SEATTLE, March 20, 2026 -- Tim Semakula walked into the Paramount Theatre in Seattle at 13 and asked to learn lighting. They told him he would be their boss someday. They were not wrong.
What followed was a career that spanned telecom, tech, and touring. While in college, Semakula interned at US West Communications and worked at McCaw Cellular One. After college, he moved to Microsoft and Mindspring. In 2007, he founded FulcrumPoint, a managed service provider he ran for 18 years while doing everything else. He built networks at the companies that defined the Pacific Northwest tech industry, then built his own company on top of that experience.
In 2010, Semakula became the IT director for Bumbershoot, Seattle's major music and arts festival. Three years into that role, in 2013, everything changed. Taking a break behind the venue, he saw the tour buses parked. His friends were getting off some of them. He knew he had unfinished business. He needed to finish what he started at age 13.
Two years later, a production manager named Paul saw Semakula, and five minutes later decided he wanted to spend three months on the road with a guy who had never toured but had a good attitude. That became his first real tour, with K.Flay. From there he lit stages for the Black Crowes, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kid Cudi, Def Leppard, John Bonham Jr, Black Violin, The Interrupters, and Sheryl Crow, whose Be Myself Tour took him across the US, Canada, the UK, and the Isle of Wight. Crow was his first Top 10 artist. He did three stints with Earth, Wind & Fire alone, starting as a fill-in network tech who got pulled onto tour after a show at the Hollywood Bowl, then coming back as crew chief, then as the lighting designer. One of his favorite things in the world was doing a show at the Bowl and driving home.
The whole time, FulcrumPoint was still running. Between the Earth, Wind & Fire and Def Leppard tours, Semakula started building yet another company. After Def Leppard, he realized he could run it all. MSP, touring, startup. There was never a gap. He was always building.
He came home because his husband Joe Gregory was lonely and their pets were aging. Not burnout, not money. Love. And it was Joe who pushed him toward what came next. "Do something larger for more people," Gregory told him, "instead of doing large things for a few people."
Semakula had seen it coming since 1994, when he was interning at US West Communications and noticed the financial engineering starting. The mergers, the acquisitions, the slow hollowing out. Then during COVID, he tried to order a regular telephone line and could not. It was an impossibility.
"They are not interested in providing phone service to individuals anymore," Semakula said. "They went totally for the corporate dollar. I am not knocking their hustle. But everyone deserves internet and phone service at home. It is a human right."
CenturyLink, the successor to the very company where Semakula started his career, had been fined $10.9 million for 739,000 service violations. They stopped taking new copper line orders. Millions of people were about to lose their phone service, and nobody was building a replacement.
So they built one.
ClearBeam Networks is not a reseller or an app. The company holds its own CLEC authorization, its own FCC registration, and operates its own voice network across 12 points of presence in the United States, including bare-metal infrastructure at Equinix facilities in five cities.
Their first product, HomeStation, is a home phone service that starts at $15 per month with all taxes included and no contract. It ships a pre-configured cordless phone to the customer's door. Setup takes five minutes.
"We wanted to build the phone company we wished existed," said Gregory. "One that picks up when you call. One that does not bundle your phone bill with cable you do not watch. One that actually protects your family instead of selling your data."
HomeStation includes Kid Safe Numbers, which give children their own phone number on a real phone without a smartphone. Parents control who can call. Everyone else is blocked.
Elder wellness check-ins call a family member every morning. If they pick up, everything is fine. If they do not, the family gets notified. No app needed on the elder's end. Just a phone that rings.
"Joe pointed out that a lot of people under 40 have never had a home phone," Semakula said. "They do not know what a dial tone is. So we had to explain this as a new product, not a throwback. A phone number for your house. Not your pocket."
ClearBeam has filed with the Washington UTC for designation as a qualified successor carrier in five CenturyLink ILEC territories across Washington state. The company is also deploying an AI-powered voice receptionist for schools and government offices.
HomeStation is available in all 50 states at order.myclearbeam.net. HomeStation starts at $15 per month. HomeStation Plus, which includes Kid Safe Numbers, elder check-ins, and a Home Assistant, is $25 per month. All taxes included. No contracts.
ClearBeam Networks is an independently owned, queer-founded telecommunications carrier headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company builds and operates its own nationwide voice network. The phone your house has been missing.