Orange County June 2020 Updates

PROJECT UPDATES

Attention Schley Tower Area Residents: We know it has been a long time coming but we are now making good progress on this project. We are working with the tower owner and climbers and have submitted our final structural plans to be submitted for permitting. We should complete that process within 30-60 days and then we can begin to install equipment on the tower. Stay tuned for further updates.

We are also moving forward with Cedar Grove Farms on Efland Cedar Grove Rd and the other is the Lloyd’s Dairy Barn on Hwy 70 in Efland. We expect to have the remaining issues resolved very soon so we can mount our antennas.

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 northern part of the Lake will also begin shortly; to cover the western and eastern side of the peninsula. 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.

Stonegate Trailer Park -Beginning in late June we are installing a system to provide service to 30 homes within the neighborhood. Completion is expected by end of July.

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.

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

Internet Traffic has Grown Dramatically

In the pre-COVID days, most students were in school, and parents were at work. Internet usage peaked in the evenings and was mainly downloading – e.g. streaming Netflix and other content. Bandwidth contention was primarily on downloading content which is less noticeable as the internet is built on a system of packet re transmission and buffering behind the scenes.

Post-COVID means children and 2 or more parents are at home using the internet from 7 am to midnight. Usage is significantly higher than before, and with a limited amount of bandwidth per home, you may see both a slow down and variability, depending on what others are doing. Compounding this is the use of VPNs by parents working from home. VPNs consume bandwidth even when nothing is being uploaded – this further bogs down the system.

More and more people are also using Zoom throughout the day. This is a constraint on the upload bandwidth. When the upload bandwidth is full, a new user request will not go through. New upload connections will not be available until people drop off the Zoom calls. There is no ‘buffering’ on upload like one would have in downloads. As a result, it can appear that service is “out” when technically service is up.

The traffic increase is not just Open Broadband. Open Vault reported Internet usage was up 47% in 1Q20 and the change of demand to flattening between day and night.. Some of the large carriers reported as follows:

Comcast reported experiencing a 33% increase in upstream traffic
In mid-April, Spectrum reported an increase of nearly 32% for upstream traffic.
As of the end of April, AT&T reported a 22% increase in core network traffic
In mid-May, Verizon reported significant growth at an application level, highlighting an 81% increase in VPN usage, a 1,200% increase in collaboration tool usage, and video streaming 36% higher than typical pre-COVID days.

What are we doing about it?

About 2 months ago we ordered a 10x increase on our fiber circuit to the Cedar Grove Tower, which provides service to most of our customers in Cedar Grove, Hurdle Mills, and Efland. This is due to turn up mid-June and we will see immediate bandwidth relief. There are still ‘hub’ locations which can bottleneck bandwidth, but this fiber increase will help substantially.

We are also adding additional internet feeds at other locations in the county.

We apologize for the congestion issues some of you have been experiencing. We thank you for your patience and look forward to life getting ‘back to normal’ soon.

Business Spotlight: Thompson Millwork

Open Broadband provides high-speed internet service to businesses as well as residents. In May we completed an installation for a company that moved in to a building that is literally on the wrong side of the tracks. This business was not able to get any hard wired service because the cost of running cable under the tracks was cost prohibitive and to go overhead was not possible. So the solution was to originate a signal from one side of the tracks and shoot it across to the building with a direct Line Of Sight (LOS) 60 MHz wireless connection.

Previously they were depending on a low speed DSL line at 3 MB or less to run their business; and with the onset of the Covid-19 restrictions many of their designers that upload and download large CAD files were forced to work from home and this caused even less productivity with slow speeds and disconnections. Understanding their dilemma, Open Broadband was able to design a solution that would provide them with a 400 MB wireless connection which vastly improved their productivity and overall efficiency for other Internet activities as well.

So if you work at a company and are in need of a High Speed Internet service, or know someone that does, please contact us and we may be able to provide a solution to improve their productivity.

You will be contacted once fixed-wireless 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.

We are looking to expand 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 throughout the year.

A Reminder 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.