the telecommunications associations headquartered in washington, this week we are joined by shirley bloomfield, the head of the ntca. she is here to talk about some of the legislative and policy issues her association faces. what is the ntca, first of all? >> the ntca is a national trade association. we represent 900 small, local providers that are in pretty much every state in this country. basicvide what used to be telephone service. they are now broadband providers. they have also become the one- stop shop service providers for immunity's. they do video, wireless, data centers, whatever technologies their communities require. we resent their interests here in washington, d.c. >> who are some of your members? >> we have everywhere from the largest cooperative in the telecommunications cooperative in south carolina with 100,000 subscribers, to numerous small companies, family-hell, locally owned. that have 400 or 500 subscribers a piece. if you looked at the map of the united states, we serve about 40% of the landmass but about 5% of the kinds -- customer base. when you think about here in wa

shirley bloomfield is with the organization and sub two is with "communications daily," a reporter. ms. bloomfield aren't the economies of scale against smaller members? >> guest: it is not easy. i will say again when you're putting that plant in it's tough to do it when you have a small population base you are building out towards. however think there are couple of things we are seeing in the last few years that has really helped in terms of scope and scale. my folks are realizing their a lot of symmetries they get from working together in different business areas. one the of the initiatives i find very exciting is 30 states. my carriers have come together and build state fiber network so they all have become honors as you will of their own state fiber network in the state fiber networks are doing an amazing job with doing back call for large wireless carriers for connecting a lot of large institutions and they are able to kind of share that network not only in their in-service territory but then share the revenues they want to generate five being it was great that scope and scale

shirley bloomfield is the head of that organization. matthew schwartz is with "communications daily," a reporter. ms. bloomfield, aren't the economies of scale against your smaller members anymore? >> guest: it is not easy. i will say that, you know, again, when you're putting that plant in, you know, it's tough to do it when you've got a small population base that you're bulling out towards. however -- building out towards. however, there's a couple of things that i think has really helped in terms of scope and scale. some of it my folks are kind of realizing there's a lot of synergies they can get from working together in different business areas. so one of the initiatives that i find very, very exciting is in about 30 states. my carriers have come together and built state fiber networks. so they all become owners, as you will, of their own state fiber network. and these state fiber networks are doing an amazing job of doing backhaul for the large wireless carriers, for connecting a lot of large institutions, and they're a able to kin

the telecommunications associations headquartered in washington, this week we are joined by shirley bloomfield, the head of the ntca. she is here to talk about some of the legislative and policy issues her association faces. what is the ntca, first of all? >> the ntca is a national trade association. we represent 900 small, local