By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
BUHLER, Kan. — IdeaTek is expanding its high-speed wireless solutions to more rural areas. In November and December, IdeaTek constructed new towers in the communities of Nickerson, Hesston, Moundridge, Cheney, Kingman, Varner, Dodge City, Liberal, Mullinville and Haviland. Equipment off a grain elevator on West Fourth Avenue will help the company cover a portion of Hutchinson.
"I think it's about nine new sites or upgraded sites that are going to either provide new service coverage or increase capacity," said Daniel Friesen, IdeaTek’s Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer. "We continue to infill the Reno County, Hutchinson area. We think we've got about a 90% or higher penetration rate. Really, from a coverage perspective, it's 100%."
Because of the way wireless works, there may be an isolated address or two that can't get a clear line of sight to their wireless tower due to trees or other buildings, but those are relatively rare. The speed is really good for wireless at 150Mbps, though fiber is the long-term hope for everyone.
"Fixed wireless service, it's rapidly deployable and that's a high need right now," Friesen said. "Our long-term vision is to continue to expand our fiber broadband footprint in these areas over time. We have a whole separate investment plan for that."
The wireless infrastructure will buy time for Ideatek to continue to expand that fiber network.
"We see about a five year lifespan, five to seven years, before it would have to be upgraded again," Friesen said. "That gives us an opportunity to work towards a more permanent solution of fiber. It just takes years and millions of dollars to run a fixed fiber to each home in a rural area."
Based in Buhler, IdeaTek was founded by Friesen and four high school friends in 1999.