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Hilly Terrain Makes Wenatchee, Wash., Unlikely Candidate for Wireless Broadband

PUD fiber engineers told commissioners that the county’s hilly, tree-covered terrain would make for spotty coverage from wireless broadband, and the cost to maintain it would be higher.

(TNS) -- WENATCHEE, Wash. — Wireless broadband service won’t be an option, at least for now, for the approximately 4,000 Chelan County homes and businesses that are too remote or too scattered to ever hook into the PUD’s fiber-optic network.

Commissioners agreed with a staff proposal Monday to shelve wireless broadband as a potential alternative for these customers for five years, unless a breakthrough in technology comes sooner.

PUD officials have set a goal to make fiber available to 85-to-90 percent of total county homes and business.

The cost to install fiber to the remaining remote locations is currently deemed too high to be cost effective. This has riled some customers, who say they are the ones who most need PUD-supplied broadband, because few if any affordable alternatives exist.

PUD fiber engineers told commissioners that the county’s hilly, tree-covered terrain would make for spotty coverage from wireless broadband, and the cost to maintain it would be higher.

The speed and quality of wireless broadband requires a clear line-of-sight between the antenna and customers’ homes.

PUD officials tested wireless in the Entiat River Valley, beyond the 6-mile reach of the utility’s fiber-optics line. They discovered that coverage of the wireless technology was inconsistent, with lower much lower speeds than those achieved in a laboratory setting.

“Even with wireless there are still some customers who we just can’t get to,” Mike Coleman, the PUD’s fiber and telecom manager, told commissioners. He added after the meeting, “We do want to find an alternative technology at some point to cost-effectively provide a service in those areas.”

They also determined that the cost to replace the wireless equipment would be about $16,000 more per year than a fiber system, based on a 20-year life cycle, and would be 5 percent to 15 percent more costly operate and maintain.

Local companies use PUD fiber to sell very fast Internet, telephone and cable TV service to the county’s homes and businesses. Some of them also offer wireless broadband.

The PUD’s testers used wireless equipment that operates on the federally licensed broadcast spectrum, which is regulated to prevent some users from interfering with other users, Coleman said.

Other wireless broadband services, including the SkyFi sold by East Wenatchee-based company LocalTel, operate on an unlicensed spectrum, which is more susceptible to interference, he said.

That’s true, says LocalTel President Dimitri Mandelis, but network management helps reduce interference. The service is delivered over cell phone towers to an antenna installed on the customer’s home. It also requires line of sight. For many, he said, it’s faster than other alternatives.

©2017 The Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, Wash.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.