Bill DeMuth, CTO of SureWest Communications (NasdaqGM: SURW) will retire from the company on June 30 after 34 years with the service provider once known as the Roseville Telephone Company.
While Verizon may get all of the credit for pushing out Fiber to the Home (FTTH) via FiOS, when new chapters are added to telecom history books, one of the biggest contributions that DeMuth will be remembered for is his pioneering work in helping to build one of the first IP-based FTTH networks. This FTTH network became a foundation for it to deliver not only HDTV over IP, but also symmetrical 50 Mbps data service.
In addition to his technical feats at SureWest, DeMuth served on the United States Telecom Association's engineering committee, a member of the Board of Directors for ATIS (a technical planning and standards development organization) and a member of the Board of Directors for Placer County's Kids First. But perhaps DeMuth's biggest feat was that he managed to stay at the same company for 34 years--an anomaly in an industry where executives are constantly shifting from one opportunity to the next.
Of course, SureWest is not immune to the challenging economic and land loss realities that many independent ILECs have faced in recent years. However, as the economy recovers SureWest could leverage the foundation DeMuth and his team built to realize new forms of residential, business and wholesale revenue.
For more:
- see the release here
- Connected Planet also has this article
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