Paul Foxwell, Allamakee-Clayton Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) general manager and vice president, holds an antenna that is placed on vertical properties as part of the Skyways fixed-wireless Internet service the company recently launched in Fayette County. One such antenna is located on the water tower in downtown West Union. (Chris DeBack photo)
REC launches Skyways in Fayette County
Chris DeBack
Contributing Writer
Rural Americans typically get the short end of the stick with technology.
Here in rural northeast Iowa, it always seems as though this area is playing catch-up when it comes to the latest and greatest technological breakthrough. It’s especially true for people who live out “in the country” on gravel roads with the Internet. Those Fayette County citizens have few options when it comes to getting broadband Internet service.
The options that are available, like satellite Internet, can’t keep up with the high bandwidth requirements most people are looking for when selecting an Internet provider. While speed may be an issue, so, too, are data caps that severely limit what someone can do on the Internet. In today’s day and age, 10 gigabytes doesn’t go very far when utilizing all that the Internet has to offer.
Allamakee-Clayton Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) is trying to change that with the introduction of Skyways, a fixed-wireless Internet service that can reach up to 25MB download speeds and won’t have a data limit.
“[REC] gets bandwidth [for the fixed-wireless system] from a [fiber-optic network backbone] and then we distribute that over a network of wireless equipment that then goes to the subscriber at his or her home,” said Paul Foxwell, REC executive vice president and general manager. “We have found pretty early on that it is a good technology. It is line of sight so there are limitations with terrain and things like that, but we are able to deliver a product without some of the constraints we saw from the satellite business.”
This isn’t the first time the rural electric cooperative has diversified its brand. When DIRECTV first took off, REC became a DIRECTV provider and installer through a national affiliate organization. At its height, the company had 4,000 DIRECTV subscribers until the satellite TV company saw how successful the program was and bought REC out. Foxwell noted that customers still call REC to sign up for DIRECTV.
Through its dealing with the national affiliate organization, REC also got involved in providing satellite Internet. Foxwell noted that satellite Internet service has always had limitations. The first satellite that was launched into space to provide the service only allowed for basic Web functions such as checking email. As the Internet began to grow and the need for higher bandwidth grew with it, so, too, did the satellite technology. Today, satellite Internet is capable of providing connections that will allow for streaming applications such as Netflix, but a major limitation has always been data limits. A customer gets a set amount of bandwidth to use per month — for instance 10 gigabytes — and once he or she has reached that allotment, the customer will either be charged overage fees or have speeds throttled back until the next month’s billing cycle.