I often get asked, “how does it work?” People wonder what hardware is used and, if you’re one of those wondering, here you go!
I use 2 different kinds of radios, both made by Ubiquiti. This is what they look like:
Each of these are small…the LiteBeam, on the left, is about a foot across and the NanoBeam, on the right, is a bit smaller. They each run off of a single cable that runs into your house. That Ethernet cable plugs into a little box which sends both power and data to the radio.
You also plug that little white box into a regular home router, and boom…you’re up and running!
The install fee covers the cost of the radio, be it a LiteBeam or a NanoBeam, to get you on the network. This would be the “point of demarcation”, if you will.
No. It is actually none of the above.
DSL utilizes phone lines. Before I started this company, CenturyLink DSL was pretty much the best option available in this area. Speeds down here are usually <10Mb/s. The problem with this in this area is pretty obvious. If you want to do pretty much anything online, these speeds are quite insufficient.
Satellite utilizes…well…satellites. Satellite Internet has long been the only option for Internet in rural areas and, if you’re only hoping to be able to do basic things such as sending emails, it can work ok. You can even get some pretty good speeds through services like HughesNet. There are two MAJOR problems with Satellite, though:
1 – Data caps. The last I saw, HughesNet limits you to 50GB of full-speed data transfers. After that, they throttle so hard that the connection is essentially useless. If you stream a lot of video, like many of us do these days (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, YouTube TV, Disney+, etc), you can easily go through your monthly full-speed allowance in less than a week.
2 – Ping times. Because data literally has to go to space and back, your ping time, or latency, is MUCH higher with a service like HughesNet than it is likely to be with something terrestrial. This means that doing anything time-sensitive like video chats, gaming, Zoom calls, etc are not likely to work very well.
“So, what is it?”
It’s terrestrial radio. It uses the little radios shown in the drop-down above to communicate with the network. As long as the radio on your house has good line of sight with my tower, I should be able to get you hooked up.
Here at Windspear Networks, I go out of my way to NOT be “the big guys”…I keep things simple.
There’s a $250 install fee that includes install, the hardware that connects you to the netowrk, and your first month’s service.
After that, it’s only $55/mo. That’s it. Simple!
At this time, I only have one “speed” or “package” available.
I sell a 25Mb/s connection as that’s the recommended speed for 4K Netflix. However, speeds vary a bit. Depending on time of day and network utilization, you’re likely to see quite a bit higher speeds than that and it should never drop much below that.
If you are between 35th Ave and 51st Ave around Carver Rd in southern Laveen, I can almost definitely get you hooked up.
If you are north of this area, around 35th Ave but south of Baseline, I can probably get you hooked up.
There is no “contract”. You are free to cancel any time.
Generally, yes. The only requirements when using the network is that you do not do anything illegal on the network and you do not abuse the network. Other than that, you are free to stream as much as you’d like.