What happens when Pittsburgh's nearly 30-year fiber powerhouse gets a jolt of fresh investment, new leadership and an AI-fueled market that can't get enough connectivity?
Nikki Marsh, Chief Revenue Officer of DQE, joins TechVibe to pull back the curtain on why fiber has become the new gold in today's digital economy. With 5,000 miles of fiber across Western Pennsylvania and beyond, DQE is helping businesses, hospitals, data centers and communities stay connected with utility-grade reliability and a Pittsburgh-first mindset.
Nikki explains why fiber is no longer a commodity, how AI and data centers are driving massive demand for bandwidth, and why DQE's "reliably reliable" approach goes far beyond keeping the network up. From enterprise connectivity and managed routers to SD-WAN, security, cellular failover and unified communications, DQE is building the easy button for businesses that need their networks to perform without finger-pointing or friction.
This is a true Pittsburgh tech infrastructure story, one that shows how the region's fiber backbone is helping attract new industries, support business growth and position Western Pennsylvania for the next wave of AI-powered opportunity.
The Pittsburgh Technology Council produces TechVibe to explore Pittsburgh's technology and innovation ecosystem.
Transcript:
DQE ===
[00:00:00] It's Jonathan Kersting here with the Pittsburgh Tech Council, and of course, Tech Vibe. I got to have the best conversations with some of the coolest people hanging out in Pittsburgh's tech sector, and today we are talking to Nikki Marsh of DEQE, and I love DEQE 'cause of its history.
It goes back almost 30 years. They were doing fiber before fiber was cool, and- Yeah ... the moment of fiber is today, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm so excited to learn about how DEQE's been moving forward, and with you as the chief revenue officer, Nikki, what you guys are doing, you've really transformed the company 'cause there's new ownership there with DEQE.
And over the past few years, you guys have made some pretty bold moves to really kinda take this company to some new levels, and I'm just so excited to explore this with you today 'cause I think it's a, it's a true Pittsburgh story in just so many ways. So thanks for hanging out with me today in the Huntington Bank Studios.
Oh, it's fun to be here. Thank you. Glad to be here with you First off, you have an incredible background that I think people need to know about. If there's anyone that [00:01:00] knows your industry, it is you. You've been doing this your entire life. I think you were born like... Doing telecom? Doing telecom.
Born into telecom. Give us a little bit about yourself and your background, so I'm Pittsburgh native, but I started in the telecom industry in the early 1990s- ... with NCI Telecommunications that was acquired by Verizon, so I've been in the industry for longer than I like to claim.
That's okay, man. I love it. But, I've been really blessed with the experience because in evolving in the telecom sector, I've had the opportunity to be on both sides of the desk. Okay. Yeah. I was in telecom, telecom sales and leadership, but then I was able to take a little bit of a hiatus from my telecom sales career-
and move to the other side of the desk where I was a global head of IT for a publicly traded company here in Pittsburgh and even in consulting. So I've gotten the best of both worlds and perspective on- The technology that we leverage in thinking about it, we live in Pittsburgh, and in all the telecom companies that I've worked for, Pittsburgh's like a tier [00:02:00] three city. Wow. We aren't getting the financial- Tier three. Oh, man. Yeah, we're not getting... No one is coming here and saying, "Oh, we want to invest in Pittsburgh."
Interesting. Okay. It's Charlotte, Chicago, Jacksonville, Nashville. They view Pittsburgh as a little bit of a passe city, so we're not getting those investments, and that was disheartening for me- Yeah ... as I live here, raising my children here, want to continue to see this city thrive-
economically- and make sure that, there's a future for my family here. And when I thought about it, I thought the best way to ensure that is to use the expertise that I have, take advantage of this opportunity with DQE, who is fully invested in Pittsburgh- 100% ... with their fiber assets, and allow them to grow and ensure that, as a city, we continue to develop-
and can attract the right industry. Having that infrastructure today is so critical for our city to continue to thrive, so that's what appealed to me. I was like- I like that ... "I want to go do that." I like the way you turned that around. Yeah. I think that's a very cool way of looking at it, [00:03:00] and the idea that literally fiber is the foundation of our businesses.
It doesn't get any more basic than that, than having like envelopes and stuff. It's it's just basic things like electricity, but it's the most powerful thing out there, because without it, you're not going too far, and that's why the fact that DQE, with its history of 30 years just doing fiber, and at a, at a utility grade- Pretty powerful stuff It is.
You think about it, there is no industry today that doesn't rely on some element of fiber- ... whether it's your fiber connectivity or cloud connectivity- Okay ... or internet connectivity. That infrastructure has become the cornerstone for every business. And the beauty of DQE was the fact that being born out of utility, critical infrastructure, reliable infrastructure was inherent in everything that they had to do.
Exactly. Could you imagine the power company not having reliable infrastructure? So that being said, they [00:04:00] built this asset that now everybody demands and needs. When I ... 10 years ago, I would've told you fiber was a commodity. Today, it is not because everybody needs it, and they can't produce enough fiber f- fast enough- Exactly
with AI, the data centers that are basically consuming all the fiber that is out there. Fiber has become, something that now is in great need, is very critical to everybody. We can't deliver it fast enough. I love hearing that because I think about what an awesome business opportunity is for you to be putting this together for us.
And how many miles of fiber do you have? You have a pretty intense infrastructure going on here. So we have 5,000 miles- . and I feel like we're growing every day. It's amazing. We continue to add mileage every day here in Western Pennsylvania- ... but in the tri-state area, we continue- Yeah, you're heading out like, yeah, like Maryland and things like that?
Maryland, we lit Hagerstown, Maryland this year. Okay. We still have York, Lancaster- Love it ... [00:05:00] Harrisburg. We're in the process of lighting up Carlisle and Hanover. We're up into State College and Altoona and into West Virginia. Oh my goodness. We continue to expand our fiber assets, and really, that's by the demand of our customers.
~Of course. Our customers are expanding in that respect, and, and it just grows organically that way. And what I love hearing is that you're talking about some rural areas. I hear words like Carlisle and York, and how important is it to have robust connections to these rural areas so everybody can have access?~
~Even in the likes of Hagerstown and York, a l- and, and West Virginia, while they don't have a lot of diverse options, with the network being so critical now, right? Yeah. We rely on internet. Before, it might have been our email or our browsing. Now, internet, for many people, is how they communicate via telephone.~
~It's how they work. In hospitals, the network connectivity is how they keep abreast of therapies or what they're going to prescribe. Yeah. Critical infrastructure is- The utmost important for most of the industries in our market today, and there was not a lot of diversity around. So in these rural areas, they maybe had one or two options.~
~Like I live in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, where for the longest time I had Consolidated. Okay. One option. One option. And imagine if you're a business that's up in the Cranberry market and you had one option. Yeah. ~What do you do for resiliency and reliability? Exactly. So the fact that we're expanding into these markets gives these businesses and the institutions an alternative option so that they can have what we call high availability or really reliable connectivity.
You just said a word that I wanna talk about. You said reliable. Yeah. 'Cause everyone says they're reliable, but your thing is reliably reliable, which I think is fantastic, and it goes back to the utility grade of what DEQ has built over the past three decades. Oh. Which to me is talk about solid.
Oh my goodness, like you can really stand behind those words. Why does that resonate with you? Reliability. Yeah. As I mentioned, think about being a patient on a hospital bed or going into the ER. [00:06:00] Today, hospitals rely on the connectivity to the cloud-based medical records to know if you have an allergy, to know what type of medicine they could prescribe.
Reliability to know that it's always up, that even if there's an outage, that I have two diverse routes. To know- Yeah ... that I have connectivity. Reliability comes from always on, right? Many years ago you would say- I, I came from another carrier. We would always talk about every carrier touts that they're reliable, but at the end of the day, reliability is defined by many characteristics.
~Yeah. So is my network always up? Okay, it's technology. We know that an outage or a network's going to happen. But how do you respond? Do you respond with the same urgency knowing the impact that you're having- Mm ... on my business? Or are you letting me be out for 24 hours, right? Oh, goodness.~
So reliability in our world comes from having a network that you can rely on. Being built utility grade has us at the top of the rating in terms of network reliability. Yeah. But we couple that with a reliable team that you know when you call in, you're not getting an offshore third-party- There's [00:07:00] someone sitting here, right- There's somebody-
answering that call ... sitting here. In fact, the reality is not only are people sitting here, we probably are in your community. We go to that same hospital, same school, same grocery store, same bank that maybe is impacted. So we have that same empathy and urgency as if we were an extension of your team. 100%.
We are fully invested in ensuring that our customers' reliability goes well beyond the network is up. ~That's awesome, and I love the passion you give when you tell me that, 'cause I know you live and breathe this stuff every day. Yeah. Which I, it goes to show a lot. It's easy to say, "Of course we're reliable," whatever, whatever.~
~And it's no, you guys, it's in your blood there. And I think a part of that is also i- this is just for business use only, correct? Yeah. That's something I think to make clear, which is really, I think, very important to bring out, right? Exactly. So you think about a lot of your internet options that are out there available to your home.~
~Yeah. Most of them are w- broadband, cable, et cetera. They are built for consumer. They have a consumer SLA. We- SLA is the service level agreement. Which means what is your commitment to me for reliability, availability, mean time to repair and respond? Those have very different SLAs associated with that.~
We are built strictly- For enterprises, which means we have the highest level standards of not just the uptime and reliability, but service and response times. Business-only focus, we get the impact and the need for this critical infrastructure, and everything we do is built with that mindset of being business-focused.
Which is why I go back to when I started the show off, was the idea that, that i- if there's a time for fiber, it is now. When we look at the [00:08:00] explosion of AI and the amount of data being hauled around, I just feel my goodness. I think as you said before, what you thought was once gonna be a commodity is now something that there's just not enough of.
And that to me is wow, there's such a cool opportunity for DQE here. We can't grow it fast enough- Yeah. ... is the way that we explain. Oh my goodness. You think about how AI has expanded your capacity needs. I can think of a day when, I was, in a telecom company where 1.5 megabits was a lot of internet.
Exactly. And then you think about my kids are complaining that I have less than a gig at home. Exactly. Oh my goodness. And now I have customers whose demands- ... because of AI and the learning of AI, have s- expanded their needs to 100 gig and 400 gig, and we just recently now are having customers with 800 gig inquiries.
Wait. Eight- Back up. 800 gigs. 800 gigs. Oh my goodness. And, it's all prompted by, we talk about supply and demand. . We can't put the fiber in the ground [00:09:00] fast enough. You're using technology to ensure that you can get the greatest throughput through it. But even at that, it's growing exponentially.
Wow. I used to say yearly, but now it's monthly, and it's all because of AI, this, the machine learning. Everybody's using the learning of Claude, ChatGPT, using it , for medicine. It's learning as it's consuming this data and this input That is growing by leaps and bounds That's crazy That is the unique nature of the industry- Yeah
that we're in is it is for the first time in a long time where I've seen that in this industry, fiber is, it's like gold It's like gold. It's like gold. It's, that's what it seems like at this point. That, it's just amazing to me to see this, and I still go back to this 'cause I'm a history nerd. 30 years ago, like they, they laid the foundations of putting all this fiber in the ground, and obviously you need to continue to grow.
Which direction do you grow? And I, I feel like you could just start putting it anywhere and people are gonna be tapping, [00:10:00] businesses will be tapping into this. You think about, here where we are, we have over 132 data centers already built, and this is where the AI learning, and every day, particularly in our market- Yeah
the demand is growing. We're constantly building out to new areas. One example is, the, the interest that is coming to Western Pennsylvania for data centers. We have the power, we have the energy. That's creating more of a demand. We're so blessed that DQE Duquesne Light early on invested in this fiber infrastructure.
It's so hard to build through the roads of Pittsburgh. Yeah. And we've got, we've got a river. If you don't have a river, you have a bridge. If you don't have a bridge, you have a railroad. Mountains and hills. And then you have, a, a highly populated old street. It is hard to build that infrastructure here.
We're really fortunate that they had the foresight for their own technology to put that in our environment to make that available for us, which is positioning all of us in the industries that are coming here to capitalize on that [00:11:00] fiber asset that's out there, to be able to grow and, and consume the data assets and be prepared for AI.
And now it's also positioning us for the other industries that are looking to come here. Yeah. It makes me feel like we have this competitive advantage to other regions.
So it's, it's two things, right? You keep hearing in the... It's about we- we're blessed to have the power infrastructure, the grid that existed here from being the- Yeah ... industrial area- Exactly ... and supporting the previous population. We have the land. There's water for anybody that's considering water, cooling and generation, which the technology is well changed beyond leveraging water.
Exactly. But now the fact that there is the availability of close in proximity fiber assets, couple that with everything that we have preexisting, it really positions Pittsburgh for growth. ~It does. And now I would have to assume with the amount of fiber that you have you're probably carrying other people's traffic for them to get into buildings and stuff because it's like you're, you are the main route I would have to assume.~
~We have over 3,500 physical buildings lit in Pittsburgh, where we are the fiber entrance in... And I'm talking about- Yeah ... in our- densely populated geography, many of the other service providers and carriers have to use us because you can't dig into a street. Just, it's too hard to get into the building.~
~Where else are you gonna put a hole in the ground, right? So we are the access provider for many other, what we call long haul providers, who are delivering services to Pittsburgh. We also light a lot of the towers, the f- cellular towers, that are in our region. And from that perspective, we are the core backbone to many of the data centers- Yeah~
~and getting out to Ashburn and getting out to Columbus and where the hyperscalers exist. That's ... i, I was excited to join DQE because they have an asset that I know not only will grow Pittsburgh, but that is extremely valuable for all of the industries and seeing Pittsburgh thrive. Yeah.~
So you've been on board there for a few years now. Y- you gotta be like "Wait, this is probably better than I thought it was gonna be." I- I hope that's the answer. No, I will tell you it's been an amazing experience- Yeah ... of culture. There's nothing like working with Pittsburgh people- Definitely
because they are down home [00:12:00] people. Here, everybody is a family, and everybody cares about every customer. Like, when we had recent storms, how nice it was to have customers- ... come and say, "Oh, my goodness."
"We had a storm. Your person went and got a generator. Your person- Really? ... ran and got us a cable. Y- your person was there immediately."
We're all part of the Pittsburgh family. Yeah. Everybody wants to help. That's a culture, a, like a, a together can-do culture that I haven't seen in 25 years. That's gotta be so much fun for you then. So it is a lot of fun-
it's really nice. And- Definitely ... we believe everybody is on this charter together. Everybody's invested in Pittsburgh and Western PA together. It's been a wonderful opportunity. Aside from that, there was apprehension. Private equity companies- Of course. Absolutely. Yeah ... buying this. You never really know.
It's been an amazing private equity experience because they are invested in the technology, whereas many, I feel like, are [00:13:00] bleeding the revenue out. Yeah, they wanna come and- That is not the model ... optimize it and then flip it over and, yeah. It's how can we grow, how can we invest, to the point that being owned by private equity, if you think about it, Duquesne Light owned us.
I don't wanna say, we were like a stepchild that made a little bit of extra money- Yeah ... while it was their network that we supported. They did a great foundation, but now being part of private equity has allowed us to take it to the next level. They've made capital investments that allow us to grow, upgrade technology, really focused on customer experience.
So we're investing beyond the fiber infrastructure- Awesome into that, ... in our application development, portal experience, arming our customers with frontline applications to see their network uptime real-time, to see performance. Like we arm our customers with a map of all their sites, red, green, yellow.
You know what is up and down. You can go get performance experience. We're making it easier for them. These are investments that other companies would've said, "Ah, what's the ROI?" [00:14:00] They are all in on making us the white glove experience, best of the best, and they're investing to do that. That is a valuable differentiator that I don't think would've come to fruition- if we weren't owned by a company that was forward-thinking using AI and being on board with applications and automation, which has allowed us to take on and add products to our portfolio, right? So- Tell, tell me about some of these new products that you have kicking in. Yeah So beyond the fiber assets that we have in place, we have layered on additional products.
So we've always had lit services and dedicated internet. Now we're able to manage the equipment that is on the end, so we can do managed router. Manage SD-WAN, manage firewall, manage security. We can even augment the wireline services with cellular services for cellular failover, and now we've also made available unified communications applications.
So your calling, your contact center, all of those services that [00:15:00] traverse a network, we're bringing it to bear- Interesting ... for our customers to be the easy button. So it's like turnkey really. It is absolutely turnkey. I can imagine a business having three or four or five different vendors to make all that happen, and then trying to get it to, come together.
Wow. If you can come to somebody and you can take care of that and have it all under one roof, that's got to create some crazy efficiencies. It elim- it eliminates the finger-pointing. Yeah. A long time ago you'd have phone and you'd have network, and you'd be like, "Okay, my phone's not working." It's your network."
My network's not working. It's, it's, you know- Exactly. ... my, I'm not getting what I experienced. So now having this all in one place, we're able to see things end to end, so we can immediately diagnose if there's an issue, triage it, isolate it, and resolve it. So if it's the phone is having a call quality issue because of the network, we've got it.
If it's the phone is down because of the network, we've got it. If in fact you need some unique, distributed application for your calling, contact center, et cetera- You got it. ... we've [00:16:00] got the network solution to do this. I love it. So it becomes the easy button, not only from an implementation and purchasing, but anytime from a troubleshooting as well.
Cool. Yeah. So it's it's... Again, we've been able to do this in the last two years with the evolution of the investments from private equity and the visionary perspective of the CEO- It's been a great story ... Mike Cicoli. Yep. Yeah. It's de- definitely been a great story to date, because I, I remember when it was sold, it was like, oh my God they've been around forever.
~What, wait, what's happening here? And it's what are those private equity guys doing? It's no, they're actually doing a pretty cool job here. They're not doing that typical yeah, bleed it and get the heck out, but they're, they're investing in it and it shows. They are. And I see your passion coming through as we talk about what you're able to provide to a business, and to me that's just That's just key And- So key~
they're constantly telling us "What else can you build? You have this infrastructure, you've got these pipes and these connectivities to the data center." "Think visionary. What else do people need across these pipes? Make them smarter." Exactly. That's what we're, that's we're, we're starting to focus on is how- It's exciting
do we make these pipes, this connectivity, these super highways, how do we make it smarter for our customers and our end users? It's a great story, and I think, I know, it makes me happy that you guys are in town continue to grow. You've, you've become a, a bigger and better DEQ. And I, I go back to it. I feel like this has become such a [00:17:00] resource for the region because I feel like, A, it's gonna make our businesses stronger, and I think it helps maybe attract new businesses as well, too, because I do believe, as you mentioned, we're not using any less AI anytime soon.
No. So we're just gonna need more and more fiber and to make it more efficient, and I just think it's a magical story. And it's one of these stories I feel like this is one of the many reasons why you're making Pittsburgh proud, simple as that, because this is what makes us tick, and you're at the infrastructure level of this thing.
No pun intended. It is. Literally the backbone for us to do what we need to do in business, which I think is just amazing. And Nikki, I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me here- Sure. It was nice ... at the Huntington Bank Studios. These conversations just make me so happy 'cause I'm like, wow, so many cool things are going on in Pittsburgh, and here's just one of these stories that we've been telling that keep stacking up.
I keep having a good time, and I wish you guys continued success as you grow DQE. Thank you. Yeah. We appreciate the opportunity to be here and share our story. We, we believe that we can continue to contribute to your- Yeah ... success too. That's what it's all about. They say you guys are reliably reliable.
That's right. And so we're never gonna [00:18:00] hold onto that, 'cause that is absolutely true. And in case you forgot, this is Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh Technology Council having conversations like this each and every day, having way too much fun, and I cannot wait to see you on the next one, everybody.
