An interview with Nick Kett co-owner of Broadbandforspain (Rebeloak S.L.)
Nick, tell us a little about yourself and your business?
In simple terms we provide internet and telephone connections to homes and businesses that can’t have or would prefer not to use a traditional telephone line from Telefonica. I’ve been providing telecommunications in difficult to reach locations for most of my adult life. Everything from Oil production platforms in the North Sea, Internet cafés in remote African villages, to gas terminals in Siberia. So coming to Spain just 5 years ago, there was yet another challenge; connect the Spanish Campo! I’m very lucky to have Julie as both my wife and business partner, Whilst I can take care of all the technical aspects, Julie is an excellent administrator, she manages both the financial and legal side of things. We work together very closely when there is a challenge we just get stuck in to whatever needs doing . Take last Sunday, we spent the day together putting up new shelving in the stock room, ready for an imminent delivery, it had to be done, together we did it.
What’s the best part of your work?
When we connect customers in a locations that can’t be reached any other way. For example we recently connected Acebuchal, the “lost” village had never had a telephone, let alone high-speed internet access, you can’t even get a mobile phone signal there. Sometimes we connect a customer who has been using a slow internet connection from another provider; I like to watch their face when their e-mail just floods in. It still amazes me that you can pick up a little bit of plastic and talk to your friends and relations anywhere on the planet. I know how it works, that’s my job, but it still amazes me!
What is the worst thing that has happened?
Two years ago we had a mast struck by lightening, it wasn’t the cost of the damage, but the inconvenience to our customers, many individuals and businesses rely on our services, and I hate it if we ever let people down. Luckily we always have spare parts in stock, and a technical friend volunteered to help us with the rebuild (thanks Neil), so we were back online within 24 hours.
Looks like business is going well for you, what are your future plans?
We reached our original targets in terms of customer numbers last summer, at that time we considered calling a halt to future growth. However prospective customers just kept calling and I just can’t say no. Our main concern was our ability to cope with ever more customers, however by subcontracting the installation work and upgrading network capacity (It’s an ongoing process), We are now getting even better at what we do. On a week day we typically have 5 people working on the business, the additional human resources and capacity brings benefits to both new and existing customers, Bigger is Better. When a customer has a problem we resolve 95% of these issues within 1 working day, and 85% In less than two working hours. I don’t expect that we will stray far from our core products (internet & telephone), but we do have some exciting new products in the pipeline that will add additional value to our current services. We believe in only doing what we can do well, so we like to own and operate all of the systems we use, that takes a lot more effort than simply reselling an existing service. We have recently opened the showroom in Competa and the feedback from both new and existing customers has been excellent. It seems people like dealing with a local business that has a real public face. We look forward to welcoming both new and existing customers there.
