Sail Internet Blazes Into the Bay Area

Launching their high-speed Internet service in a small suburb called Warm Springs in Fremont, Sail Internet chose an ideal Silicon Valley location for their real-world lab. Fremont is the fourth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, an established center for emerging technology and advanced manufacturing, and as such, home to a well-educated, forward-thinking population receptive to new ideas.

Their mission was to offer the residents of Warm Springs affordable, fast and reliable Internet as an alternative to the cable and phone companies’ expensive bundled services. What they found is an emerging trend of willing customers who were ready to rethink how they use Internet, entertainment and phone services within their homes. This growing community of cord cutters, looking for super fast download speeds to stream their entertainment, were receptive to the idea of community participation deployment by leveraging homeowners’ rooftops.

To best serve these customers, Sail Internet had to determine how to operate a short-range, high-density suburban MicroPoP and deliver better customer service than the incumbent providers. Sail Internet deployed Mimosa C5 clients and Mimosa A5 access points to service their initial customer base, and are using 60-70 GHz backhaul radios. They are offering customers download speeds from 100 to 200 Mbps for a low cost flat rate. In addition, the Sail Internet team provides an online streaming guide and blog that discusses topics like installing an over-the-air HDTV and setting up an efficient home Wi-Fi network.

“The Mimosa A5 and C5 products are game changing.”

“We did our research and there is nothing else on the market that can deliver these kinds of rates,” said Kevin Fisher, CEO of Sail Internet. One of the key features of the A5 that is especially useful for Sail Internet is the Advanced Auto-Gain Control (AGC) technique that automatically squelches out underlying interference with only a 10 dB operating margin. This is crucial in suburban neighborhoods and enables Sail Internet to deliver incredible client performance.

The Mimosa multipoint solution is a key feature for Sail Internet, as they are able to instantly and securely add C5 client devices to any A5 on their network automatically with 1-click authentication. With no manual installation and pre-provisioning complexity, Sail can add subscribers very quickly. The company is also a Mimosa Cloud+ user and employs the Design Tool often, especially the fly-through capabilities to assist installers in determining exact placement of devices.

“We’re thrilled with our high speed network. It is clear to me that without Mimosa, we would not be able to fulfill our vision of bringing fiber-like speeds to the suburbs and displacing the incumbents.”

Next steps for Sail Internet include keeping up with installation demand in Warm Springs and executing plans to expand to other parts of the Bay Area where fiber has failed. “We’ve had a lot of interest from nearby municipalities looking to bring high speed Internet to their neighborhoods,” said Kevin. Sail Internet has a long- term goal of becoming a successful provider of reliable, high speed Internet to communities that have been living with below average DSL and Cable solutions.