At The Pacific Northwest Rural Broadband Alliance we have begun launching our flagship network in Missoula, Montana, and are in the active planning phases of deploying service to Anderson Island, Washington many may be wondering “who is The Pacific NW Rural Broadband Alliance? And how do they relate to The Missoula Valley Internet Co-op and The Anderson Island Internet Co-op?”
In short, The Pacific NW Rural Broadband Alliance is the parent organization responsible for these budding community networks. We are a registered 501c3 non-profit organization, comprised of a small but dedicated group of experienced and highly talented individuals with a…
We have been a bit quiet lately, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been working hard on a lot of great new things! Let’s review just a few of the things we’ve been up to and the exciting things to come!
New Official Site For The Missoula Valley Internet Co-op!
To start things out we have launched an official website for our flagship network, the Missoula Valley Internet Co-op!
We’ve chosen to launch this website now in preparation for our pending network scale out that will be beginning in the next 30–45 days. …
Standing up for Digital Rights:
From day one in establishing the core values of our organization we have considered digital rights, personal privacy, and universal equal access to the internet to be among our fundamental core values. These values are important to us because they are core to what the internet has always meant to be about. A global network that facilitates universal access to information and free communication.
It’s with these values that we hold key to our organizations mission that we have a big announcement: starting as of today the Pacific Northwest Rural Broadband Alliance has officially joined the Electronic Frontier Alliance!
So, you just took the leap and got connected to your local community’s Althea network! You have a brand new fast, affordable, community owned and operated internet access from your local network operator, and you’re ready to experience the advantages of this entirely new model for providing internet access. But, as with anything new, Althea requires a slight mindset change to ensure that your experience is a positive one. So there’s a few things you want to be aware of:
Pay-per-forward billing:
As we wrote about in a previous blog entry the way you pay for your service is entirely different from…
This Sunday we will be hosting the first community call for the Lake County Internet Co-op. This will be a chance for residents of Lake County to learn more about the new broadband service we will be launching that will be entirely community owned and operated, delivering fast and affordable broadband service to even the hardest to reach areas of Lake County.
This network is slated to launch in Q3/Q4 of this year, initially starting to connect customers in the Polson area southward, with ideally an additional point of presence being deployed in the Arlee area building northwards. …
As we’ve discussed in prior articles, and in our previous community call, the success of this community owned and operated network that we are building hinges upon two things:
1.) Active participation from the community itself.
2.) Individuals willing to volunteer to host relays.
These relays are the lifeblood of our network. They allow the service area of our network to grow out from our fiber connected gateways, connecting neighbor to neighbor, and one neighborhood to the next.
During this past week we brought on-line the first sets of relays that bring full coverage to the lower Grant Creek area…
The Current State of ISP Pricing Models
There’s an uncomfortable truth everyone suspects and knows in one form or another but your ISP doesn’t want you to know about: they’re cheating you. They’re selling you a service plan that you are never actually receiving or using. They sell you internet that you select from a series of service plans based on “speed tiers.”
As a veteran of the ISP industry, that has worked at all levels — from one end to the other — of one of the largest national ISP’s I can tell you one simple truth that all ISP’s rely on using to make the…
The Missoula Valley Internet Co-op will be holding a public community call on Sunday, March 14th, at 4:00PM Mountain time. During this call we will be discussing the progress we have made in growing our network, the current status of our first initiative of connecting residents in the Grant Creek area, and an update on our timeline for further expansion into Missoula and surrounding communities.
While this call is open to anyone who would like to join to learn about our activities and ask questions about our service or general operations, we would like to extend our invitations to this…
Recently we put on a community call for The Missoula Valley Internet Co-op where we discussed a number of topics around the launching of our flagship network. On this call we covered:
— The launch of our network in early December, 2020. What the process was like, and what the reception has been so far.
— We were joined by a guest speaker who discussed his impressions of our service as one of our first customers.
— What our expansion plans look like, when we will be reaching the various areas across the Missoula and Bitterroot valley’s, and who is…
After months of meticulous planning and many long hard hours put in by everyone on our team we are happy to announce The Missoula Valley Internet Co-op is live!
Our first batch of customers are connected in the Grant Creek area, happily browsing the internet, streaming NetFlix, and enjoying on-line gaming at blazing speeds exceeding 200mb/s on a fully secure network!
From the point when we first launched our pre-registration campaign we received an overwhelming response of people across the Missoula and Bitterroot valley’s. We’ve heard from residents in areas that lack adequate service to accomplish the things they need…
