A Message from Open Broadband concerning COVID-19

Staying connected even when apart

COVID-19 has brought many changes to our communities, affecting the ways we live, work and interact. But throughout these changes, one thing has stayed constant: Our determination to serve you and your internet needs in a safe manner.

Working in your community

As one of the many essential services responding to this national emergency, our work continues – even in those areas with stay-at-home ordinances. You may still see some of our field technicians working in and around your neighborhood. Their work is helping to ensure that residential communities, businesses and critical facilities have the internet they need throughout this time.

As a precaution, if you do see our workers, please avoid approaching them and their work areas. If there is a need to speak with them, be aware that they will be maintaining at least 6 feet of separation. We’ll also be keeping this recommended distance anytime direct interaction for essential services is required on customer properties, inside homes and businesses, consistent with CDC and other public health guidelines.

Cedar Grove Ruritan Club is opening up their clubhouse to the community so students without internet can do classwork during this crisis. The clubhouse has free Wifi provided by Open BroadBand. Must follow the rules below:

The Hillsborough North Water Tank is now operational.

On Monday March 30th we installed our transmitting antenna on the North Water Tank and we are already serving customers in that area. We have a direct air link to the Emergency Operations tower located at 501 Meadowlands Drive which provides us with a great signal. We are in the process of scheduling surveys in that area and we will be contacting residents for the days we will be on their neighborhoods.

A Birdseye view !

Above are the antennas on the north water tank and below are our tower climbers installing the transmission antenna to the water tank. He told us he could see the water tank from there !

Our first three installs off the Water Tower… and more to come !

You will be contacted once service is available

Once service is available at your address, we will contact you to schedule a signal test to ensure sufficient wireless signal for broadband.

Once the signal level is confirmed we’ll set up an in-home installation appointment. A team of installers will set up the system, attaching an antenna to the exterior of your house in addition to an interior gateway device.

If we have not contacted you that means service is not available yet. Please be patient and we will contact you when we can schedule your address. We will provide as much advance notice as possible.

If your neighbors have not joined the signup list, encourage them to do so.

Activations in Blue
In-process Tower sites in Red
Current Neighborhood focus in green

Hubs and Towers:

We continue to focus on serving customers near our towers and hub sites. We’re still working in other areas on ensuring a strong enough signal to install hub sites. We have not forgotten – it is on our list.

Tower work: UPDATE

We are proceeding with our installation on the Crown Castle tower in Schley. They have given us a Spring estimate on readiness.

We may be experiencing some delays due to the COVID-19 situation. We will continue to advance our progress as much as possible.

Once this site is up we’ll begin testing and installing those in this area. We thank you for your patience in the meantime.

The Hillsborough North Water Tank
– This site was installed and turned up on March 30.
We are currently testing and installing in this area. We thank you for your patience in waiting for this project to be completed and we will be connecting homes as quickly as possible.

We have completed the agreements with two landowners to mount equipment on their silos. One location is Cedar Grove Farms on Efland Cedar Grove Rd and the other is the Lloyd’s Dairy Barn on Hwy 70 in Efland.

The Cedar Grove Farms location will give us additional coverage in the lower Lake Orange area and in the area of Governor Scott Rd.

The Lloyd’s Dairy Barn will provide coverage to the southern area of Brookhollow Rd and points east and south of that. Installation of equipment is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks.

Lake Orange – We are currently working with several residents around the northern end and upper peninsula of the lake in securing agreements to use their homes to act as hubs (relay points) so that we can broadcast our signal in to those areas. We are very close to having all that completed and we are planning for installation to begin in several weeks.

We would like to thank the property owners for their permission to allow us to utilize their homes and silos so that we can provide service to their neighbors.

Thank you

We are soon to be expanding our Team

As we continue to sign up more customers and expand our coverage, we are looking to expand our Team and interview candidates for Part Time positions of surveyors and installers.
Interested candidates can view our job postings and apply via our website careers page: https://careers.openbb.net/

A big Thank You to all of our customers in Orange County! This is a long journey to build a new network from scratch, using fixed-wireless technology in a challenging terrain. We believe everyone deserves access to broadband speeds and our small company is doing our part to fill in gaps where the 50-100 year old large companies have not implemented.

Thank you for your patience and support, while we continue to develop solutions to provide High Speed Broadband to your area and we look forward to serving many more of you in 2020.

Orange County April 2020 Updates