our tower . This will require an antenna mounted outdoors and a cable from the computer or router to the antenna – all provided by HCI . To ensure the best Near Line of Sight ( NLOS ) conditions for your wireless equipment , we mount the antenna as high as possible . In the event that you have a tripod , TV or radio tower , the additional elevation assists in ideal NLOS conditions . The antenna has an Ethernet network connection which can be used to connect to a computer or router . No additional software is required to be installed , providing a simple , problem-free connection .”
The infrastructure to offer this service takes time to build and a lot happens before we will ever see towers going up in an area .
“ We have been working on getting to Wedowee for some time ,” Boulton said .
When they decide to come into an area , first thing is getting a tower that can point to the area from one of their existing locations . Right now that means finding a way to connect Ranburne to Wedowee . Once that ’ s done then topography surveys are done of the area to figure out where best to place main towers , then its GIS studies and RF propagation survey to know if towers will work .
“ In other words we are gathering a lot of data ,” Boulton said . “ By the time you see us start stacking steel ( building towers ), it will be very short order until we start broadcasting service in an area .”
But , that being said , Boulton hopes HCI will be in Wedowee by late spring .
“ We provide wireless internet so we can build much faster and less expensively than traditional fiber ,” he said . “ Fiber can cost $ 34,000 to $ 38,000 per mile where we can put up a $ 10,000 tower and reach areas that couldn ’ t be reached before .
“ It ’ s not as good as fiber , but it can do everything you need to do .”
Boulton said that his product can not deliver 100 gigabyte speed but he went on to say very few people need that .
“ The average user needs 5 to 8 mb per second and why overpay for something that you don ’ t need ,” he said .
The downside to this product however is it has to be line of sight .
“ We haven ’ t figured out how to broadcast through trees yet ,” Boulton said . “ But once we get up and running we can offer our customers connectivity on the lake .
“ For example you have service with us for your home account . Well you get a log in and you can access that from anywhere so in other words you can be on a boat on Lake Wedowee hit one of our access points , log in from your phone using your home account and then have internet on the lake .”
If you are interested in HCI for internet service , visit
http :// hcicomm . net / serviceinquiry / to get started .
12 LAKE WEDOWEE LIFE