OCTOBER 8 T H , 2015
Palmer Wireless B2B Project
Palmer Wireless Overview
Started by the Kangas’ and Tim Boie as a wireless internet provider for the Clear Lake rural area in 2006 due to lack of internet access for our community
Added 3.5G technology in 2009 and expanded the service offering to include a larger area in central MN and became a cellular phone service provider
Added the Citescape unlicensed network to the business offering in central Minnesota in November of 2014
Added Duet IP to the Palmer Wireless business in June of 2015
Serving over 3,000 wireless internet and cellular phone customers in central Minnesota
Added fiber to the premise customers in October 2015
Fiber Project Summary
Becker Industrial Park consists of 24 businesses on the West side of the city of Becker
Current broadband is through Windstream’s copper DSL, or from various wireless solutions
The City of Becker became concerned that businesses would leave or not be attracted to the park due to lack of adequate broadband
Becker is Palmer Wireless’ “hometown” along with Palmer Township with many business and personal ties to the community
Project scope
Construction of 20,000 feet of main artery network that reached from the Palmer Wireless fiber hut at Becker Schools to the Becker Industrial Park
All construction was in 1 ¼ conduit144 count fiber and 48 count fiber were usedPermits secured from State of MN, Sherburne County, City
of Becker and Burlington NorthernCalix was selected as the electronics vendor and Clearfield
was selected as the fiber drop and patch panel solutionNewCore was selected as the Engineering and Project
Management vendorMichel’s was selected as the contractor for fiber and vault
installation
Becker Industrial Park Map
Project Challenges
BNSF crossing was very time consuming and costlyPre Securing the customers for service
Some businesses wanted to wait until it was completely built Some businesses didn’t need more bandwidth (yet!)
Time management with other concurrent projectsDemand for other services such as fax and voice in
addition to broadbandRight of way constraints, especially on Liberty LaneConstant locate requests during construction when
the conduit wasn’t able to be located
Success to date
October 1st marked the launch of the first commercial customers delivering up to 100 Mbps down and up Becker Furniture World Fire Bugsz Vogel Display
25% of the businesses in the park have committed to service prior to construction
Media coverage and local support have been greatCity of Becker has been very good to work with
during the pre construction and construction modeNo resident complaints during construction and no
lines hit by the construction crew
Going forward goals
Securing 75% of the businesses in the parkLeverage this project to serve additional
areas that are in need of high quality local service
99.99% reliability Expanding to 1 Gbps service in the next 12
months