The C.E.O. of Sioux Falls based SDN Communications has been honored by a telecommunications trade magazine.

Mark Shlanta was named a “progressive rural network evolutionary” by the magazine “OSP.”

Shlanta says they started the company seventeen years ago as a switch for telephone calls…

 

The company now has one hundred eighty five employees and over thirty thousand miles of high speed fiber optic cable in their data network.

Shlanta used “Netflix” as an example of growing digital traffic…

 

Shlanta says the prospect of “net neutrality” rules from the FCC are not a big concern, but does say telecommunication laws need to be updated to allow companies like his to grow…

 

SDN is owned by seventeen of South Dakotas independent telephone companies. Their fiber network now reaches into parts of seven states.