Midco president reflects on milestone year, previews big things ahead in 2026

This piece is sponsored by Midco.

As Ben Dold approached his one-year anniversary as president of Midco, he gathered his senior leadership team for a meeting this fall in downtown Sioux Falls.

“It was really fun to reflect on what we’ve accomplished and where we’re headed,” Dold said. “There’s a definite optimism in our organization. We have strong momentum and are seeing positive results for customers.”

This summer, Dold traveled across Midco’s five-state footprint, and he has continued to meet with teams regularly.

In the spring, he was the first person at Midco to port his wireless number to Midco Mobile, which will launch in 2026.

“It’s been fun to bring my phone around and show it to our team members and talk about how that’s going and what it will mean for customers,” he said.

As he concludes his first year as president – and his 15th year at Midco – Dold has a lot to talk about.

There’s the Midco Fiber Forward initiative, which launched symmetrical gig services earlier this year and scaled it to offer 1GB upload speeds to more than 100,000 homes and businesses, many in the Sioux Falls area.

There’s the launch of 400G wavelength service, which positions Midco as a leading service provider for hyperscalers and data centers, providing solutions that offer a rare combination of capacity, scalability and reliability.

There are major community investments: a $2 million gift to fund the Joe H. Floyd Education Center at the Great Plains Zoo and a renewal of the Midco Aquatic Center title sponsorship in Sioux Falls, along with 178 Midco Foundation grants totaling more than $270,000.

And there’s the Midco Customer Commitment, a new program focused on improving transparency, communication and reliability for customers – everything from offering consistent updates about network status to information about upgrades and service changes.

“We’re being upfront and setting clear standards for what our customers can expect from us,” Dold said.

“The response has been really positive, including from our team because they take great pride in what they do, and seeing us be more intentional in talking about it has generated a lot of excitement.”

Across Midco, 2025 has brought a year of noticeable expansion and upgrades.

The organization’s footprint grew recently with the acquisition of Minnesota-based Savage Communications Inc., or SCI Broadband, which expands Midco’s network in Minnesota and prepares the company for continued fiber expansion in the state.

“That was huge for us, and we’re excited about it,” Dold said.

“They’re about an hour and a half north of the Twin Cities, so it’s a really nice acquisition for us, adjacent to our existing network, and a company we’ve known for many years that’s very culturally aligned to us in terms of taking care of customers and being involved in the community.”

The 60-person team recently joined Midco, “and it was a seamless transition,” Dold said.

For business customers, Midco has invested this year in SD-WAN, or a software-defined wide area network, offering smarter, more secure connectivity for businesses.

“It flattens the network for businesses with multiple locations while bringing enhanced security solutions, which a lot of small businesses increasingly recognize is really important,” Dold said. “It’s a great option for their security and their network.”

Midco also has seen increased use of Community Wi-Fi access in shared spaces, providing seamless, secure connectivity in multi-dwelling units and community hubs.

“We serve a lot of apartments, and we’re seeing growth both in new commercial business as well as growth in the services that our existing commercial customers are subscribing to,” Dold said. “We’re bringing more to market to solve their technology needs.”

Midco Sports also had a big year in 2025 with an updated look for the platform and integrated support with Midco’s internal, award-winning care team.

“From a content standpoint, we’ve done a lot of work on the streaming side as well as making the platform easier to navigate,” Dold said.

“We’re partnering with conferences and schools, so fans know where to find the content, whether on Midco linear television or on the streaming side. We see a really bright future for Midco Sports as we continue to grow content year-round and make sure we’re producing the sports local fans want to see.”

Internally, Midco teams upgraded both the enterprise resource planning finance and supply chain and the human resources information system, bringing smoother workflows, AI capabilities and better interfaces for team members.

“Our teams worked really hard to set the foundation for the next decade with these platforms,” Dold said.

“AI is on our radar, and we’re focused on the use cases that make the most sense – how AI can smooth out certain processes or bring tools we can leverage to work more effectively.”

The overall activity even caught the eye of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who lashed fiber with the Midco team this summer and witnessed firsthand how Fiber Forward is transforming connectivity in Sioux Falls.

“Sioux Falls, as with many things, has an outsized influence in Washington, D.C.,” Dold said. “It’s because of our elected officials, but also because of our business community. The reason Chairman Carr came is not just us – it’s businesses like VIKOR Teleconstruction too. Sioux Falls is a special place, and people see that.”

Previewing 2026

Looking ahead, customers can expect even more from Midco in 2026. Fiber upgrades will be coming to Sioux Falls, Harrisburg, Tea, Humboldt, Huron, Madison, Mitchell, Box Elder, Piedmont and Summerset next year.

“We will continue with Fiber Forward for the next couple years, and it will be fully done in all markets in 2028, so all customers will have access,” Dold said.

All customers also will be able to become Midco Mobile customers soon. The much-anticipated launch of the company’s mobile service is scheduled to ramp up in the first half of the year.

“We’ll roll it out market by market,” Dold said. “Right now, we have more than 50 of our team members running through the onboarding workflow, and we’re leveraging their experience to build training materials and get resources in place for the team supporting it.”

As he has used the service on his own mobile phone, “it’s worked great,” Dold said. “I’ve traveled across North Dakota and South Dakota, northern and southern Minnesota, Colorado, Florida and Washington, D.C., and it’s worked well everywhere.”

Staying close to its philanthropic roots, Midco also will continue to give back. The next round of Midco Foundation grant applications will run from Jan. 5 through March 13.

“We know there’s a lot of need out there,” Dold said. “The asks are compelling, and we try to help as many as we can.”

Throughout Midco, “we have a lot of big things on the horizon, and there’s so much optimism,” Dold added.

“I’m really proud of our team and what they’ve accomplished. We have people who are so committed to the customer experience and the communities we serve. In my role, I get to see all that, and it brings an incredible amount of pride.”