the company expects to “expand following the demand.”
“Wherever we get the most interest is wherever we’re going to install it next,” he says.
Google used the same approach in Kansas City when it rolled out its fiber Internet service. While such an approach makes sense from a business perspective, some have argued that only focusing on the bottom line could result in lower-income neighborhoods being neglected.
John says that Ethoplex may bring its service to other parts of Wisconsin in the future, including Green Bay and other parts of the Fox Valley, but there’s no concrete timeline for moving beyond the Milwaukee area.
One startup that’s also attempting to deliver ultrafast Internet service wirelessly is Starry, based in Boston and New York. While Starry and Ethoplex both use millimeter waves to transmit signals, a key difference between the two is that Starry’s “active phased array” technology apparently means its customers won’t have to rely on line-of-sight communication to get online.
While Starry has created buzz in the tech community in recent months, John contends that the startup “hasn’t really launched a product or a service yet that’s actually available.”
Ethoplex’s technology and business model is more proven than Starry’s, but it still faces stiff competition in its backyard from Charter and AT&T. Ethoplex might also eventually compete with 5Nines, a Madison, WI-based ISP that also uses fixed wireless technology to serve some of its business and residential customers. In September, a 5Nines executive told Xconomy that his company might look to start providing service in Milwaukee some day.
For now, 5Nines and Ethoplex are the underdogs compared with incumbent telecom giants like Time Warner and AT&T. Yet John says that since 2004, when he founded Ethoplex, he hasn’t encountered any real resistance from either company.
“But I’m sure they’re not happy with us,” he says, before pausing. “Or we might be too small. We might just fly under the radar.”
