well, we represent the telephone companies in the united states of america from the very biggest -- seizen, at&t -- to some of the very smallest. and what we try to do is really get together as a group, put together ideas so that we can really take care of our consumers in a better way. >> host: so when you talk about the small telephone companies, how many are there out here in the united states now? >> guest: there's thousands of telephone companies in the u.s. still, and so there's been plenty of consolidation, but there's still a lot of very small telephone companies. we have from verizon to small companies that are co-ops even involved in united states telephone association today. so still many different business issues as a part of that. we all try to work together to really solve common issues. that's what the whole purpose of the association is. >> host: and we want to get into some of those policy issues in just a minute, but first of all, what is windstream? >> guest: windstream is a wonderful company. i may be bias inside that review, but we're a mainly focused in rural america.