A tiny internet provider has made a lot of noise supplying ultra-fast internet to a community few people – including those in the broadband industry – pay little attention to: mobile homes in RV parks.
Kwikbit Internet is an internet service provider that solely supplies service to recreational vehicles and mobile homes in trailer parks, and offers the kind of speeds that would make a lot of consumers jealous. The company is able to provide simultaneous upload and download speeds hitting close to 1 gigabit per second, despite the fact that no large ISPs would even think to offer service there.
That Kwikbit is able to offer this service to mobile homes is an interesting tidbit, but the more important part is how it is able to pull this feat off, and what it might mean for the efforts to get everyone connected with faster internet. It’s utilizing a band of ultra high-frequency radio airwaves – the kind most companies aren’t touching – to cheaply and effectively deliver its service.
“Fiber is like the highway system, but we need surface streets to connect to that highway,” Kwikbit CEO Joe Costello said about this technology and its application in an interview on Tuesday.
Kwikbit was founded on the premise of utilizing 60 Gigahertz band spectrum to deliver internet, a frequency that runs orders of magnitude higher than your standard cellular network, with the biggest networks running at around 700 Mhz to 8 Ghz, with Verizon using 28 Ghz millimeter wave spectrum in select, highly populated areas.
The 60 Ghz frequency is an open band, which means anyone can use it. That makes it easier to develop for than the dedicated spectrum that carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile purchased, and have the exclusive rights to use. As a result a number of smaller companies are utilizing it in smaller deployments to offer a wireless version gigabit internet.
“Right now, it’s the bleeding edge,” said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. “People have been dabbling in this.”
Mobile Home Coverage
While having access to an open frequency is nice, there are some unique properties of 60 Ghz that makes it difficult to broadly employ. The range is extremely limited, and a radio able to tap into that frequency draws a huge amount of power. Interference is common, and the signals can’t go through walls.
What Kwikbit has done is tap into the local fiber optic lines near – or sometimes in – a trailer park. The company then feeds the signal from the fiber optic line and builds out a ring of radios throughout the area, with tightly focused beams of signals connecting individual antennas installed on top of the mobile homes and RVs.
Costello said the turnout and enthusiasm for this service is high in the community, since they have few other options.
“Right now, it’s the bleeding edge. People have been dabbling in this.”
Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics
“The pain is high in these mobile home parks,” he said. “These people have lousy internet.”
Kwikbit last weekend held an event in Rowland Heights, California, to drum up attention for the service. Costello said his company was able to sign up 79 of the 327 residents on the spot, the highest percentage he’s ever gotten.
“The key is to get the word out and get the people to the events and get our message across,” he said.
Kwikbit is able to get around the limitations of the spectrum by setting up specific line-of-sight connections in a relatively small area.
The company serves about 1,000 subscribers, but is contracted to build out coverage in 72 parks covering 16,000 homes, Costello said. The service costs $50 a month all-in, with the company supplying the equipment with no rental fees.
Ironically, the average required speed of a mobile home users is less than 10 megabits per second for downloads and 0.3 Mbps for uploads, so for many, the service is almost overkill.
Proof of Concept
Kwikbit’s delivery of gigabit speeds is less about serving the needs of the mobile home customers and more about delivering a proof of concept for its type of wireless service.
Kwikbit Internet’s sister company, Kwikbit Systems, is focused on different applications for the 60 Ghz spectrum, which Costello, who is also the CEO of the sister business, said it could be used to connect rural towns or provide a connection between a fiber optic line and a nearby house that might be hard to reach.
When Kwikbit initially launched, it wanted to go directly into supplying wireless internet and wanted to work with existing vendors. But Costello noted that back in 2020, there was more hesitancy over wireless as a broadband service.
That’s changed in 2023, with T-Mobile, Verizon, and now AT&T making wireless 5G broadband acceptable, and even coveted.
That’s not to say Kwikbit will start stretching its network out across large areas. But there are potential ways to utilize 60 Ghz to close the broadband gap and reach those that remain underserved by the ISPs.
Costello said another application is work to install similar antennas into autonomous taxis and having them download and upload information when they’re parked at their headquarters, with the 60 Ghz connection giving them tremendous speeds. He’s hopeful the carriers will also start looking at his technology.
“This next year, people will open up,” Costello said. “These companies can’t get to everyone economically.”