Big Sigh… I do not have to build a tower in Sherwood Shores. Someone must have told Cable One that Sherwood Shores needed fiber optic cable and 100 MBps because that is what Cable One is laying out here in the boon docks. Grayson TV Cable sold out to Cable One. I am so grateful. Grayson TV Cable charged me $170.00 a month. My service only worked about two weeks a month and they would not give me a break on my bill. If you have been keeping up with my updates on this issue, then you know the about rigmarole I went through.

After Frontier and Rise Broadband promised internet service but could not deliver, I worked at the library in Sherwood Shores for about three weeks, before its service slowed down so much that it took two hours to post my article here on LakeTexoma.com in the second week of August. The library uses Frontier, so Frontier did me a favor by lying to me.

Frontier recently gave a neighbor of mine 5 MBps, but he lives closer to the CO (central office) on Hwy. 377 and Cedar Mills Road than most of Sherwood Shores. He cut through a lot of red tape, and it took a few days, but he reports that his internet is running stable and fast. Inside the Shores, I was lucky to reach .69 MBps upload speed at the library. Frontier is participating in an FCC reform initiative, called the Connect America Fund II (CAF-II) along with ten other communication companies, but I don’t see that it will affect our region anytime soon because these companies accepted the phase two funding in 2013.

http://www.fiercetelecom.com/special-report/at-t-frontier-others-accept-1-5b-caf-ii-funding-despite-fcc-s-changing-broadband

I would have had to deal with the slow speed at the library in order to build a tower, or tried to catch a ride to town a couple times a week with someone that commutes and use a library in town. I heard about Exede, a satellite ISP, in August. Excede structures its company like a franchise. I talked to four Exede dealers before I found one that could answer all of my questions intelligently.

I can tell you that so far, it is much, much better than HughesNet. It rained and clouded up, and I stayed connected. It has not rained for days with heavy cloud cover yet, so I cannot give a review. Exede offers three levels of service beginning at $70.00 a month (you have to rent their modem) When Exede customers run out of their monthly allotted gigabytes, they switch customers to a program called Liberty Pass, which slows down to about 1 to 1.5 upload speed at the lowest cost level. I do not know about the other levels, but the packages they offer use bandwidth and not speed as a measure. The speed runs the same in all of their packages, and customers can purchase more gigabytes if they need it. You must purchase a two-year contract.

I spoke with a Cable One call center representative today. He gave me all the information he had available. Cable One is laying fiber optic cables north from Whitesboro on 377, service begins in about three months, and the rep gave me a number to call for update reports. That number hangs up on me during the automated receptionist’s monolog. They offer 100 MBps. I do not know how they will split that between download/upload speed; probably 80/20.

The information I found on what The Chickasaw Nation is doing with their BrightNet ISP gives me no hope for the north side of Lake Texoma. This page lists their dial-up service cities: http://www.brightok.net/accessnumbers/. It states on their website that bringing dial-up internet service to south-central Oklahoma is one of their goals. I talked to one of their phone service reps and they offer no service in Texoma.

Even though I do not have to build a tower in my neighborhood, I am ready, willing, and able to help anyone in Texomaland write grants, find engineers and equipment, etc., for their own tower. I will live out the rest of my life in Texomaland and I want to see growth. We cannot grow without ISP infrastructure. If you are willing to work hard for your community and would like help, please contact me.

I will continue to update any new developments in ISP infrastructure in Texomaland. Please contact me if you know of any new developments and I will include them in my updates. Now, I just have to get ready to buy out my two-year Exede contract when Cable One gets up and running...