Recent Intermittent Outages

We recently upgraded the firmware for both our tower sectors and our subscriber equipment.

The new firmware appears to have some bugs that affect stability and up-time.  This has caused several intermittent rate lockups and outages for both our business and residential customers.

The fault for this lies entirely with me.  I should have tested this upgrade more thoroughly before rolling it out network wide.

We are going to roll back upgrade overnight tonight at 1:30 AM.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.  Those of you who have been with us for a while know that this is a-typical of our operation.

A Little Trouble

We are having some intermittent throughput problems at our tower site at 2100 Harper.  We are working to identify the cause of the problem and resolve it.

Customers in SE Lawrence can expect some brief outages as we chase the issue.

Scheduled Maintenance (Redux)

We are adding another maintenance window tonight to get ready for the City.  The network will be offline from 0230 until we get the new routing scheme stable.

Needless to say, Saturday's attempt at this was a dismal failure.  The wind and lightning on Sunday didn't help matters.

Here are the scheduled maintenance windows for the next couple weeks as far as they stand now.

Tuesday May 21 @ 0230 - Routing changes to accommodate City of Lawrence.


Tuesday May 21 @ 0900 - The City is moving a fiber bundle at 15th & Iowa.  In theory this will not cause any outages, but be prepared for 1 hour or more of down time should the operation go south.

Sat June 1 @ 0300 - We will be making changes to our primary Internet route.  Service may be offline for several hours.

Scheduled Maintenance

We are opening a couple of maintenance windows in the next two weeks to accommodate construction and architecture adjustments.

Sat May 18 @ 0300 - We will be swapping out one of our core routers.  This will take the entire network down for around 15 Min.  This is being done to accommodate construction at 15th & Iowa.

Tuesday May 21 @ 0900 - The City is moving a fiber bundle at 15th & Iowa.  In theory this will not cause any outages, but be prepared for 1 hour or more of down time should the operation go south.

Sat June 1 @ 0300 - We will be making changes to our primary Internet route.  Service may be offline for several hours.

2 TerraByte/Day Threshold Crossed

On Jan 19, 2012 we crossed the 1 TerraByte per day mark.  Today we crossed the 2 TerraByte per day mark.

Congrats to Dan and Lionell for their hard work expanding our capacity.

With the new fiber going in and a substantial expansion of our upstream on order we expect to cross 3 TB/day some time this fall.  Hang on, things are going to continue to speed up.

Wicked Broadband in Wired

A nice article on Wicked Broadband in Wired Magazine:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/04/google-fiber-wicked/

Gigabit Fiber Comes to Lawrence Kansas

For Immediate Release April 22, 2013	PRESS RELEASE Contact: Joshua Montgomery Phone: (785) 813-1538 Email: joshua.montgomery@wickedbroadband.com

GIGABIT FIBER PRE-REGISTRATION PERIOD OPENS IN LAWRENCE KANSAS

Lawrence, Kan. – April 22, 2013 - Wicked Broadband is pleased to announce that residents of Lawrence can now pre-register to receive Wicked Fiber Gigabit Internet service.

This marks the first time that a company other than Google Inc has deployed a gigabit fiber network using a process similar to the one pioneered by Google Fiber.

Like Google, Wicked Broadband is campaigning to pre-register customers for gigabit fiber service.  The neighborhood with the highest percentage of pre-registrations on June 15, 2013 will be the first to receive the ultra high speed service ( 1,000 Megabits Per Second ).  Other neighborhoods will be deployed later provided they’ve reached the company’s pre-registration threshold.

Wicked Broadband’s current customers and newly pre-registered customers are already hosting yard signs, promoting pre-registration on social media and talking to neighbors about what gigabit fiber will mean to them.

Neighborhoods with gigabit service are able to access the Internet at 100 times the speed of the average American household.  Customers using the service can stream multiple HD video streams and download full length movies in minutes.  Since the service is bi-directional (i.e. upload speeds similar to its download speeds) customers are also able to upload photo albums, videos and other large files in the blink of an eye.

As the “TheStreet.com” pointed out today[*], one added advantage of this type of ultra-fast Internet service is its role in advancing a la carte television programming as the viewing norm.  Customers who subscribe to ultra-fast Internet will be able to cut the cord and cancel expensive subscription television services.

Wicked Broadband isn’t just borrowing plays from Google’s playbook.  The company is also innovating in several new and novel ways:

1. Wicked Broadband is installing four fibers at each subscriber location, but the company is only using two.  The remaining capacity is available on a wholesale basis to competing carriers who might want to deliver Internet, telephone, television or other telecommunications services in the future.

2. To encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, Wicked Broadband is offering a unique business service that combines dedicated bandwidth for essential applications with best effort bandwidth for Internet browsing and day-to-day access.

3. Each subscriber’s home will host a battery back up good for 8 hours along with a Wicked Broadband controlled WiFi access point.  This combination allows for emergency network access during power outages and weather emergencies.

Wicked Fiber will be posting the first results from the first four weeks of the pre-registration period on May 15, 2013.  Results will be posted daily thereafter.  Tune in to http://wickedfiber.com to see which neighborhoods are leading the pack in the race to get the gig.

About Wicked Broadband:

Owned and operated by founders Kristie Adair and Joshua Montgomery, Wicked Broadband is the only locally owned Internet service provider in Lawrence, Kan. The company provides broadband Internet services using a variety of technologies including directional microwave, WiFi and fiber to the premises. Wicked Broadband is staffed by military veterans, active reservists and military spouses. For more information, visit http://wickedfiber.com

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[*] http://www.thestreet.com/story/11902007/1/google-fiber-is-good-for-the-country-and-for-google.html