Recently NOVOS FiBER publicized itself with an announcement that Arlington, Texas, will soon have a new broadband provider.
In an interview with Telecompetitor, NOVOS founder and CEO Andrew Snead shared that NOVOS will be investing “at least $20 million” in Arlington, making it NOVOS’ second service market in Texas but the first to be publicly announced.
“Our strategy is simple,” Snead told Telecompetitor, “We’re looking to bridge the gap between communities that have high-speed fiber broadband and those who don’t.”
NOVOS FiBER was founded in 2022, funded by InLight Capital, a private investment firm based in Sugar Land, Texas.
Snead explained that NOVOS has already been hard at work constructing its Arlington network for service to begin rolling out to customers beginning this month and reaching a total of 5,000 residents by the end of Q1, 2024.
It’s worth noting that the company isn’t the only one investing in Texas broadband. Another company that is deploying fiber there is Ezee Fiber.
According to NOVOS, there’s been a lot of interest in the pre-registration process on their website where they are offering three levels of service: 300 Mbps for $59.99, 1 Gbps for $79.99, and 2.5 Gbps for $114.99.
NOVOS Fiber is entering both the retail and wholesale markets and plans to serve a “significant number” of homes over the next two years. First focusing on Texas, NOVOS will eventually expand beyond state lines.
When speaking with Snead, it’s clear that he and the company have a strong conviction to go against the grain of the “internet service is primarily a utility” mentality.
“You need to think about the end-to-end experience which pure utility players don’t tend to do,” said Snead. “You can alienate your customer base, because they look at internet service as a technology investment versus utilities like water and electricity. If we completely commoditize internet service without regard for the entire experience, we’re missing how customers view internet and creating frustration.”
NOVOS plans to emphasize the experience as much as the internet technology itself. Some of the tenets of this strategy include avoiding jargon, hidden fees and contracts, as well as being completely transparent.
More significantly, Snead explained that NOVOS FiBER will stress the importance of the customer by making sure installers take the time to ensure their customers feel comfortable with the installation and even help connect multiple devices to the new network, show how to navigate and configure the router application, and answer questions about streaming options.
“Right now, internet service is almost a ‘grudge’ purchase,” added Snead. “We want our customers to enjoy not only our service but interacting with us. What we’re doing is fun and will make peoples’ lives better. I want to be wearing a NOVOS branded shirt or in a NOVOS truck and have people come up to me and tell me that they love what we do.”
