[lug] Broadband Internet options for rural Boulder County?

Brian Talley b225ccc at gmail.com
Tue Aug 3 13:07:26 MDT 2010


On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Paul E Condon
<pecondon at mesanetworks.net>wrote:

> On 20100726_070245, Ryan Kirkpatrick wrote:
> >
> > About two years I posed this question to the group and am hoping there
> are
> > some new options. I am looking for broadband (i.e., faster than dial-up
> > :) about half way between Lafayette and Longmonth in Easter Boulder
> > County.
> >
> > Two years the options were WISPs (Mesa Networks, etc...) and cellular.
> > Mesa Networks were the only ones with coverage, yet they came out and
>
> Mesa Networks has been absorbed into a larger company, Skybeam. They have
> had some indigestion pains, but they have added hardware. You might get
> better results now than 2yrs ago. New company has strong marketing focus
> on VOIP. Seems crazy to me. When they are down, how does a customer call
> for service? But if it pays their bills and they have the coverage (which
> remains to be seen) ... maybe you can do business with them.
>
> I had terrible service from the time of the ownership change until a couple
> of months ago when I managed to get them to send a tech out to repoint
> the antenna on my roof. Turns out they had switched me to a different
> tower which was closer to my house, but in a slightly different direction.
>
> YMMV
>
>
>
Yes, Skybeam (whom I work for) has acquired and integrated several WISPs in
Colorado.  We've made significant changes and improvements to all aspects of
the infrastructure state-wide in the past couple of years.  There were
several problems with the infrastructure in Eastern Boulder and Western Weld
county, but things are stable now.

Our sales people have pretty good tools now to be able to tell if your
location is serviceable before sending an installation tech out, so it might
be worth a quick call just to rule in or out the possibility of Skybeam
service.

I wouldn't say we're putting any more emphasis on VoIP than we are data
services, but my perspective might be skewed (and I don't work for the
marketing team).  I think many people feel the way you do about VoIP, but
wireless technology has become much more robust and stable in the last 5
years.  If you have Comcast/Xfinity VoIP and you're service is down, how do
you call for service?  The likelihood or probability of different wired or
wireless services being down is surely not the same across the board, but
the same problem really exists no matter what service you have.

-- 
Brian Talley
b225ccc at gmail.com

"The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." --
Edward Gibbon
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