political or negative connotation on it because of the foreign policies and whatever that has to do with it.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

And we're rolling with the punches every time.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

It's really, yeah, but it's really not about that. It's about supply chain and making sure we can get the technology too. Um, and that's one of the things that I've encouraged customers, whether it's an OEM customer or it's a channel partner servicing an end user of some sort in SB enterprise, public sector, anything, think about the vendors you're working with. Think about, regardless of their country of origin, this is not about that. This is about just looking at the validity of those companies, being able to have supply chain that is going to be accessible, that's gonna be long-term, that's gonna be managed, that's gonna have that uh backing behind it because there's companies that come and go. And regardless of what this does, could impact them very negatively. But also they could just be a negative partner to you if you can't get product.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Yep. So it doesn't matter how how good the engineers are, how good the sales guys are, if you can't implement the the thing they're trying to sell, it doesn't mat matter, right? So which is where we come in most of the time for supply chain assistance, but it's unknown. Every other day is some something new going on, it feels like. And that's been going on since COVID at least. But it's it's uh keeps our job pretty interesting, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:33

For sure. So you think we'll continue to talk about this topic? My guess is it'll probably end up on another another segment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

I see three months from now. Once once they I think there's a three-month approval um uh span span of time for the for the governments. I th I I think three months from now we'll start seeing a better picture of what's the market's gonna react to it. Right. But again, hopefully in that three months, if some if there's some retail issues and you the you know get wireless in our community is gonna be set up pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, that was the last point I just wanted to make is we we've kind of looked at as we talk to the community what partners should be paying attention to. And I think we've told them just keep a pulse on it. Don't freak out. Nobody needs to be super upset, nobody needs to be super concerned.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Read your headlines, is what I would say. Because I mean that's that's how we learn about things, at least on the on the starting block. And just make sure you're informed in the news. Yeah. It would hurt to it would hurt to have a customer come up to you and ask you a question you've never even heard of as far as the concept going. So just read your headlines and be up to date in the news.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

And then I think the other piece is just be mindful of the devices that you're that you're working with, the vendors you're working with. But I would be even more mindful of the devices you're waiting for, right? When you're waiting for that next generation, they said, well, this next generation, the 2.0 of something, is currently gonna be going through certification. Um that that might be a challenge. That might have a longer timeline than expected. This could impact new devices getting certified, whether um that is a product that's currently in development and going through certification soon, or maybe is still six months to a year or two down the road. Yeah. Keep that in mind. And then, as Miles mentioned, it's a great opportunity to talk to SMB customers. Um, talk to them about the consumer-based products that they're they're using, especially you can see that overlap happens in that smaller consumer or like a I would say even SMB market where they may have been using more of a consumer-grade product and now we want to switch.

Supply Chain Shifts

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Well, 5,000 feet and under, I mean, you can pretty much run anything in there, right? So, yeah, those are probably the buildings I would look at right away. If they have something that they're questioning, then you know, I would say call get wireless and we'll get you into it in front of a rep as far at our you know, our our bars or call a VAR and they can loop us in. There's plenty of opportunity out there. And it's just I mean, I'm excited to see what comes out of it for uh for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Yeah, we'll keep everybody posted. So we're gonna transition. Each one of these uh inside scoop sessions will just kind of go through those those themes just like we did now. Um we'll also mention just different things that we're seeing for what's impacting the partners today. We feel like we have a good pulse of it. Do we know everything? But um we're seeing some different impacts and pressures that are happening inside of the um channel community. Um, one of them I know is always supply chain. So I'm gonna throw that one over to you because I don't write orders every day.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Well, that one's even, you know, that one has a layered topic in my mind because right now the IoT market's going through this chipset, chipset issue as far as uh the memory components are concerned. And the reason why this is an issue is because, unless you haven't heard out there, it's it's the hyperscalers with AI, it's these very large technology shops that are taking over like the memory of all things, basically, is a very simple way to putting it. So what we're seeing right now is is to your point, is but behind just getting equipment to produce equipment, right? So getting components to produce equipment is now the finished goods is taking longer and longer. I mean, we've heard from I've heard somewhere, you know, we're seeing some companies that are going from an average of 12-week lead times for our lead time on the distribution level up to 20 weeks now. I've heard, I've heard before that, I mean, that that's probably one of the softer ones, but I've I've heard upwards of 56 weeks on some stuff, and then and then beyond that a year and a half. So again, I I would I'll take this, I'll take 20 weeks as a much better lead time than a year or a year and a half. But this this is a real deal. Um, the other thing I wanted to talk about with this chip shortage, as far as the memory is concerned, is I was I always I really did think that people were gonna be upset and and and burning down houses because of how much prices are gonna go up. But the good what I found once we kind of went through some of these um exercises with our partners is it's the opposite. The end users seem to be pretty well informed. And so whenever we had to tell our partners that prices were going up, and they told the end customers, it wasn't that much of a surprise. And I thought, frankly, we were gonna be pulling in orders throughout the entire year for every customer, you know, under our Rolodex. And the reality of it is we pulled in some for sure to get ahead of this price increases, but like it's really it wasn't that big of a uh dramatic thing, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, I was getting ready for it to be a whole lot worse than it was, and it really wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Nobody ever likes to pay more. No, but it's good when we have an educated community. Yeah, we have a good amount of resellers that can explain it. Um, there's awareness that's always starts with awareness, always helps people make less of a reaction to things.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Yeah. The biggest thing there is just getting people prepped. I mean, if you're if the line that you sell to your partner isn't currently being impacted, it's just worth you know being cautious just in case something happens. Worst case scenario, you're bringing that product, you know, eight months ahead of time. But uh beyond that, I would say the real worst case scenario as far as the beyond the um the news of the information to the customer is if you don't know what's going on and they don't know what's going on, you're no longer the trusted advisor.

unknown 29:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Right. I think that's the worst case scenario. Same thing with us. I mean, we only know what we what we know from our sources, but if we if I don't know the information or how to get it, then people stop trusting us. So I think that's the hardest thing to get back beyond any of this other stuff. That trust is impossible to get back, once you lose it once.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

And that's something we communicate to our vendors because again, that being the middle of the channel, we have a responsibility to the partners that buy from us and that are our customers every day. So we work with our vendors and we really do. We we poke them hard and we ask for good communication and we build really strong relationships with the vendors that we have. So then they feel confident to communicate to us, or at least so we can communicate to our channel partners like very quickly. We can be uh over-communicative, I would say, in some cases. And that's different than you would see in like a broadline distributor where they have too many lines to have a great relationship to truly know. And we never get our information from some sort of a bulletin from our vendors, right? We have a great relationship, we have an a straight line to their product teams. We know what's going on, we're aware, we're communicating, they're communicating, we're communicating downstream. So I think that's the key too is you're looking at your vendors you're working with. Yeah, and the distributor partner you're using.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

Yeah, I mean, I know as far as it's something I can always work on, but the oversharing thing is something one of my claims to fame for myself. And again, there's a plot uh politics to it to make sure you're you're being PC and all that. And I I do I do my best, but I do find that partners really adhere to knowing more, even if it's too much information sometimes. And so again, I just I started adopting that philosophy a long time ago, and I just I share what I know, and people will seem to like it for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

So yeah, well, we don't have to you don't have to be the expert, you just share what you know. I think that kind of um transitions us into the kind of the key things that we heard, right? We've heard about the price increases, we've heard about some of these disruptions in supply chain. Um, we've heard about that being pr primarily because of some of this chip shortages. Um, there's still some tariff-related things out there, right? That's that comes and goes. Um, we've seen some manufacturing relocation based on things like tariffs or other situations. So again, just kind of being mindful of that. When you have a vendor that maybe transitions their manufacturing, there could be a downtime. It could be good for you, it could be bad for you, depending on what it is. Um, we're definitely seeing, you know, our market here is we really primarily service North America. So I think the market we're seeing is um, you know, how does the US and Canada work together? Um, and have we were seeing some good, I would say positive things happening with the way that we're able to get better supply chain for Canadian vendors coming into the US, vice versa.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Yeah, it's been a lot more involved than I would have ever thought whenever this whole thing got started. I get wireless. And and we do a lot of things behind the scenes that customers will never see. But do you want do you want to talk about some of the one of the highlights with the uh the warehouse up here?

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah. So I think that's a good, a good plug for us is we were able to, in this, in this last uh six months, put in an actual warehouse. Um we have a team in Canada, something that's that's been monumental to us. Some might say that's you know, that's a pretty simple task, but we found that we really did this because the customers are asking and we're pretty proud of it. We're excited to be able to help service that market more quickly, um, be able to service that that group of customers differently, because not every reseller is the same, not every country operates the same, not every reseller operates the same. We also have a great relationship with all three operators in Canada now, which has been a huge push by part of my team. Um, we're really excited about as well.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Yeah. Um, it's it's interesting learn learning how the Canada's uh goes to mark goes to market differently than the United States. We're very var heavy and reseller heavy here, and they're very much carrier-driven up there. And then resellers go in through the carriers, right? But it's 100% carrier. While here it's just it's just a little more diluted. Uh it's just it's interesting. And then beyond all that, you know, talk about tariffs. I mean, having having equipment in you know, in country for Canada is nice. Not having to do you know all these different extra fees for for the partners up there, I know it was a big, a big one. And and then it's it seems like I'm hearing something new every single week or month that we're trying to get accomplished for for the Canada market. But it's interesting seeing it, you know, 18 months later, three two years later. It's becoming more and more mature, which is nice.

Government Sector Opportunity

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Yeah, we're excited about it. So if we have those tuning in, we'd love to have our Canadian team talk with you. Uh, they're doing a great job, and we're really excited about it. Um, I think we'll continue to we're gonna be doing some more events up there. We'll be putting more and more inventory. We've got a lot of great vendors up there. The last one I'll just mention, and I think it wouldn't be a get wireless segment if we didn't talk a little bit about government and public sector, because it's the largest market that we service. So, one of the things we've seen is overall the kind of the perspective that the partners are giving us is some softness in the government market. And I always want to start with facts. And there's a really good report that I would encourage anybody to look at, which is Forrester just put out a report actually in February. Um, that's the US government tech market report. So if you Google it, you'll you'll find it. So that was Forester? Forrester, yep. So the analyst company Forrester put that out. So again, very reputable organization, reputable report. Um, but the outlook, you know, coming in out of 2025 is about a 4% year-over-year growth. And it's about 12% of the US tech spending. So again, we're feeling some softness. I think that's legitimate. Um, I know our business is feeling it. Our government team, and we've got a government program, everything like that is feeling a little bit of softness, but I think the outlook is still there's a great amount of opportunity here and a good amount of growth. It's not gonna be the blow the doors off opportunity, but our team is more poised. And I think the channel partners that we have are the right kind of partners that can get 4% or more.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Yeah. Well, last year was an interesting year. I mean, for not to go anywhere near the politics uh topic, but you know, we didn't have a department that was implemented last year to reduce spending in government. And I think that took a while of last year. And I I saw several deals myself get impacted by that. And so that was last year. And I I'm starting to see the opposite happening this year. I'm starting to see big deals have taken years and years to close. I have, you know, state and federal spending and budget for it, they're starting to hit. I'm starting to see a lot of things starting to hit right now. So I don't know what this year's gonna look like as far as percentage growth across that industry, but as far as Team Central goes, which I think is a pretty good uh emblematic view of Get Wireless on the channel side, uh, things are looking really, really good. Like better than I could have predicted. Like some of the best months or the slowest months of the year is February, for example. And that was one of my best months of the whole time I've been at Get Wireless. Yeah. And I'm just saying that just out loud for just to exemplify that it things are starting to hit as far as big deals. And I think uh our our partner community should be excited for this year for sure.

Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, and I think that is the the key theme that we're seeing. We're we're still very excited about the growth and what's out there. We've got some great programs. I think we'll do another session specific to the government topic as we kind of roll things through because there's a lot of interest and there's a lot to know. There are challenges, there are red tape, there's lots of things that impact how those deals get done. But 12% of US tech spending, I mean, that's a great opportunity for all of us. And I think we want to work as much as we can with partners. I think this also dovetails really quickly back into the one of the themes we've seen with the uh carriers leaning in. We're seeing a tremendous amount of growth within the carrier communities around their network specifically for public sector and what they're doing, their investments, what their belief is on the opportunity and how they can help and service those types of opportunities. So stay tuned. We'll be doing more on that. Um, before we wrap up, any other last words you want to share before we uh adjourn for today?

SPEAKER_03 38:15

Well, no, I want to say thank you for your time on the on the show. This is exciting. This is what uh one of my favorite things that we're doing right now. Um, excited for channel partners to see everybody uh listening in right now to come see us at the booth or come schedule me for happy hour drinks or whatever it might be uh meetings as well. Um, but no, this is a good time. I appreciate everything you're doing here, Tara. And and uh, of course, behind the mic and behind the camera back there, Mr. Cody. Uh this is very exciting for sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yeah, we're excited. We'll actually be coming live from channel partners. If you have any topics you'd love to see, we'd love to hear from you. We'll be doing more of these inside scoop sessions, bringing different guests on, talking about those topics, trying to keep that pulse. So if anybody has anything they'd love to share, uh you know how to find me. And uh thank you for joining me today, Miles.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

Looking forward to the second one. Uh, maybe in a year from now, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Sounds good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

Thanks, Dara.