After exchanging e-mail with Alex at MonkeyBrains, I soon had an installation appointment. It would cost $250 to install an antenna on my roof, but Internet service would be free for the remainder of the year, almost six months. The math worked for me.
The monthly price next year -- no contract -- hasn't been nailed down, but Alex says it will probably be in the $30 to $40 range.
Anders, who handles installations for MonkeyBrains, cheerfully risked life and limb on my steep roof to place the broadband antenna. After returning to following morning to make some adjustments, I was getting more than 20 Mbps down and up.
MonkeyBrains guarantees at least 10 Mbps symmetrical and most customers see 15-20 Mbps. Some customers see 25-30 Mbps with a good connection. According to Alex, this depends on the company's backhaul connection, which is in the process of being upgraded. Once that happens, he expects 30 Mbps+ connections will be common.
I could've gotten, at least on paper, 20 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up from Comcast for $55 per month, but I'd prefer to give my business to a small, local company. As someone who already pays too much to AT&T for home voice and mobile service and Comcast for cable TV, I'm looking to give these companies less rather than more money.
This turns out to be a common theme among MonkeyBrains customers.
"We've had various customers tell us during installs that the Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world are ‘big billing systems,'" said Alex. "If you want anything else, like you want to call someone and ask a question, our company lends itself better to that. And unlike Comcast or AT&T, Rudy, Anders, and I are not looking to take over the U.S. We're looking to do really well in our area and if other people want to learn how to do this, we would love to help them do that."
MonkeyBrains has been around for 12 years as a server co-location facility. Thanks to a new generation of affordable wireless technology and the tepid efforts by large ISPs to improve broadband speed while lowering prices, the company is becoming a wireless ISP, or WISP.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
