How Wireless Works:

AirNorth uses Wireless Point to Point technology to provide internet service to the rural parts of Cheboygan County that are otherwise either unserved or underserved by the major carriers such as Charter and AT&T.

To be able to provide wireless internet service to the residents of Cheboygan County, the network begins with a fiber internet connection that feeds into our main tower (headend). From here we use powerful point to point equipment that we call backhauls to transport the wireless signal from tower to tower.

The signal is received and sent down the tower to a router via Cat5 cable where it is then sent back up to either additional backhauls to be passed along to other towers OR to multipoint wireless equipment the broadcasts straight to individual customer homes.

The location of each tower, and subsequent access point, is very important because we have to be able to maintain a clear line of site from point to point to be able to provide the best quality signal.

The signal is then received by another piece of wireless equipment that is either mounted to the exterior of the home or to a structure such as a pole or a tower and the internet is brought into the home via Cat5 cable and plugged into a wireless router which broadcasts wireless internet throughout the home, based on the capabilities of the router. The equipment is so sensitive that when pointing the receiver, we have to move the equipment millimeters at a time up/down & side to side.

Why AirNorth vs Charter or AT&T

Our business model is to provide internet service for the residents of Cheboygan County who are otherwise considered unserved or underserved by the major carriers. Charter, AT&T and other carriers have spent millions of dollars building infrastructure throughout the nation. They build out to the more populated communities because of the costs involved in the infrastructure build and the ROI. The rural communities are the ones who suffer because the population is not high enough to support the build costs.

AT&T and the other major carriers were able to build telephone infrastructure into the rural communities over the past 60 years because of subsidies provided through the federal government agencies such as the USDA and the RUS. In recent years, the USDA and the RUS have restructured the way they subsidize for telecommunication infrastructure and no longer provides incentives for building to the rural communities.

This is why companies like AirNorth are so important to communities such as Cheboygan and Indian River. We are able to go beyond where the major carriers infrastructure stops. And unlike satellite service, AirNorth does not have data caps thus eliminating the ridiculous overage fees.