The bad news is we will no longer be able to move customers over to our Fiber/Cable network as we no longer own it. The GOOD news is now all of our attention is back on our Wireless network.

We had managed to get it up to 30mbps when we backed off to work on Fiber. That changes now, sure we’re still planning on selling the Wireless network as part of my ‘head to retirement’ plan, but the advantages are clear to increasing our speeds.

First is that demand continues to grow for Internet usage, and Wireless has to grow with it. Unfortunately the heavily controlled FCC only wants to help big money cellular with new spectrum (That’s bandwidth, not the company), not us. Because of that we have applied for a PAL license to begin offering licensed (protected) spectrum to our customers. Others may say they offer 100mbps but it’s on the overused Unlicensed frequencies and subject to interference, ours won’t be subject to that problem.

The second reason is to prevent overbuilding. The BEAD grants, once dedicated to helping the government get into the Internet business is now being forced to give credit for legitimate speed networks. That speed minimum is 100/20mbps, therefore we rapidly need to upscale our network to those speeds to prevent government funds being used to try to run the independent Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) out of business. Thus we’re highly motivated to get there quickly.

Lastly is the fact that it increases the value of the company. I don’t know about you, but if you’ve spent your career building a company, when it’s time to enjoy to efforts of your work you want as much as you can get. Having a company with licensed spectrum and speeds that guarantee customers will not want to leave you, it helps the bottom line. We want to increase the value of our product not only for you, but for our sale.

This company is the original Internet company in Yakima. A few of the upstarts, usually who began from working here, have enjoyed us sitting back and concentrating on our fiber network, well they better start paying attention to their networks because we are back full-time to our Wireless network, and we don’t mess around when we want to compete!

Thanks for believing we have this community first in our minds, so find a good local buyer for us.

Forbes Mercy, President – Washington Broadband, INC