The company is just beginning to compete with giant Embarq for business customers in Southwest Florida. In its first few months, TruWave has grown to 20-plus customers, including three big names: Health Management Associates Inc. (HMA), ASG Software Solutions and John R. Wood Realtors.

Mambuca is one of seven investors who have put a combined $25 million in TruWave, believing that the region is ripe for TruWave’s products, expertise and customer service. Investor Elliott H. Singer, founder of financial company Fairview Advisors LLC, offers three more reasons to have faith in this nascent venture.

"It’s unusually well financed," he says. "The founders and management of the company are dedicated to the long term, [and] the experience of this particular management team is truly world class. To find this kind of experience in a small market such as Naples is very unusual."

Laying the Groundwork
That background comes primarily from Level 3 Communications, a Colorado-based international communications company whose executives included Mambuca and other current TruWave personnel. During his final five years with Level 3, Mambuca lived in Naples and commuted around the world. His departure was prompted by a local telecommunications construction company’s efforts to build a regional fiber optic network. It needed someone with telecommunications expertise. Mambuca needed a job that would allow him to remain in town more, so he could enjoy coaching his children’s teams.

"The thought of living and working here attracted me," he says.

Mambuca and the team of investors acquired that company, U.S. Metropolitan Telecom, and its fiber optic network in 2006. The venture underwent a couple of name changes before launching last year as TruWave Networks. It still has the capability to install fiber optic networks where needed.

Other executives from Level 3 joined Mambuca, who lured them to Southwest Florida. "I did the sales pitch, ‘How would you like to live and work in paradise?’" Those who chose to join him were interested in working for a smaller operation, with Level 3 on an acquisition spree from 2005 to 2007 that resulted in layoffs. Mambuca says he and others were "spending a lot of time ending people’s careers" and were attracted by an opportunity to start careers.

Of course, it helped that Mambuca also had a viable product in TruWave. Owning the fiber optic network means "we can control what’s going on," Mambuca says. Other telecommunications companies, such as NuVox Communications and PAETEC, resell Embarq’s services.

Mambuca also touts the newness of TruWave’s physical network.

How much does that matter? It depends whom you ask. According to Embarq spokesman Tom Matthews, "Fiber is very durable. And in terms of installing fiber, we’re installing new fiber all the time."

Matthews adds that Embarq’s Ethernet services have been certified by the Metro Ethernet Forum, whose other service provider members include AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. TruWave isn’t a member of this group; Mambuca says the company is considering which Ethernet consortium to potentially join.

In the meantime, local companies are deciding to give the new guys a chance.

Customer Service Focus
TruWave’s projection, based on a model looking at Southwest Florida demographics, employment data and other factors, is to grow to 537 customers by the end of the year. Each job is custom priced, and the rates are 10 percent to 30 percent less than competitors’, Mambuca says. The standard contract runs three to five years, with a monthly recurring payment and the potential of non-recurring charges for installation or other major needs.

"What we won’t do is grow too big too fast. That is the death knell for small businesses," Mambuca says.

HMA, a publicly traded operator of acute-care hospitals in the Southeast and Southwest, uses TruWave to connect its local hospitals, and depends on Embarq for other services.

When he looks at both of the companies, HMA network engineer Mark Drake sees a difference, because of TruWave’s local connection and connectivity.

"That helps out. A lot of times when you’re dealing with someone locally, you get things done in a more timely matter," he says. "We’ve had a very good experience—almost no down time compared to Embarq, [with] which we’ve had a lot of down time."

On the three occasions in which TruWave’s system briefly went down for ASG, IT director Dan Long says the company responded quickly. "We had backup for when that occurs, so it didn’t put us out of business," he says. "As soon as we realized it was down and [they] realized it was down, it was up and running within two hours," Long says.

Mambuca acknowledges that the telecommunications industry has a history of mistreating its customers, so TruWave is "pretty maniacal about process control," he says. The company has invested in software to keep track of maintenance and installation appointments, and Mambuca boasts that the billing department is local, so issues can be quickly resolved.

The key to success for companies competing in the telecommunications industry is reliability, says Martin Haas, president of Entech Computer Services, a Fort Myers-based information technology consulting company. "Truly they have to show up when they’re going to show up.

They have to give the product that they’re selling," he says. "It’s how you do your business. You can sell in theory all day long, but backing that up with true actions is what’s important."

Haas says TruWave is taking advantage of a good opportunity by providing an alternative to established companies like Embarq. But challenges also come from taking on that company and other competitors, and doing so in the current economic climate.

"They’re absolutely getting into a tough market," he says.

A Model For Growth
TruWave is just one of a number of Embarq’s competitors in Florida and all over the country, says Matthews. "We essentially would cover all the territory—virtually all the territory—I can tell they cover, plus a lot more."

Mambuca sees TruWave’s small size as an asset.

Like some other customers, ASG uses Embarq for its local voice connection with TruWave as the backup. That’s how Mambuca hopes to get in with larger companies—by asking them to trust TruWave with their "redundant," or backup, connections. The goal: Over time, they’ll make TruWave their primary provider and switch the existing client to their backup provider.

Mambuca also hopes to attract smaller companies, with five or more employees. He says his heart is with the two-location law firm or single-office accountant—more "down-home, local" clients than he had with Level 3.

At the start of the year, TruWave Networks had about 80 employees, which includes a construction group that is working to put more buildings on its network in Lee and Collier counties and extend its client base in Charlotte, Henry and Glades counties. When it gets phone calls to build a fiber-optic network in a multi-unit building, that division goes to work. Potentially, those customers could come TruWave’s way.

TruWave is a WAN (wide area network) company, which connects buildings to each other and to Internet and voice telephone networks. The acquisition of Fort Myers-based Fiber Solutions in March 2007 enables it to act as a one-stop shop for businesses’ telecommunications needs, Mambuca says. Founded by Rodney LaVoie, Fiber Solutions is a LAN (local area network) company of about 40 employees that provides networking within an office or building. Its clients have included Lee Memorial Health System, Chico’s FAS Inc. and the Lee County School District.

So far, investor Singer has been pleased with TruWave’s success, even before it launched its voice services in March. The company would like to have launched with the voice and data product available, but clients started coming before the voice services were complete. That shows the pent-up demand "for the quality that these folks have brought to the market," Singer says.