UPDATE: Please note, this post was originally created in 2017, and at present, nearly all subscribers have been updated to take advantage of the updated (at that time) plans and speed. The tiny handful of subscribers who have not yet been upgraded are already aware of the necessary upgrades they need. If you aren’t on the old WiMAX equipment, you already are using the updated plans.
At Western Broadband, we have been working on improving our infrastructure to be able to handle more traffic between our towers, more traffic to and from the Internet, and also deploying the latest technology in Access Points which can transmit data to multiple Subscriber Modules simultaneously. Sounds great, but what does this mean for you? Well, …
- All the extra paths with the high capacity help to make our network more resistant to weather-related problems, by giving alternate paths for most of our towers to use when the primary one is down.
- Those new, faster paths combine with the new redundant fibers and redundant bandwidth providers to provide additional protection if one of our fibers or providers suffers an outage.
- All of this works well in conjunction with the newer Access Points to be able to bring more capacity to under-served areas, to prevent AP overloading, and (I know, this is the one you were waiting for…) to increase speeds on the plans in the heart of our service area! Most of the newer capacity we’ve deployed in the outskirts of our service area, in places like Thrall, Manor, Holland, Belton, Salado, Youngsport, Watson, and parts of Burnet and Leander have no burst mode capacity, but we compensated for that by being able to provide higher speeds at the standard price points. Those higher speed plans had not been available in Liberty Hill, some parts of Leander, Georgetown, Florence, Granger, Weir, and Walburg… until now.
- We are consolidating and simplifying our plans, so the price/Mbps will now be the same in all areas for modern equipment.
- Starting immediately, all of our subscribers on the standard plans connected to the affected towers will be getting the newer, higher speed packages:
- Please contact us for details about plans and pricing.
- Oh yes, one other thing… We have now doubled the Referral Bonus from $15 to $30 – so when you refer potential subscribers to us, be sure to tell them to mention your name so you can receive that credit on your bill!
Expected Questions:
- How do I take advantage of this? Well, by the time this post has gone live, all the changes to the databases have been processed, and all radios should already be operating with the new rates. If your radio isn’t already using the new rates, a simple power-cycle to the radio should switch it over to the new plan – just unplug the power supply for the radio from the wall, wait for the light to go out, and plug it back in. Give it 5-10 minutes before trying to use it again.
- What if I am using that hardware, but my plan wasn’t listed above? We’ve tried to approach this sensibly – if you were on a custom plan that has now been superseded by one of the new plans which met or exceeded your current plan in each direction, we probably just switched you over to the new plan which was the best fit, as long as it was the same price per month or less. If we didn’t have a plan which met or exceeded your current plan in that way, we probably dropped the price of the plan you were on, effective with the next billing cycle – you can always check with us to find out how that went, or to make changes to the plan you are on. Either way, if you were on the affected hardware, you should be getting faster service, a lower bill, or in some cases, both!
- What if I’m still on the older hardware? We still have a fair number of subscribers using some of the old technology, which is not capable of running these speeds. We were able to give a tiny level of speed improvements on these older platforms at this time, but the actual hardware limitations of those older platforms impose a much stricter limit on how much bandwidth each AP can deliver. For these cases, the only way to get the higher-level plans is to upgrade the actual equipment (the subscriber module) located at the site. Generally, there is a one-time service call fee of $99 and a one-year contract renewal required to get the upgraded hardware installed at your site, although additional fees for certain lengths of pole may also be necessary in order to get above the trees in the path, and in some cases, there may be other difficulties in performing the upgrade. Please call our support team at (512)257-1077 for more details.