[00:00:00] Speaker A: On this month's episode of the Local Click, we welcome some eye care specialists to the program. We have Hunter and David Fouch with Fouch Eyecare. And then another employee from DTC will be stopping by to visit with us, and that's Miss Mindy Griffith. So stay tuned. Learn more about fun local events and interesting people throughout the heart of Middle Tennessee. With a dash of everyday tech talk thrown in for good measure, the Local Click starts now.
Welcome to the Local Clique. The Local Clique is the technology based podcast brought to you by DTC Communications each and every month, where we talk all things technology and local people. And with me as always, I know you guys are excited to see him. He's excited to be with you. Mr. Justin Malden. Hello, Justin. How's it going today?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: It is going very, very, very well. How are you doing, Nick?
[00:00:53] Speaker A: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Can you believe we're already into the first quarter of 2026? March is here.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Time flies by and I think the older you get, the faster time goes.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Take it from an old man, there's some truth to that.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: I wasn't gonna say anything about your age on this episode.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: He always thinks it.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: He always.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: He would have eventually. I just beat him to it.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Okay, maybe later. Maybe later we'll talk about it.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: I understand. It's okay.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: Hold up there, son.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Listen, sometimes you just give me layups that are easy to take.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
It would be your fault if you ignored that.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah. But, hey, March is here and that means we're getting close to springtime.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. That's right. Spring is basically just around the corner.
I think there's one controversial thing I want to ask you. I don't know if we've talked about this or not, but with March comes daylight savings time.
So do you have an opinion?
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Oh, I have a very strong opinion.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: You do? Okay.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: So as my daddy used to always call the time period that we're in, most people call it standard time. Yeah, not in our household. Growing up, this was daylight losing time.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Daylight losing time.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Daylight losing time. You had daylight losing time and you had daylight savings time. And it's been a while, but I saw a graph at one point that talked about if we did away with it, how early the sun would set in some places and the sun would be setting like at 4:00 clock and before in some places.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: You know, here in our area, you know, when we get to the shortest part of the day, it's 5pm and that's awful early. To me, that's a, you know, that's walking out the door, heading home from work and we're already pitch black. So I couldn't imagine if it was earlier than that in some places. So I get it. You know, there's opinions all over the place. You know, there are some states that do not operate with daylight savings time.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. There are a few that just kind of do their own thing. Right. It'd be interesting to see if they would come up with some kind of nationwide survey, like a literal nationwide survey where they just basically asked everyone in the United States, hey, let's settle this once and for all. What's your opinion?
[00:03:00] Speaker B: I think it would be all over the place and I don't think it would matter because no matter what decision you'd make, you'd have a lot of people that thought think you were wrong.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: What are you trying to say? No one's ever happy.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: You should change the battery on your clock. During that time is when it's recommended.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: And what else?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Smoke detectors.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: When the time changes, that's when you're supposed to change your smoke detectors as well. So that's a good reminder to do certain things and keep, keep certain tasks up to date. So if we do away with it, how are we going to get reminded?
[00:03:25] Speaker A: You may be onto something. If for no other reason, maybe we should keep it just for that safety reminder because it is, it is kind of that time of year that we all kind of think about those things. And those are, those are important. Let that be a little friendly reminder to you. So make sure you check yours here in the month of March. We want to keep you safe and make sure that you're around and healthy and safe. So you can watch every episode of this podcast and for other reasons, too. But you know, we want to keep you safe A little bit later on in the program. We welcome Ms. Mindy Griffith with DTC Communications. She's going to be continuing our Spotlight on DTC employees for our 75th anniversary. And she's got a really interesting job. I think you'll like hearing her background. And she's been at DTC for quite a while, so she might have some stories to tell about some of the earlier times of her career here at dtc. But first, we, we're going to talk all things eye care. We want your vision in tip top shape. And luckily we've got two people coming up next that are experts in that field and they can help you get there and that would be Mr. David and Hunter Fouch with Fouch Eye Care in Smithville.
We are very fortunate to have Mr. Hunter and Mr. David fouch with Fouch Eye Care in Smithville, Tennessee.
[00:04:39] Speaker D: Hello.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: How are you guys doing today?
[00:04:40] Speaker E: Hi, Nick.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: It's great to have you here. And I don't know if we mess the shop up a little bit by having both of you here at the same time. Is everything going to be okay?
[00:04:50] Speaker E: We're okay. We're on lunch.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Okay.
Take a long lunch break. That's it. But we do appreciate you both being with us. It's going to be a lot of fun, and we're going to get to know you, but we're also going to get to get some great tips about how people can have a better understanding and take better care of one of the most important senses in the human body, which is your eyesight.
[00:05:11] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: It's very important. So before we go down that road, why don't you both kind of introduce yourselves and. And tell us a little bit more about yourself. Hunter, do you want to go first?
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Sure. I'm Hunter Fouch, born and raised in DeKalb County. And my dad's been an optometrist, and I, you know, followed in his footsteps and have enjoyed working with him for the past past eight years.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: So. Wow. Has it already been eight years?
[00:05:37] Speaker C: Eight years.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Well, does it seem like it's been that long?
[00:05:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: And what about you, David?
[00:05:42] Speaker E: Started practicing Smithville in 87, graduated from DeKalb County High School and went to school through the DeKalb County School System and then on to Memphis for a few years after Tennessee Tech. So spent vast majority of my life in DeKalb County.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:02] Speaker E: And.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: And if not in Tennessee, at least.
[00:06:04] Speaker E: Right, yes, absolutely.
Four years in Memphis for optometry school, and then after that, we.
We've been in Smithville, raised her family and good place to be and good people.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: You have a lot of strong ties to DeKalb county, right?
[00:06:23] Speaker E: I do, yeah. My parents were Liberty area.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:28] Speaker E: Went to Liberty High School.
And so, yeah, we grew up there.
Go to church in Liberty at Saigon Baptist Church. And so we. Yeah, we do have a lot of strong ties. My wife is Kim Foutch, Kim Edmonds Fouch. And so she also graduated from DeKalb High School. And she's a physical therapist and knows a lot of people and sees a lot of people in the area in their. In her home health practice.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: So you. You both can help a lot of ailments between, between your different perspectives in, in the medical profession, so to speak. So I can imagine Hunter, you, you kind of talked about it, kind of hinted at it just a moment ago. Being influenced by your father being in this field, you know, that had to have a strong influence I would think, right. As far as you becoming for sure.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: You know, it's like both my parents were in medical fields. I just kind of gravitated towards optometry and I think it's not uncommon for you to kind of follow in your parents footsteps.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: That's something I found out when I went to optometry school. There was a lot of my classmates were children. Yeah, they were children of optometrists and so it's pretty common actually. I was a classmate with, with a guy who, his father was my dad's classmate, so that was pretty cool.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Oh wow.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: We both graduated 30 years after them, so it was.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Wow, what's the odds of that?
[00:08:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's very, very interesting. But optometry maybe is, maybe it's more than other, other fields. But I think that you know, a lot of times whenever you, you know, you have, you're blessed to have good parents, you kind of follow in their footsteps. So uh, my brother is a pediatric emergency doctor in Chattanooga, Erlanger. So he, he followed medical but he did something a little bit different, but
[00:08:24] Speaker A: just a different path.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: But when I was a kid, I would go into the office with dad on like weekends or holidays or something when the office was closed. But people have an emergency and like, you know, metal in their eyes, something like that. And you know, it's not tag along, it's not our favorite thing to do is go in on our time off, I'm sure. But it's like the times whenever you like really, you know, feel like you're helping someone. For sure. You know, we're helping people every day. But sometimes it's like whenever something, it's
[00:08:51] Speaker A: kind of an urgent need. Yeah.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: Still feels good today. Whenever we help people, it always feels
[00:08:55] Speaker A: good to help somebody. I think so. Well, I've got to know this David. I've never asked you that. We've known each other for quite a while, but I've never really asked you this question. But now how did your journey start as far as wanting to become an optometrist? Was there something that kind of triggered in you that kind of started that or.
[00:09:12] Speaker E: When I was 12 years old in seventh grade at the West School, my classmate went and had his eyes checked and discovered that his vision wasn't as good as it could be. And so when he came back and he had his new glasses, I said, let me see those. And I tried them on. Said, oh, wow, this makes a big difference. And so told my mom I thought I needed to get my eyes checked. And we did. And I started wearing glasses at 12. From the time I was a freshman in high school, I knew that I wanted to be an optometrist. I didn't know what it took to
[00:09:44] Speaker A: be an optometrist, but the interest was there.
[00:09:46] Speaker E: Yes, absolutely. So I was really fortunate, really blessed that I was able to kind of have a career path and know what I wanted to do and, and just God bless me. And things worked out and that's the path that we took.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: I always think it's neat to hear how someone who chooses a career that takes that much dedication and study and, you know, professionalism, however you want to say it, to really choose it. Right. I mean, it's not something you just say, I'm going to do this, and then six months later you're there. You've got to be committed and dedicated for you to know that. That early on, to me, I just, I find that interesting.
[00:10:21] Speaker E: So I really didn't have a backup plan. So I just.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: That's what you wanted to be?
[00:10:25] Speaker E: Yeah. Want to be my best friend. Were both going to go that route and he chose computers later on and I stuck with the optometry path.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: What would you say is the typical eye exam? Like not with an injury or anything, but just visit that little station right, where you kind of get your, you
[00:10:42] Speaker E: meet the receptionist and you check in and, and get your information. And then, then one of the texts, one of the young ladies will take you back for the exam and do some testing, pre testing, using some equipment, and we.
Or checking some pulmonary health test and, and get a computerized reading of what their prescription is, what their vision is.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: So you do have some sophisticated technology really, that's kind of assisting with that?
[00:11:16] Speaker E: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
They getting their history and, and their basic health information, medications, things like that. But then, uh, typically it involves getting some drops in your eyes and then you get to read the chart starting
[00:11:38] Speaker A: with the big E. So that's still a thing?
[00:11:40] Speaker E: That's still a thing.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Do people cheat on that, by the way?
[00:11:43] Speaker C: They try, but it's digital now, so we, we can randomize it so it's you guys.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Get it covered.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's. People still tell me stories about cheating on The. On the old charts.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:57] Speaker C: Memorizing it so that they could, you know, maybe their job needed it, or
[00:12:00] Speaker A: they're looking at the other wall and reading it. Yeah, yeah, I got you.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: They'll try.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: It's not really an invasive thing. It's not a painful thing. I mean, I've had my eyes checked many times. I mean, on a typical visit, it's.
It's just a thing. Right. It's just something you expect and do and. And if someone had apprehension about it, I.
I would give them the advice. Really. There's really no reason to be that apprehensive about it. Would you agree?
[00:12:28] Speaker E: Yeah. So especially children will come in and, yeah, the first exam, they're a little bit nervous, and so we will.
My. My story is, I'll say, you know, I've got a granddaughter. She's.
When she was six years old, she used to. Every time she would come in, she'd say, can I get my eyes checked? Because it's fun.
Make it fun.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:50] Speaker E: And it's. It's something a little different. And so it's. It's not invasive. It is even. Even for older people. I have had a patient told me that they were. They were really nervous about getting their eyes checked and always worried about giving the wrong answers and things.
No, it's. It's okay. You know, we'll figure it out. So it's. It's all good.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: There's a infancy program is what.
What it's called, where, you know, six to 12 months is a covered eye exam for infants. And so, you know, we don't see, you know, a ton of infants, but, you know, especially if there's something, you know, I think parents get worried maybe if something's going on with the eyes. A lot of times they, you know, kids may have, you know, a little. Little gunk in their eye or something like that. Bring them in. But, you know, it's something that we.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: We do.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: But then, as, you know, we see them, you know, every couple years for the first couple years, but then once they start school, we usually recommend every year because things are changing rapidly at that point. And so, you know, it's kind of like he was saying, you know, 12 years old and didn't realize maybe he couldn't see the board as well as he could. And so I think a lot of times, you know, it might be setting kids back in school if they're not getting their eyes checked and.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Being able to tell that they can see the board. So, you know, they're they're starting to do a lot more like screenings. I think pediatricians are doing screenings and schools are doing some screening. So it's getting a little better. But still recommend just, you know, yearly, yearly checkups just to make sure that, you know, seeing as well as can. And then I think probably the, the ones that don't get their eyes checked as much is probably my age. You know, anywhere from, you know, 20 to 40 years old is whenever, you know, people maybe stop getting their eyes
[00:14:37] Speaker A: checked as often, maybe until they notice they're not seeing as well.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's.
But we still, you know, usually recommend, you know, every one to two years just to make sure that, you know, overall eye health is still looking good. And, you know, we can also catch things that may be going on with the body.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Right. You know, that's true.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: People, people wouldn't realize. Diabetes, high blood pressure, things like that.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: People think you're going to, to visit you both because maybe you need some vision assistance. But there's other health conditions a lot of times that you guys may notice during a checkup that the patient themselves may not even realize it's an issue.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: You know, every day we see ocular diseases, cataracts, glaucoma.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: Macular degeneration.
We're seeing that all the time. But you know, I mentioned it before. We, you know, see diabetes, hypertension, you can, there's blood vessels in the back of the eye, in the retina that, you know, it's, it's one of the only places you can see blood vessels that are in your body that you can see how they're working and.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Well, that's a good point. I haven't thought about that. That's true.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: So that's what, you know, diabetic patients especially, you know, primary care providers are always sending us patients to, you know, maybe I'll have, you know, middle aged patients who've never had their eyes checked in their life because they've had good vision, but they're maybe they just got diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure and their primary care provider will send them to us to have their eyes checked because they know that, you know, we can see things and kind of let them know how things are doing in their body, how their blood vessels are working and things. So we, we catch stuff like that
[00:16:18] Speaker E: all the time and it's not common, it's not every day. But like yesterday I had a patient who had a pituitary tumor and we didn't discover that. He told us that he'd already been diagnosed. But I have had patients that we discovered that because of their complaints and there's some testing that we can do looking at their field of vision and it showed that, you know, there was a defect and you're able to pinpoint that. And we both got those stories where we discovered something that they weren't aware of. And, and so yeah, it's, it's, it's an important thing to, to do, especially if you're having some problems to, to follow up with it.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Headaches or of course, vision loss. Please come see us if you.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: That's the obvious one.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:07] Speaker C: But you know, headaches, that's another thing that even primary care providers will send patients to us if they're having just headaches because they know that we can find things that.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Speaking of how often, how frequent is that? A lot of people that have headaches that maybe they don't realize it's actually vision related. Do you see that quite often?
[00:17:25] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, society has changed in a lot and everything's screens.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:32] Speaker E: And you know, unfortunately, I think it's not a good thing, but kids spend a lot of screen time on screens and it definitely can affect your vision and your, your learning ability if you're having, you know, difficulty eye strain.
And so, so those are things that, you know, we deal with today that we didn't always deal with. And it's getting more prevalent, you know, every day. It seems that, you know, we're seeing young kids who are having smile problems and it's related to their spine.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: I have thought about that. It makes total sense. Do you have any tips for those that maybe spend a lot of time looking at computer screens throughout the day? Is there something we can do to kind of, I don't know, to maybe make it a little healthier?
[00:18:18] Speaker C: This is all day, every day. I'm talking about the 20, 20, 20 rule is every 20 minutes, take a 20 second break and look 20ft away. So if you're staring at a screen right here, just look up, look across the room, Let your, let your eyes have a break. And also blinking. This is something I'm talking to patients about all the time. Because not only is staring at screens strain in the eyes, but also causing some issues with dry eye, we're seeing that become prevalent.
[00:18:43] Speaker E: You tell people, try and have your screen below eye level. Your eyes work a little better if your screen's below.
Yeah, about arm's length away.
Try and limit the glare on your screen with windows.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: And do you guys have like an on site selection of different frames and that sort of thing that we can
[00:19:02] Speaker C: choose from cell frames from, you know, infants, kids, men's, women's selections.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: So we have, it's right there on site.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Right there.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: What about contact lenses? Do you also assist with those?
[00:19:17] Speaker E: Yeah, we fit contact lenses and have large fitting sets. So surprisingly a vast majority of people who, if they want to try contact lenses, we can put a contact lens on their eye usually that day in their prescription that they can experience the contact lens and see what it's like
[00:19:39] Speaker A: and I test drive it.
[00:19:40] Speaker E: So yeah, contacts are, have also changed over the years and people who maybe before were told that they weren't a good candidate for contact lenses, maybe now they are because there's multifocal contact lenses, there's contact lenses for astigmatism and things that, that maybe that weren't available in the past that are readily available now and technology's improved.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: So do you also offer suggestions or recommendations for those that may determine they want to go down the Lasik road?
[00:20:13] Speaker C: You know, we can discuss those with patients and you know, tell them, tell them what their options are and you know, if, if they're going to have availability. You know, there's some patients who may have difficulty where they may not do well with a surgery like that. But we definitely advise and you know, talk about the pros and cons of it.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: I'm sure technology, even in this field has changed a lot over the years.
[00:20:38] Speaker E: I opened my practice in 1987 and we didn't have a computer and we had a phone line and ledgers written, handwritten paper ledgers.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Speaker E: And you can do an eye exam without the technology, but the technology just makes it so much better and so much more accurate with the information that you're gaining.
[00:21:02] Speaker C: And we could do eye exams without Internet, but it would be difficult. Our, our, our EHR is cloud based and we have to have the Internet
[00:21:12] Speaker A: to pull it all connected, right?
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Yes. So we have DTC and it's, it's very reliable. We've been, you know, very lucky that, you know, we have, have that option because, you know, I know that, you know, maybe, you know, others go out often or don't have that and that can be frustrating and that's important.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: You, you want to always have your systems up and running as often as possible.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: We can go back to paper charts and write down what's happening that day, but then we have no access to the history, no access to what's happened in the past.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:45] Speaker C: See what's Changed. So DTC has been. Been good for that.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: That's great. We're glad to be.
[00:21:50] Speaker E: Yeah. But, yeah, you guys have grown with us. I think, you know, we've kind of grown together.
Dial up and. And to the. To the reliable Internet that we have now.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Tell us where you're located and the best way to contact you.
[00:22:05] Speaker E: 2585 Nashville highway in Smithville, down the road a little bit from the high school in Smithville. And our phone number is 615-597-2255.
We're open Monday through Friday and in the event of an emergency, you can get a hold of one of us. We're usually in the. In the area.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: We hope that we don't have to, but it sure is comforting to know that you're there if we do need you.
[00:22:29] Speaker E: So.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Well, thanks, Connor, David, both of you for being with us and thanks for all you do and thank you personally for always helping me through the years, too. I really appreciate you guys. Thank you for having us. Everybody stay tuned. We've got more of the show coming up in just a moment. It.
[00:22:44] Speaker D: Ooh, I'll get it. Grandpa, Grandpa, want to play my new game with me?
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Well, sure, I'd love to play your new game.
[00:22:54] Speaker C: Let's go. Got you.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: I'm going to catch you. I'm going to catch you this time.
Sharing memories while staying connected.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: DTC Internet makes it all possible.
[00:23:13] Speaker F: My name is Ashley Roth. My husband Caleb and I own stain and seal experts based in Alexandria and we are a DTC customer.
Caleb grew up in the fence industry.
So when we got married and wanted to do something on our own, it made sense for us to start staining fences and manufacturing fence and deck and log cabin stains.
We manufacture our own stains that check all the boxes for us that we offer to our customers here locally as well as nationwide that buy our products.
DTC services, all of our phone systems. We also have their fiber Internet. For our phone system to work is instrumental for us. We rely heavily on our Internet and phone services from dtc. It means a lot to us that they're local, that they've always been local and that we're able to support them and their services give us what we need to support our customers. Hi, I'm Ashley and that's the DTC difference.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Technology speaks lots of languages and today we're translating it into yours with the tech translator
[00:24:28] Speaker B: you have seen on your phone. The little icon hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of time that looks like an airplane and when you click it, what does it actually do.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Now, you talking about airplane mode?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yes, I am talking about airplane mode.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Do you know what that button does when you click on it?
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Probably not everything that it does.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: So you know that that switch, it is a button that is basically a master switch that cuts off all communication to and from your device. What's interesting about it is in 1991, the FCC banned the use of cellular devices on airplanes for fear of it interfering with the communications and programming of airplanes.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: And so that's the root of where airplane mode started.
But our devices nowadays have lots of different capabilities and things that it can do. And so what airplane mode is designed to do, it's to be that middle ground where it cuts off the communication. You can be on an airplane, you don't have to worry about signals going to and from the airplane manufacturer, the airline carrier, they're fine with it.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Because there's no way that you can be interfering with anything.
Now, for the most part, when you're up 30, 40,000ft in the air, probably not getting a cell phone signal anyway, so probably don't need it turned on. But what this does is it allows you to be able to still use your device without communicating.
So your cellular data is turned off. You're not going to be able to receive calls or make calls or receive messages or send messages or, you know, do anything mobile data wise. So all your communication is shut off.
But what you can still do is if you want to watch a movie, you can watch a movie if it's downloaded to your device. If you want to play a game that's on your device, you can still do those things and you can be cut off from the world. Now there's more uses than just, hey, I'm on an airplane, I need to turn this on. If you want to break from everything, yes, you have do not disturb mode. But even if you turn do not disturb on, what still happens to your notifications? They're still, they're still there.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah, you're still getting it. You're just not being notified.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: You're not being told about it. So if you swipe and you check your notifications, all those notifications are still going to be there. When you turn airplane mode on, you cut everything off, including WI fi, right? Yes, yes. It. It cuts off all connectivity, period.
So there is nothing happening. Now, you can override some settings too, if you want to, because sometimes on airliners, for instance, they may have WI fi that you can access whether it's paid or free. But you may want to be Able to override and say, you know what, I need WI fi turned on. Okay, so airplane mode. Yeah, it cuts off WI Fi. It cuts off Bluetooth, cellular, any communication.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: But you can modify that possibly.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yes, you can. You can override it and say, hey, you know what, I don't need the cellular. But they've said I can access WI Fi. So let me turn that right today versus 1991. Even though we have more electronic devices, they're a little bit looser with, with those rules. Now. I would be careful maybe what you're doing with the device, because when you're taking off and landing, the airline is still not going to want you to have that device out and to be using.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: They'll normally let you when it's safe to use your electronic devices, but you
[00:27:50] Speaker B: know, you can use it too. Other times, if you are in an area that has. Has no cell phone signal or poor cell phone signal, enabling airplane mode is recommended because your device is going to use a lot more energy trying to search for a signal. When you actually have a weak signal or no signal, your device is using more energy as it searches. Oh, I need a signal. I need to pull a signal down.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: I haven't thought about it.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: So let me turn airplane mode on because then my phone's not going to be searching for that signal. I don't have one anyway. It doesn't matter. Let me go ahead and enable this because it'll save my battery. Yeah, so there's, there's a variety of uses for it. Whether you're on an airline, you're looking for a break, you know, from all the communications and notifications that you're getting. Or maybe you need to save the battery. Plain and simple, when you want your device to act like a quiet, silent, offline device disconnected from the Internet entirely
[00:28:46] Speaker A: without powering the entire phone off.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah, Yep, you can turn on airplane mode. And so that, that gives you a great avenue. You need, you want to get those calls and everything back, Click that button, dupe, and then instantly everything will be turned right back on.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Well, it's good to see the tech translator doing its thing and making things easier to understand. The airplane mode is just one of the first things on this segment, so I can't wait to see where it goes.
We like the tech translator. We need to keep that going.
And for this segment of the local click, we're very lucky to have Ms. Mindy Griffith, obviously with DTC Communications. Mindy, thank you for being here with us today.
[00:29:24] Speaker D: Well, thank you.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: And Mindy, you are the regulatory and accounting specialist with dtc. Is that correct?
[00:29:30] Speaker D: That's correct.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Wow. I can't believe I got that name correct. You did good. I had to practice a little bit on that. So before we talk more about your task with dtc, though, I want to get to know you more and your family more and your ties to the area, because I know you have a lot of ties to DeKalb County.
[00:29:47] Speaker D: Again, my name is Mindy Griffith. I am a lifelong native of DeKalb County. I grew up in Smithville for a little while. Then my family bought downtown Cash Market.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:57] Speaker D: And we ran that for several years. And then my dad was the mayor of downtown for several years, and then my mom was the mayor of downtown for several years.
Just recently, in the past three years, we moved to Smithville. So my husband and I live in Smithville now. His name is Ron Griffith, and we have two children. Allie, who is a junior at Tennessee Tech. She is starting studying nursing. And then zane is an eighth grader at DeKalb West School, and he's looking forward to starting high school next year.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: And our children know each other.
[00:30:26] Speaker D: That's right. Our boys are the same age, luckily, and they're good friends. And another tie to the community.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Yeah. My oldest son, Matt, and Allie and
[00:30:34] Speaker D: Allie are the same children. Seven years. AP car.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: That's pretty neat.
[00:30:39] Speaker D: It is.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Well, talk about some of your different roles you've had at DTC and your start at dtc, because I know you've. You've been there for a long time. And then also kind of how you got to your current role and some of the things that you do.
[00:30:50] Speaker D: Well, I had to bring a cheat sheet because I have been here for 24 years and. Wow, four years. Thank you. I started out in wireless customer service, so I did that for a couple of years, and then we combined our customer service with wireline and wireless.
So I went to the customer service team leader.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:09] Speaker D: I always loved troubleshooting when I was in that position. I like to troubleshoot phone problems, service issues. So that led to my next role, which was a wireless network technician. So that was a little scary. When I first started, it was supposed to be a lot of indoor switch management, call routing, switching, things like that, and then troubleshooting phone issues.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: So behind the scenes.
[00:31:32] Speaker D: Scenes behind the scenes. The inner workings of, you know, wireless, mainly. Okay. And of course, we worked with a wireline side as well in the central office for trunking and things like that. I enjoyed that for several years, and then that put me into Another position, which was wireless specialist. I was mainly responsible for roaming agreements and our vendors that we worked with. We would work on agreements, terms and conditions and rates and things like that. Okay. And then in 2017, we shut our wireless network down. And so that's really when we started amping up our fiber to the home network as well.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
[00:32:10] Speaker D: So I went into engineering, and in engineering, I was the engineering specialist. Well, within engineering, they're responsible for a lot of the mapping and also control, like the CPRs, which are continuous property records, to make sure that our plant is correct as far as recordkeeping.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:30] Speaker D: So I did a lot of that in that position, which that's also regulatory.
So again, I stayed there for a couple of years and set you up for this. Set me up for where I'm at today, which is accounting or regulatory and accounting specialist.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: What are some of the things you typically do? I know there's always those things that come up that you can't plan on, but in a typical week, if there is such a thing, what would you say are some of the more common things?
[00:32:54] Speaker D: Staying abreast of all of the regulatory reports and things like that is definitely a task in itself.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:00] Speaker D: But day to day, week to week functions, mainly work orders and work orders are projects that our departments create and maintain. So I'm kind of in charge of maintaining the equipment that is purchased for those work orders.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:19] Speaker D: And then assigning the tax location to them. Again, that's kind of accounting function, making sure that our tax locations are correct, that equipment is where it is. We get a lot of funding from federal and state entities. So if we ever got audited, then we would need to know where those property records are and make sure that those are maintained correctly. So I work a lot with a lot of different departments within the company, but engineering, specifically networking, if you're not in the industry.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Okay. If you don't do this every day, the word regulatory, you hear that and you kind of get nervous. You're like, oh, I really don't know what that is. You know, that kind of thing.
Are there a lot of changes in regulatory fields? Because it's like the government's always updating things and I'm sure we have to comply with different things like that.
[00:34:08] Speaker D: Really? In my role, regulatory means compliance. I just have to make sure that we're compliant. And like you said, administration changes, you know, at the state, federal government, they make. Right. You know, so, you know, they might give more money to broadband, which we've been a recipient of over the past couple of years with the state and there are some federal money, but with money comes responsibility.
So keeping compliant is just my day to day task to maintain.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Wow, you must be super detail oriented. And would I be correct in guessing
[00:34:43] Speaker D: that I am pretty detail oriented and I can multitask pretty well, or I think you would need both taught for sure. Is it for sure? I guess you do have a little of that in you anyways.
But yeah, it's definitely been a challenge to just to maintain it.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Do you find after being so detail oriented and focused throughout the work day that you go home and. And you're still kind of hyper focused on small details of everything around the house even?
[00:35:11] Speaker D: For sure. Like last night when I came home, I was, you know, I was working on a project before I left. And, you know, it was just something I probably shouldn't have left. I should have just kept working on it. But, you know, you get to the point of like, you're almost brain dead, so you're like, okay, I'm gonna start fresh in the morning and start over.
Yeah, that happens pretty frequently. But I will say we have checks and balances in place. So it's not all on me. But, you know, you take the weight of the world normally for your job. If you care about your job, it's
[00:35:38] Speaker A: hard to turn it off sometimes.
[00:35:39] Speaker D: Exactly, exactly.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: So since you're dealing with numbers and accounting and regulatory issues at work all day long, do you then have to go home and then do your own books and your own checkbook and those kind of numbers too?
[00:35:50] Speaker D: Well, I definitely control the purse strings, whether Ron likes to admit that or not.
And I drive him a little crazy with my spreadsheets and things like that. But we try to let me take care of the budget for sure.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: So there is some overlap possibly.
[00:36:04] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: The technology shifts that you've seen at DTC through the years because you've been here for quite a long time. I mean, I'm sure you've seen a lot in your tenure here.
[00:36:13] Speaker D: Yeah, it's crazy. I know everybody that's been here for any period of time says the same thing. The shift has been crazy fast. You know, you think everything when you're day to day, you think, oh, this is slow. It's slow to get an answer. It's slow to do this. And. But the technology has just changed so rapidly. Like I said, I started in in wireless, and when I started, we were still analog.
We were switching over to tdma, which was a digital system, but we were still analog for the most part. When I first started and we had customers that still had their bag phones, you know, they would not give up their bag.
They love them. You know, they just picked up so much better in the hills and mountains of Tennessee.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:54] Speaker D: So we had a bin that had like old used bag phones and those customers would bring them in and we would replace parts on those bag phones. We would dig and get parts off old bag phones.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Just keep on running as long as you could. Right.
[00:37:06] Speaker D: It's crazy. And then with wireless, we got all the way up to LTE 4G services, which were the smartphones and you know, Internet service. It was pretty rapid for a phone.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:17] Speaker D: You know, it's even more now. Like I said, that was in 2017.
And then of course when I started for the wireline side, you know, we were selling dsl, which was what, one meg at that time. And now we're offering multi gig services.
It's crazy.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Would you have ever imagined back in 2017 when we were talking some of those DSL speech, which seemed okay at the time.
[00:37:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: We thought we'd be going up to eight gigs.
[00:37:42] Speaker D: I know, it's. It's crazy. Like I said, what we were, what VDSL was around that time, 2015, 2016, we started, I guess a little before that too. But you know, we thought we were cruising right along at 50 meg. And now like you said, these multi gig service speeds are crazy.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: And I don't think it's going to stop.
[00:38:03] Speaker D: I think the need for speed will always be there.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:05] Speaker D: But I also see like reliability becoming a bigger focus later on and you know, focusing more on cybersecurity and things like that.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: It's not enough just to be touting the speeds. It's also about how reliable it is and dependability. And also we've kind of talked about this quite a bit lately is, you know, when you call someone you need support, they're there and.
[00:38:27] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: And they're there not in two weeks.
[00:38:29] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: They're usually the same day or the next day.
[00:38:32] Speaker D: Our customer service and our technicians, they are there. They, you know, ice storms, you know, rains, they're there. And that's.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: They work so hard, don't they?
[00:38:41] Speaker D: They do. And you know, we really appreciate those, those employees that are on the front line for us.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: They do a good job as an employee. What are your perspectives as far as working for a co op and maybe how that's different from a typical commercial role?
[00:38:58] Speaker D: You know, I was, I was thinking about all the things that we go through as a co op and the regulatory side of it, the, the intense reporting and things like that. But being member owned means something in our community. You know, we go to work with these people, we have families, we have friends, we have, we go to the grocery store, the ball games, you know, we see these people. And to be able to offer state of the art services, it really means something. So we're giving back to the community and that's, that's really enjoyable to watch.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: That means something, doesn't it?
[00:39:33] Speaker D: It does.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Speaking of changing a lot, do you have any thoughts on what the future holds for dtc?
[00:39:38] Speaker D: Oh, I don't know. It is a big question because everything changes so fast and like you said before, I would have never guessed we were at where we're at now. But you know, I think AI is going to definitely play a big role in most companies.
And I think it gets a negative assumption somewhat because people think it's going to take over the workforce and it may some, but you're going to always need people.
And I think AI is going to help us as far as reliability in our network. It's going to help us with that. I think it's, you know, marketing, it's helping with marketing, it's making it easier, maybe automating customer service experiences. I really think AI is going to
[00:40:15] Speaker A: be beneficial too in the long run. It's actually going to make us more productive. It will in a lot of ways, I think. One more question for you before you leave us today.
What does being a part of the DTC family really mean to you? Because you've been here, you have a unique perspective for 24 years. So what does it mean to be part of that DTC family?
[00:40:35] Speaker D: Oh, it's big.
You know, I never, this was the first real job I ever had. Full time job I had, like I said, I graduated in December of 2001 and then I started here in March of 2002. So it was, you know, my first real job. So I've grown up here.
But again, just to be able to offer the services that we offer to our family and friends and community, it's just overwhelmingly positive. You know, it's, it's, it just means a lot to go out into the community and people thank you for, you know, the services that we offered, it makes their life easier.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: And you made a lot of friends too.
[00:41:11] Speaker D: We made a lot of friends, yeah. And it's crazy. You know, most people, most people that work at DTC stay at dtc.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:17] Speaker D: So you know, it's wild to have retirement parties and things like that and see all the people that you worked with for many years retire and their life now.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: And you are like family in a lot of ways because you see them so much. Well, Mindy, thank you for everything you do for DTC and being with DTC for so long. And we wish you continued success in many more years here with dtc.
[00:41:39] Speaker D: Thank you so much. And we appreciate you all too. You guys go above and beyond for all these sports and to make our marketing excellent.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Well, we, we try really hard. We really do. So. But thank you and everybody stay tuned. We got more of the program coming up in just a moment.
[00:41:56] Speaker G: Great communities attract talented people to live, work and raise their families.
We've deployed a high speed network that helps the best and the brightest enjoy better lives in our smart rural community.
Great small businesses provide jobs that help workers earn a good living and and provide for their families while strengthening local economies.
We deploy fiber Internet that helps those businesses succeed.
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We deliver secure connections so every home and rural healthcare provider can connect to the best healthcare options.
Great schools help knowledge hungry students learn, think creatively and follow their passions.
We've built a network that helps their dreams take off.
Great farmers provide the food that sustains and nourishes our nation and the world.
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We've planned, engineered and constructed a cutting edge communications network.
We're committed to delivering future proof broadband so our friends, families and neighbors can live rich lives in smart rural communities across America.
Your community is our community.
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You do great things.
We make great things possible.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Do you know what room the router's in? I can't get onto my zoom meeting.
[00:43:43] Speaker D: Try it in our spacious new family room.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: Still not working.
[00:43:52] Speaker D: Try it in our beautiful backyard.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Still nothing.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: Your new home Checked everything off your list except for Internet from DTC.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Oh, come on.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Sign
[email protected] for fast and reliable Internet.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: And welcome back to the final segment of the March edition of the Local Click. We kind of take a walk down technology memory lane before the WI fi.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: You know, do you ever remember growing up? Maybe you gathered around the family table and you opened up a board game. Maybe you played Risk. Maybe you played Clue.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: Monopoly.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Monopoly. Yeah, we played Scrabble.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah, we used to play a lot of Scrabble.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: We played Yahtzee. That was a good one. Or you get Some old fashioned card games and I still love to play it today. Rook. Played a lot of Rook. Yeah, growing up. And you know, used to be that's what we considered gaming.
That was gaming.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: That was real gaming. Before the WI fi, right?
[00:44:57] Speaker B: Yes, before the WI fi, that was gaming. Now if we were to ask our kids about gaming today and to define what gaming is, I don't think that they would say the same thing.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think so.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: As what I just described.
You know, gaming has changed tremendously. You know, before the Internet, before the continuous connectivity that we had, we had board games, we had card games. And if you wanted to play multiplayer back then was you gathered together again around the table, maybe it was a coffee table in the couch and chairs around it. You know, that was what gaming used to be. And it's interesting there, you know, a Netflix television series has been very popular lately. That just concluded a Stranger Things. And you remember what game that they played in it? Dungeons and Dragons.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: I do remember that.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Which is still played today. But that was what. That was what they were playing. And they'd gather together in a basement to play Dungeons and Dragons. And so you'd take turns and you'd play together. And various games had various different ways to win and took different links to complete. And some games took multiple sessions, multiple days, maybe even a few weeks. With the invention of technology, we've had the rise of console gaming. If you remember, the first game that was ever invented was Pong.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: You know, very simple, simple game. And most people think of consoles and home consoles. But you know, something else that happened and it was big in the 80s, if you wanted to play with friends and you wanted to gather somewhere oftentimes. Where did you go?
[00:46:30] Speaker A: To the arcade.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: You went to the arcade.
[00:46:32] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Right, you went to the arcade. I still remember growing up in Cookville, the fun tunnel. All right, that was our place, that was our arcade. That was our spot. I remember exactly where it is in the old mall there and it's being used and repurposed for something different. But I had a lot of fun times in the arcade, even for, for my age.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: You know where we would go as kids in the DeKalb County, Smithfield area, we would go to Pizza Inn because they had about three coin operated games and you could play those games, you could eat pizza there too.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Was Gallagher one of them? I felt like, I think it probably was like every pizza place had a gallery.
[00:47:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It had one of the game consoles where you actually sat down and you had two chairs on each side of the game and it was flat like a glass table. And the TV was inset in the middle of the table. And you would play the game looking down at it.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Gaming is transformed even within that arena to where multiplayer came about. But multiplayer used to be you had to be in the same room with somebody.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: So if you wanted to play in any or Sega Genesis, two controllers plugged into the same console and you could play with each other or Atari or
[00:47:44] Speaker A: in television or Atari or.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: Yes, there's a lot of other things.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Coleco.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: Yeah, there's lots of other things that were before my time.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't know if you'd heard of those.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: I know of all of them. I was just not old enough to play any of them.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Big change in multiplayer gaming came with the Nintendo 64 though, because you could play with four players.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: You could go with four people and play with them.
And then the Sega Dreamcast ushered in. It was not very successful, but it was the first one to do it.
Online connectivity.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: Where it had a built in modem into the console. Now that's technology, which in 2000 was a big deal.
And since then gaming was revolutionized. And now online gaming in esports. And now you don't have to be in the same room to play with people.
You know, one thing that I enjoyed growing up, I never had my own Xbox growing up, but I had several friends that did. And we would do what was called LAN parties. Basically what that is, is we'd get together and we'd connect all of our Xboxes together, you know, through an Internet router and we would play locally. Now we'd be on different TVs and in different rooms, but you could get four people per console. Still. Still limited to four people. But if you plug three up, you'd have 12 people playing together today.
You can play with 12 people and be on 12 different countries all across the world.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: And you know, you may not even be in a living room or a bedroom. You could, you could be where. Listen, at some point they're probably going to be able to do this on the International Space Station, if I had to guess, you know, and you can game wherever with people you don't know, people you've never met before, people who. You don't even know their names.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: Anymore. And that's what people consider gaming today. It's, you know, I'm in, you know, I can log on here, I have access to this and I can change and change my name if I want to or change the game that I want to and play with the same people or play with different people.
And all through the Internet you really have a lot of opportunity. You can still play classic games. We love board games like I love playing board games. You can have the best of both worlds now. You can play a board game if you want to. You can hop online and play a game if you want to. You know, you've got, you've got a wide selection.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: And one nice thing about those board games is you, you don't have to go to the app store and update them if it's been a while since you last played them.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Correct? Correct. You know what I want to know though from our listeners perspective is I would like to know before the WI Fi, what's your favorite gaming memory, what was your favorite game that you like to play or what did you like to get together with friends or family and do?
[00:50:22] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:50:22] Speaker B: Do you have a favorite that you like to do?
[00:50:24] Speaker A: We were just huge Monopoly people. I know I keep bringing that up but man, we spent a lot of,
[00:50:28] Speaker B: or Scrabble or Scrapple, you know, with me growing up. I remember spending time at grandma's house. We'd spend a lot of time, especially over the summers at grandma's house. And her favorite game to play was Yahtzee, you know, so she loved Yahtzee and she loved Rook. And so I've got very fond memories when I say gathering around the table of, of that table just off the living room, it's a round table and that's where we would gather together and that's where we would play.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: Oh yeah, I forgot one. I want to, I've got to get an honorable mention to this one. Battleship.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Battleship is a good one. We have that with the boys and that's still fun. It is still fun. The game is a lot more colorful and looks a lot better than the one that I used to play as a kid though. Yeah, lots of memories on gaming. But again, let us, let us know in, in the comments and tell us again what is your favorite game that you played growing up or favorite game in memory. And for some people I know that'll be a little bit sooner than others, but let us know.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: So let's do a little update if you will on all the technology things going on since the last time that we all met in our segment called Tech News Roundup.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: Yeah, so we'll hit these kind of rapid fire today. So the first one is AI Related. And that's. We're seeing a lot more legislation that, that is coming down the pipeline, both at state and federal levels to reign in AI. And California has already passed legislation and signed into law an AI Transparency Act. And now we've got some competing bills at the federal and state levels on who's going to control AI regulation and who gets to do it.
You know, and so we'll see how that that shakes out. Because there's lots of concerns with AI even at the local level. There's concerns with AI data centers and how that affects infrastructure and local infrastructure and utility usage and things. So there's a lot of things to consider and it's a lot more nuanced than I think people realize.
[00:52:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: The next thing that we've got up is we continue to see a crackdown on password sharing. Oh, and when I say password sharing, specifically streaming Netflix was the first one to crack down. Yeah, HBO has cracked down now Disney is cracking down. And the reason that they're doing this is a. Actually in the state of Tennessee. I don't know if you realize this or our listeners realize this. It is a criminal offense to share a password with somebody outside of your household for one of those. So what these streaming providers are doing now is they're not going after anybody criminally, but they're limiting the number of devices that connect and connect and limiting the number of devices outside of the home. And if they believe that you are abusing it and sharing the password with others outside of your household because that violates their terms and conditions, they're letting you know and saying, hey, you can actually sign up to have an extra user. Here's X amount of dollars per month. We'll let you do it.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: But they're trying to, you know, they're trying to get their revenue and trying to get people to stick to their. Their terms of service.
Next thing up down the pipeline is there's a continued push and I think we're finally going to see it. It's already established in Europe, but to push for USB C standard. And again, there's legislation that has been introduced federally even in the United States. The European Union has already adopted it.
So that I don't need to go look for three or four different chargers to charge my device. I don't need a proprietary device. Let's everybody be on the same standard. And so there's some uniformity among those things. And so I think that's something we'll, we'll see happen.
I think there's less Resistance to it now because most people have adopted it anyway.
[00:54:09] Speaker A: Probably be an easy time to do that.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: Yes. And then the last thing is we're seeing more and more vehicles be announced with features. We're seeing CarPlay and we're seeing Android and we're seeing smart features.
Listen, cars keep getting announced and they keep getting more and more and more connected.
You know, if you, you want to be able to access the Internet. Well, listen, your car can be a hot spot because it's your car itself, you know, has, has, that's true, has a cellular modem built into it that can receive a cell signal and then act as its own hotspot. You can know where your device is all the time and remote started and security measures. But what you can also get with these is you can get over the air updates. What that means is, you know, in the past, maybe, oh, we need to, you've got a safety recall or there's a recall. We need to update some sort of module, not necessarily physical part, but some sort of digital module right within your vehicle. Because all devices today are basically controlled. All the components are controlled digitally now. Well, instead of forcing you to come into the dealership, now they can say, hey, we're just going to push that update to you. You don't have to come in. We can do it, we can do it over the air update. Or you've got navigation built in, for instance. And for my wife's vehicle, I have to pay to get an update to it if I ever want to get an update to it. And then in order to update it, I have to get shipped an SD card that I put in and then it updates the navigation. Include updating the roads and maps and things of that nature.
When you're connected this way, you don't have to. You, you meant they may still make you pay for it. Not saying they'll give it to you for free.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: But the process is different.
[00:55:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: And so there is. So it's interesting to see it. Basically every new vehicle that's coming out has these connectivity features or some sort of connectivity features now. And there's trade offs. It's nice to have those things.
But that also means you've got to be weary of.
What kind of data does that mean?
[00:56:13] Speaker A: Privacy concerns. Yeah.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I doubt those. Those old Chevrolet pickups that everyone likes from the 70s and 80s, we didn't have to really worry about them connecting up to the cloud.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: And no, you didn't have to worry
[00:56:25] Speaker A: about the carburetor and that sort of
[00:56:27] Speaker B: thing you didn't have to worry about them connecting to the cloud. And I mean, just to be quite honest, they were a lot easier to fix too.
[00:56:34] Speaker C: I know.
[00:56:35] Speaker A: You got that right.
[00:56:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I could, I could. Especially with the Internet in YouTube.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: Such a great tutorial. You can learn to fix just about anything. But as these cars get more technology integrated, they literally won't let you fix them unless you have specific tools and software.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: So again, there's, there's some negative trade offs too.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: In that regard, you can have some amazing connectivity. Listen, can you imagine if you, your check engine light comes on and you just call up the dealership and they go, oh, we can connect to it and see what that check engine light is telling us and we can read that code from here.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: That's, that's pretty bizarre, you know, so
[00:57:13] Speaker B: there's some, there's some positives that we can see coming from it.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Would you have ever imagined we would be at that point, you know, even a decade ago?
[00:57:20] Speaker B: Right. But then it's also the fact is they can remotely connect to your car and tell you what it's doing and what's wrong with it.
[00:57:26] Speaker A: I hope their security methods are locked in pretty well. So. Well, if your technology check engine light ever comes on, you know the program to listen to so you can kind of get out of a hole. And that's the local Click. It's been a great show, Justin. Thanks for everything that you do and appreciate you being with us and I'm sure we'll be back next month with more exciting news and tips and that's all we have for this month, everyone. Thanks for watching and listening to the Local click. Make sure you tune back in next month for the month of April. We'll have lots more fun. But until then, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next month. Learn more about the show by visiting us
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