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PHIL BOSLEY of Cal.net Internet Services, left, and Wireless Network Engineer Nick Sekulich stand next to a tower, owned by American Tower Company, that hosts Cal.net's wireless transmitters. Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene
Does it take five hours to download two photos of your cousin’s wedding? Do you schedule program updates after midnight so that you don’t have to tie up your phone line during the day? Do you long to connect on Facebook but dial-up has doomed you to a clueless existence? There is hope.
Cal.net, a local Internet service provider based in Shingle Springs, is utilizing new technology and system upgrades to reach people in less populated rural areas. With a 600 square mile service radius in El Dorado and Amador County, Cal.net, formerly Directcon.net and Sierra Advantage, is well aware of the challenge in providing high-speed Internet service in rural areas.
“The biggest challenges we have for Internet access in rural areas are the trees and the line of sight,” said Phil Bosley, marketing director at Cal.net. “There are about 54,000 houses on the Western Slope and about 20,000 of them have no access to high-speed Internet service.”
Internet access for low populated rural areas is not a priority for major providers, due to the lack of financial incentive. Some, like AT&T, have suspended Internet provider expansion in lightly populated areas, prefering to concentrate on more densely populated areas.
“If a county wants to develop economically and compete in business with other counties, they need access to the Internet,” said Bosley. Job creation, educational opportunity, home businesses and telecommuters all depend on the Internet, and many people will not relocate to an area where they don’t have access said Bosley. “It’s a vital community need. Without it, El Dorado County falls behind other counties that have it.”
“A lot of El Dorado County still has old copper phone lines and they have poor reception in rainy weather which can degrade Internet use for those using dial-up,” said Cal.net Wireless Network Engineer Nick Sekulich.”Those lines will continue to decay and they won’t be replaced. Our company is making it a priority to continue to upgrade and invest in evolving technologies for this area. ”
“Most wireless service that is deployed runs on unlicensed, public networks and it’s subject to a lot of ‘noise,’” said Bosley. “Noise” is defined as any undesired electrical disturbance in a circuit, degrading the useful information in a signal. It can be caused by a wide variety of network traffic such as cell phones, tablets and electronic interference, baby monitors, cordless phones, Bluetooth headsets. Noise is also part of a busy system.
“Radio noise has significantly increased in the past three years that I’ve been working for Cal.net,” said Bosley. “The interference slows down the network and people get frustrated when they have high speeds some of the time and low speeds at others — when network use is at a peak. It’s been our company priority to keep upgrading our networks and stablize them in order to cut down on interference.”
Licensed networks are also more secure. “Our ‘backbones’ are 256-bit encrypted and they only communicate with each other, so they are very secure,” said Sekulich.
The newest upgrade, now being deployed, is the most substantial upgrade any wireless provider has ever done in the area, according to Bosley. “We’ll have better penetration through the trees, faster speeds and an allocation for Voice Over Phone network.”
The system starts with an Internet gateway, in this case, the American Tower at Pine Hill, where Cal.net leases space. The signal is sent from the tower to repeaters located on high points that relay the signal to other repeaters at lower points and from there to a CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) affixed to specific customer locations.
Looking down from the tower, one sees the tops of many houses and buildings. If you can see it, you can get a signal to it, said Sekulich, and the new upgrade can even broadcast to dead spots not in the line of sight through its repeaters.
Potential customers call Cal.net about wireless Internet service. Using the customer’s geographical location, Cal.net can determine whether a signal can be received at the location. A technician will come, free of charge, for an on-site survey, to determine the best place to receive the strongest signal. If the customer wants the service, the technician will install the CPE device right then for a one-time installation charge of $195. The monthly fee depends on the package and speed chosen by the customer, but there is no contract.
“That’s one of our biggest sellers — no contract,” said Bosley. “Also our customers have unlimited data and local technical support seven days a week.” Current customers can upgrade or even downgrade their package by calling Cal.net’s customer service.
For those using satellite Internet access, Bosley said the CPE promises better access. “A satellite has good broadcast speeds, but upload speeds are very low. Customers can’t Skype, do most gaming or internet conferencing. The wireless CPE is faster, with lower latency (lag time) and good upload speeds, allowing customers to Skype, game and stream things like Netflix and Hulu. The biggest plus is that it supports VPN (virtual private network) and telecommuting. People love not having to drive to work.”
The new CPE Velocity upgrade goes live on Aug.1. Current customers will be given the option to upgrade if they wish. For more information visit the Website at cal.net.com.
Contact Wendy Schultz at 530-344-5069 or wschultz@mtdemocrat.net. Follow @WSchultzMtDemo.
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MikolAugust 13, 2012 - 3:59 pm
This is what Free Market Capitalism gets for you folks...if there isn't a buck in it, you are left hanging out to dry. A few years ago we lived in a very remote location in Latin America for a work project. Dirt roads and very limited infrastructure (no running water, sewer, etc.) but I'll be darned if we didn't have rocket internet! And the gentleman who provides that service to all the rural areas where we lived…is THE richest man in the world because he saw the need and invested in the infrastructure. The United States is one of the lowest ranked countries in providing access to the internet for rural communities and I am sure it's due to a multitude of issues besides just the almighty dollar. The County Planning and Zoning departments should have had developers pay for the infrastructure years ago, but they didn't and now they are expecting the ISP's to foot the bill? Not going to happen anytime soon unless they are forced. My wife is an online high-school teacher and I am an architect who works on projects all over the world. My wife has to go to the library to work, but can't make phone calls because of the noise involved...I am relegated to Starbucks where it's difficult to find a table to work in the mornings and make my calls. Comcast is 1500 feet from our driveway and I have found we have well over the requirement of 30 homes per linear mile to justify installation of new lines down Hwy 49, but the work order has been turned down 3 years running now. What really gets me is the AT&T store on Missouri Flat in Placerville has an entire store dedicated to selling U-verse, but it’s not available east of Cambridge Road (per AT&T sales staff June 2012). I had Cal.net come out last week to survey my home (we have satellite which I’ll save for a different soap box session), but were told we could not take advantage of the new technology and we live smack dab in the middle of that pretty map of coverage area they posted with this article. There are so many opportunities where the County could reap the benefits from home based businesses, but it seems El Dorado County is destined to remain the dial-up domain for years to come.
Dave in KelseyAugust 13, 2012 - 7:55 pm
Hopefully with their new technology, their service has improved. We had both Sierra Advantage and Directcon prior to getting DSL. The service would go down nightly at 10:30 for about 20 to 30 minutes. It was great for regular internet usage, but the latency was too high for Vonange. You could still use it, but it would echo sometimes and disconnect. But by far, its way better than dial up. With the merger of the two companies, hopefully they have Directcon's tech support and Sierra's speed.
FernAugust 13, 2012 - 8:41 pm
Mikol, they couldn't get a signal at my house either. I'm on satellite too. I feel your pain.
MikolAugust 14, 2012 - 7:11 am
Thanks Fern, we should start a dial-up / satellite support group to deal with the unnecessary pain. I had to postpone a business presentation yesterday due to my not being able to upload a PowerPoint presentation. Real pain.
Kirk MacKenzieAugust 14, 2012 - 7:25 am
Look into Verizon's new 4G connectivity. It works well where CalNet and others couldn't get a signal (after their map said they could). There are a lot of negative aspects to this service (eg useage caps, contract), but after 10+ years of satellite hell it was worth it.
fernAugust 14, 2012 - 9:14 am
Kirk, I tried that too. I get lousy cell phone reception (tried both AT&T and Verizon). I have Verizon service on my iPad - half the time I only get one bar and the rest of the time no service at all. I would LOVE to have cable service. Comcast gave access to a neighboring community but won't run the wires one more acre for my neighborhood. Very frustrating.
Kirk MacKenzieAugust 14, 2012 - 9:35 am
Fern -- yeah, poor cell reception is a problem in many foothill areas. We went with Verizon's relatively new 4G technology that included a cylindrical part -- seems like an "antenna" but they insisted it was something else -- installed on our roof and connected to the modem/wi-fi unit inside the house by coax. The CalNet guy said they are close to deploying a new technology using Extremely Low Frequency that travels through trees and even hills/mountains...similar to the technology described in Nelson DeMille's novel titled "Wildfire". The good news is things are improving much faster now than 10 years ago when our only choices were satellite and dial-up.
Remotely LocatedAugust 15, 2012 - 9:16 am
Mikol, Fern and Kirk, Cal.net is not the only wireless ISP in El Dorado County. Give me a call and we can see if my company or any of the other Wireless ISP's the this paper did not mention in the county can service you. 530-651-1736 Jason
MikolAugust 23, 2012 - 11:40 am
Another frustrating week...I noticed the Cal.net wireless signal full force the other day, only to watch it disappear while I was frantically trying to reach Cal.net on the phone. Oh well. Today I spoke to a few pole climbers from Comcast in front of Raley's and asked them if they heard of any efforts to extend the service further out Hwy 49. He laughed and said "never" and got into his truck. Nice. My monthly request for DSL service from ATT (evil empire) fell on deaf ears and I received the obligatory "thanks for asking, but no". I did scour the web today and found this map at www.broadbandmap.gov of broadband service and its availability across the country. I clicked on the map over an hour ago and it is still loading…sadly ironic. Another website I found is BroadbandUSA (www2.ntia.doc.gov/awards) which details how and where the grants for broadband infrastructure are being allocated by state and region. Not a lot going on in EDC for sure, however there is one project cutting through EDC that may help but only if some of the Last Mile providers jump on board. So far UC Davis seems to be the sole recipient of backbone infrastructure in the area…I don’t think they are planning on competing with ATT and Comcast anytime soon. Off to hurry up and wait…