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Access Media 3 (“AM3”) is an Internet, television and telephone provider service company based in Oak Brook, Illinois. The company specializes in providing services to multi-dwelling units such as condominiums, apartments, retirement communities and student housing. At present, AM3 serves clients in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, DC. Currently, AM3 serves approximately 50,000 revenue generating units (RGUs) in over 450 properties.
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History
Access Media 3 was founded by CEO Scott Rediger in January 2007 in a merger with MDI Access. Rediger’s previous experience in the telecom industry included his role as a co-founder of Ovation Communications, a competitive local exchange carrier business offering facility-based local, long distance, and data services to medium and large sized businesses in the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee and Detroit. After two years, Ovation Communications was sold to McLeod USA in 1999 for $402 million. After the sale, Rediger served as a Senior Vice President of Products and Development for McLeod USA.
AM3’s business model specifically targeted multi-unit residential buildings as a market for customized bundled media services. The company works directly with property owners, associations and managers to design individualized packages of high-speed internet, voice and television from DIRECTV™.
AM3 expanded rapidly through both organic sales growth and strategic acquisitions. Following its initial merger with MDI Access, AM3 acquired:
Financial backing for acquisitions came in part from investment support by private equity concerns Meritage Funds and WP Global Partners, as well as a credit facility relationship with JP Morgan Chase and financing support from Hinsdale Bank and Trust, a Wintrust Community Bank Charter. AM3 also expanded its sales staff to promote organic sales among property managers and owners. As a result, AM3s RGU base rose from approximately 3000 in 2007 to over 50,000 in 2011. In early 2012, AM3 secured $30 Million in funding from ORIX Venture Finance and Petra Capital Partners to fuel continued growth.
Awards
AM3 and its leadership have received recognition for the company’s swift growth, including:
Tracking users by injecting javascript in HTML contents
On January 5, 2014, it was published and documented by a customer, that Access Media 3 is injecting tracking javascript into all HTTP request bodies. The tracking was apparently achieved by means of proxy software in the software router, the rXg (Revenue eXtraction Gateway), produced by RG Nets. The purpose of the tracking is yet unknown, but the front page of RG Nets states:
In a brochure, RG Nets state about the rXg box:
the rXg is the perfect platform for clear communication, authoritative control and complete cognizance over your RGN end-user population.: Contemporary profitable IP RGNs extract revenue from the end-user community through a combination of direct and indirect mechanisms. The classic IP RGN business model that focuses on direct billing of end-users is giving way to hybrid models that employ advertising, user profiling and premium services with automated up-sell.: Inspecting, recording, analyzing and understanding how end-users consume the available resources as well as how they interact with the offered service levels is a critically important aspect of operating an RGN.: