No matter how hard the telecom industry tries, there are going to be places where building out terrestrial broadband services will be next to impossible. But West Virginia FiberNet, a CLEC that provides primarily dial-up and DSL service in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, has been augmenting its broadband reach with Broadband in a Box's wholesale hybrid satellite/dialup Internet service. Broadband in a Box's wholesale services enable customers to deliver 256 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps downstream and 20-50 Kbps dial up upstream speeds.
Since launching the service without advertising six weeks ago, FiberNet has already attracted 65 subscribers. Packaged as a dual-play data/phone offering, FiberNet's consumers can either install the satellite equipment themselves or FiberNet can do it for a $125 fee. Touting itself as a middle-mile broadband provider, Broadband in a Box has already gotten the attention of Sytek Communications, a rural Minnesota telco. However, Broadband in a Box has one drawback: It won't qualify for broadband stimulus funding because the service falls outside the government's definition of broadband.
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- Telephony has this article