many popular Internet activities, like streaming movies and TV shows.
“Netflix’s top super HD encoding bit rate is 6.5 [Mbps] and it looks great,” he said. That means people watching shows at home with 60 Mbps connections will get the same quality as those watching on 4G wireless connections, provided they’re connecting at 6.5 Mbps or faster.
5Nines, which has about 30 employees, manages over 13,000 active access ports business and home users can plug into, said Kapela. However, he emphasized that the company doesn’t sell direct-to-consumer. Residents of the high-rises outfitted with terrestrial radios pay a business that manages the buildings for Internet service, and those businesses in turn pay 5Nines. Kapela said having one account per building, instead of one per residence, helps the company remain lean and concentrate on its technology.
Kapela said 5Nines may eventually look to start offering wireless or wired Internet in other cities like Milwaukee, Minneapolis, or St. Paul, MN, but right now it’s only focused on expanding its ISP reach in one city.
“We want Madison scale,” he said.
