Alyrica Networks has completed its Rural Broadband Project in partnership with Polk County to bring affordable high-speed internet to residents throughout the county using Tarana’s next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA) broadband solution.
Through survey efforts and public discussion opportunities in 2019, Polk County residents made it clear to their county commissioners that quality broadband access was largely unavailable, despite the indications of the FCC’s broadband coverage reports. As the ability to participate in critical online activities like telehealth, education, and remote work gained importance during the pandemic, county officials recognized something had to be done, and fast.
Polk County Commissioners worked diligently with multiple local internet service providers (ISPs) to foster broadband efforts that would quickly bring high-quality internet access to their residents and make the best use of public dollars. Alyrica was selected for their proposal leveraging Tarana’s ngFWA G1 platform. G1 takes a whole new approach that overcomes previous wireless technology limitations thereby delivering reliable high-speed broadband, even in the face of significant signal obstructions and interference.
Sam Dotson, CEO of Alyrica noted, "With Tarana’s ngFWA solution, we’re delivering download speeds up to 625 Mbps to customers in the most rural parts of Polk County, and still maintaining a monthly price point below $100 across all service packages.”
Dean Anderson, Project Manager at Polk County, shared, “We were not sure fiber was going to reach everywhere or be cost-effective, so this was a great alternative.” In fact, the average cost per home to cover these rural locations with ngFWA was roughly 15% what it would have required to reach them with fiber.
Alyrica received $795,000 in local grant and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds from Polk County for the project, and announced their partnership with Tarana in the summer of 2022. Now, five new towers equipped with Tarana ngFWA have made affordable high-speed internet service available to more than 750 underserved county residents, including those located in the well-forested and previously hard-to-reach hills north of Dallas, Oregon.
One Polk County resident reported that their new Tarana-backed service “has been great… faster and cheaper than before!” Another thanked the Alyrica team for “quadrupling their speeds” and “giving us country folks absolutely amazing internet” through the upgraded ngFWA network.
Sam Dotson commented, “It was an honor to serve the residents of Polk County and we were privileged to work with various county officials throughout this project.”
