Vote to help win $100,000 Chase Business Grant

[dcshobby]

Hello all,

 

I'm an avid reader here at S4GRU but I seldom post due to running a WISP (Wireless ISP in Minnesota). We have applied for a $100,000 grant through Chase Mission Main Street where they give away 20 grants each year totaling $2 million.

 

As part of this community, we would very much appreciate your vote by clicking the link below and voting through your Facebook account. We just need 250 votes minimum to go to the next round where judges look at our proposal. 

 

Please help us with this so we can expand Fast, Reliable, Affordable and Unlimited Internet to more of rural Minnesota. Also, please feel free to pick my brain on how our WISP operates so you can learn more about what we do. Anything from Fiber to Licensed backhauls, customer service, etc.

 

Thank you for your support!

 

https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/68293

 

 

[S4GRU]

Allowed by S4GRU Administrator

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

[anthony.spina97]

Voted. Good luck!

 

-Anthony

[afazel]

Voted

[Destroyallcubes]

I only have time to get on ever now and then, but I voted. Keep up your good work!

[Destroyallcubes]

Hello all,

 

I'm an avid reader here at S4GRU but I seldom post due to running a WISP (Wireless ISP in Minnesota). We have applied for a $100,000 grant through Chase Mission Main Street where they give away 20 grants each year totaling $2 million.

 

As part of this community, we would very much appreciate your vote by clicking the link below and voting through your Facebook account. We just need 250 votes minimum to go to the next round where judges look at our proposal. 

 

Please help us with this so we can expand Fast, Reliable, Affordable and Unlimited Internet to more of rural Minnesota. Also, please feel free to pick my brain on how our WISP operates so you can learn more about what we do. Anything from Fiber to Licensed backhauls, customer service, etc.

 

Thank you for your support!

 

https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/b/68293

Saw the website, Curious how good are the pings on yalls setup?

[dcshobby]

Hey Jeremy,

 

We run a lot of Ubiquiti equipment and as long as you have good signals, clean spectrum, and don't overload the sectors, our customers see 2-3ms on the first hop to the tower. Then our backhauls are roughly 2-4ms from our fiber. So 3-7ms from our customers to our fiber transport to the internet. This is better than DSL (12-36ms) and a little better than Cable which generally is 6-8ms on the first hop.

 

From our tower sites, there is unlicensed and sometimes licensed backhauls to our core. From there, we have two geographically separate GigE fiber connections to different datacenters in Minnesota for redundancy. We purchase Cogent and Hurricane Electric currently and will soon be upgrading to 10 Gigabit connections at both locations and back to our core.

[Arysyn]

Hey Jeremy,

 

We run a lot of Ubiquiti equipment and as long as you have good signals, clean spectrum, and don't overload the sectors, our customers see 2-3ms on the first hop to the tower. Then our backhauls are roughly 2-4ms from our fiber. So 3-7ms from our customers to our fiber transport to the internet. This is better than DSL (12-36ms) and a little better than Cable which generally is 6-8ms on the first hop.

 

From our tower sites, there is unlicensed and sometimes licensed backhauls to our core. From there, we have two geographically separate GigE fiber connections to different datacenters in Minnesota for redundancy. We purchase Cogent and Hurricane Electric currently and will soon be upgrading to 10 Gigabit connections at both locations and back to our core.

Just out of curiosity, what are your typical speeds?

 

Staff, I'm asking a perfectly fair question here, nothing to do with speed tests, just a general question many people ask of carriers.

[dcshobby]

Our residential offerings are listed on our website and are 3/1, 10/10, 20/20, and 30/30 Mbps speeds. We can do custom plans up to 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps) via licensed wireless as well if a business needs that much speed. Most consumers pick our 10 or 20 Mbps plan. Our competition is DSL under 1 Mbps, dialup, satellite internet, and 4G services through Verizon with horrible data caps. In many places, we're the only unlimited data option for home and business fixed services. 

 

I think you're safe to ask any questions here since it is a General Topic and not related to Network Vision. Please vote for our grant if you haven't already

 

Feel free to ask any more questions. 

[Joey SR]

Voted. Good luck

[Arysyn]

Our residential offerings are listed on our website and are 3/1, 10/10, 20/20, and 30/30 Mbps speeds. We can do custom plans up to 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps) via licensed wireless as well if a business needs that much speed. Most consumers pick our 10 or 20 Mbps plan. Our competition is DSL under 1 Mbps, dialup, satellite internet, and 4G services through Verizon with horrible data caps. In many places, we're the only unlimited data option for home and business fixed services.

 

I think you're safe to ask any questions here since it is a General Topic and not related to Network Vision. Please vote for our grant if you haven't already

 

Feel free to ask any more questions.

If your company was in the Burr Ridge, Illinois area, I'd definitely sign up for the 30 mbps service, as long as I could get a good signal on it at home. The speed tiers sound great too, something I'd like to see on the national carriers.

 

The GB service sounds especially great for streaming lots and lots of 4k! ???? j/k!

[Destroyallcubes]

Our residential offerings are listed on our website and are 3/1, 10/10, 20/20, and 30/30 Mbps speeds. We can do custom plans up to 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps) via licensed wireless as well if a business needs that much speed. Most consumers pick our 10 or 20 Mbps plan. Our competition is DSL under 1 Mbps, dialup, satellite internet, and 4G services through Verizon with horrible data caps. In many places, we're the only unlimited data option for home and business fixed services. 

 

I think you're safe to ask any questions here since it is a General Topic and not related to Network Vision. Please vote for our grant if you haven't already

 

Feel free to ask any more questions.

 

Its sad you offer better service probably than most cable companies offer. Too bad you dont have service in My neck of the woods. Its sad to see upload speeds below 10mbps these days. I wouldnt mind that 30/30 package. What is the coverage distance from the tower outwards usually like? Also if its unlicensed spectrum isnt it open to more interference?

[joshuam]

Voted!

 

Wireless ISP's are very interesting, I've only learned they exist recently. I live in a 2-4 wire ISP area so they aren't popular in my area, though apparently they do exist in small pockets.

 

Best of luck!

[my94rt]

Voted! Good luck!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[dcshobby]

Its sad you offer better service probably than most cable companies offer. Too bad you dont have service in My neck of the woods. Its sad to see upload speeds below 10mbps these days. I wouldnt mind that 30/30 package. What is the coverage distance from the tower outwards usually like? Also if its unlicensed spectrum isnt it open to more interference?

 

 

Hey Jeremy,

 

The furthest we install clients with Line of Sight is about 8-9 miles on 5 GHz. It is unlicensed so we have to carefully monitor quality and capacity on each sector so we can detect with our tools if there is interference. If there is, we do a spectrum scan and see if we can find a cleaner channel and then switch it. We also get around this by putting in more sectors with smaller beamwidths for example going from 120* sectors to 60* sectors. This gives us more capacity and less interference overall so we can add more customers and offer higher speeds.

 

Josh is correct that in areas with 2 or more wireline competitors, we generally wouldn't target residential subscribers because they often have choices with higher speeds and/or lower pricing than our company does. In those same areas though, we can heavily target businesses where we can offer more reliable service, better customer support, higher speeds, or just a backup connection to their primary.

 

Our bread and butter is definitely rural markets where cable doesn't go and DSL is non-existent or under 1-3 Mbps. 

 

Thanks for your votes so far guys!

[Destroyallcubes]

Hey Jeremy,

 

The furthest we install clients with Line of Sight is about 8-9 miles on 5 GHz. It is unlicensed so we have to carefully monitor quality and capacity on each sector so we can detect with our tools if there is interference. If there is, we do a spectrum scan and see if we can find a cleaner channel and then switch it. We also get around this by putting in more sectors with smaller beamwidths for example going from 120* sectors to 60* sectors. This gives us more capacity and less interference overall so we can add more customers and offer higher speeds.

 

Josh is correct that in areas with 2 or more wireline competitors, we generally wouldn't target residential subscribers because they often have choices with higher speeds and/or lower pricing than our company does. In those same areas though, we can heavily target businesses where we can offer more reliable service, better customer support, higher speeds, or just a backup connection to their primary.

 

Our bread and butter is definitely rural markets where cable doesn't go and DSL is non-existent or under 1-3 Mbps. 

 

Thanks for your votes so far guys!

Yeah we have a fixed wireless company here Dctexas and never had them. Price per Mbps is high, especially compared to yours. I pay around $60 after taxes for a 12/1 connection. Dsl only offers up to 6mbps (Att) lines are 20 years old at least so speeds would most likely be less than .5 mbps on the upload.

 

I wish we had options. A semi rural, close to a growing city should have more than 2 semi reliable internet options.

[BenChase7]

It looks like it requires FB to vote, which I do not use.  Otherwise, I would certainly vote for you.  I like the sounds of what you are doing.. Keep up the good work and good luck! 

[MacinJosh]

I voted. Hope you get it!

[travismheim]

Voted. Your service plans look great, I wish there were more companies like you to provide service to other rural area's that can't get broadband.

[Trip]

I also don't use Facebook, but wish you the best of luck.  It sounds like you provide significantly better service than my parents' fixed wireless ISP.  If there was absolutely anyone else who would provide them service (even satellite isn't taking customers!) they would be long gone.

 

- Trip

[dcshobby]

I also don't use Facebook, but wish you the best of luck.  It sounds like you provide significantly better service than my parents' fixed wireless ISP.  If there was absolutely anyone else who would provide them service (even satellite isn't taking customers!) they would be long gone.

 

- Trip

 

What kind of speeds does their WISP offer? Is it one with low speeds and data caps? We're trying to stay unlimited as long as possible for residential but some users are pushing us to reconsider when they use more than 500GB of data in a month. Those users receive an email from us mentioning common bandwidth hogs such as video that should only be run when users are watching it, not as background noise. It also mentions file sharing as common heavy usage for their connection.

 

Compared to Verizon 4G and satellite which only offer 10-30 GB of anytime usage, we think being able to use about 500GB for $57 per month is a fair deal. If a customer wants to use more than that, we can throttle speed down or convert them to business and they can use it all they want. But just like Sprint, we understand unlimited can't last forever as people continue increasing their VERY heavy usage. 

[Trip]

They offer 1 Mbps unlimited (for $50/mo) and have raised it to 1.5 Mbps for my parents (who are grandfathered at $35/mo I think), but the service is very spotty and often much slower or non-existent. 

 

http://www.rabbitears.info/tvdx/signal_graph/101B48F4/tuner1/WBRA-TV

 

All of the gaps in my graphs of TV signal levels there represent total outages of their service, as my server has been running continuously for more than a year. 

 

They use 900 MHz unlicensed on gear purchased from eBay, and when you call to complain that the service doesn't work they say "then find another provider."  (There isn't one.)

 

- Trip

[pokefan02]

I just checked prices on my local WISP, which is Fulair, and prices range from 4-2 for $75 , 6-2 $95, and 10-3 for $135 where as cable is $39 for 50-7.

 

Sent from my HTC M8

[sctwinslow]

Voted. Good luck

[MarshieZ]

Voted! Hope you do well!