Wireless extended to Priest Rapids area
CHERYL SCHWEIZER | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 3 months AGO
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Senior Reporter Cheryl Schweizer is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience serving small communities in the Pacific Northwest. She began her post-high-school education at Treasure Valley Community College and enerned her journalism degree at Oregon State University. After working for multiple publications, she has settled down at the Columbia Basin Herald and has been a staple of the newsroom for more than a decade. Schweizer’s dedication to her communities and profession has earned her the nickname “The Baroness of Bylines.” She covers a variety of beats including health, business and various municipalities. | January 21, 2016 5:00 AM
PRIEST RAPIDS — The Grant County PUD has expanded its wireless broadband network with new towers at Priest Rapids Dam and the McConihe Flats area north of Moses Lake.
The two towers expand the PUD’s wireless network to seven, said Chuck Allen, PUD public information specialist. Locations for new towers are chosen by the volume of customer requests, he explained.
The new towers provide the potential for higher-speed Internet service to about 370 customers in McConihe Flats and about 30 around Priest Rapids, Allen said. The PUD doesn’t provide retail service to customers. In each location Internet service providers are the retail outlet. A list of them is available on the PUD’s website, Allen added.
Utility district administrators have been working on a fiber buildout around Grant County since 2008, but it’s still in the process of construction. The wireless towers allow the PUD to provide high-speed Internet service to people who live in places where fiber hasn’t yet reached, Allen said.
Along with the two new towers, there are towers in the Quincy and Ephrata areas, north of Moses Lake in the Larson area.
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