Who installs this?

We will use volunteer members of the co-op to assist with the installation. Many new members may choose to do a self install or an assisted install. This will speed up the process. We can deliver the radio, mount and cable. You run the wire outside, mount the radio and we come back to put the ends on the cable and make sure the radio is pointed perfectly. We'll spend 30 minutes or so with you before we leave the equipment to talk about placement, cables, etc.  If you do not feel like this is an option for you, we will schedule one of our members to help complete the install.  These take around 90 minutes to two hours to complete.

What speeds should I expect?

We will not "throttle" the upload speeds like DSL and Cable.  That means, your uploads will be almost as fast as your downloads. Again, the radio on your house is less powerful that the radio on top of the silo so there will be some difference but we will not actively slow it down like other providers do.

Like DSL and Cable, this is a shared resource. For us to bring a dedicated 50 Mbps fiber to your home would cost around $900 / month if it was even possible.  So, we share the resource.  DSL and Cable typically "over subscribe" your service between 25 to 45 times. That means you are competing with potentially 45 other people for the speeds you purchased. Sometimes, you get what you pay for. Other times, you get very little of what you pay for because 44 of those other users are also online.  

We also will over subscribe a bit. We have to. All Internet service providers do in order to pay the bills.  We plan to keep our over subscription to around 4 or 5 times. We will monitor it closely.  When member numbers go up to the point where we can add more bandwidth, we will. However, if you speed test your connection all day long, you will see it vary. What is more important to us is the quality of the network for what you need from it. When you want to watch Netflix, can you stream it without buffering? When you need to send that large file to work, does it upload quickly? Are your web meetings easy to see and hear? That is what matters to us and you.