KOA - Rural Small Business
Blountville, Tennessee
CASE STUDY #3
RSAccess also serves numerous rural small businesses through MVDDS, point-to- multipoint connections. Some illustrative installations of service offerings to business customers include KOA campground sites, True Value hardware stores, and Fanelli Boys.
RSAccess equipment mounted and CAT5 Routing Cable to the roof of a building at a KOA campsite in Blountville, TN.
KOA Campgroud
MVDDS and rural business
Campfires and iPhones
Kampgrounds of America, KOA, campground sites are owned by franchisees that have the autonomy to provide wireless Internet access to customers. In its conversations with KOA franchisees, RSAccess discovered that customers expected to remain connected, even while camping or otherwise “getting away.”
By installing MVDDS at participating KOA sites, RSAccess has established Internet access throughout the entire campgrounds for KOA and its customers. For example, RSAccess provided wireless service to a KOA site in Blountville, Tennessee. This KOA franchise has 12 cabins, an area for pitching tents, a pool, pavilion, dog park, horseshoe pit, basketball court, volleyball court, and cornhole. Located off of I-81, the KOA site is roughly 14 miles from the Bristol Motor Speedway, which hosts two annual NASCAR races, concerts, and smaller racing events. Additionally, the area hosts the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, an annual music festival that hosts over 130 bands on 20 stages in downtown Bristol and attracts approximately 45,000 attendees.60 National baseball and softball tournaments as well as northern snowbirds migrating down I-81 to Florida or Texas keep the Blountville KOA occupied year-round. To meet the demands of his customers, the KOA franchisee in Blountsville, Tennessee maintains an Internet connection but with a very limited range of service. Using MVDDS for the downlink and an unlicensed link for the return connection, RSAccess wirelessly extended the reach of the Internet connection throughout the campground, allowing visitors to send and receive email, shop online, and post on social media regardless of where they were located.
Hardware
True Value Hardware; RSAccess installed wireless services at separate locations for All Seasons Hardware, which is part of the True Value network of hardware stores and has two locations near Charleston, South Carolina. The main location – which houses the business’ primary server – is on James Island, and the second location is roughly six miles away, on Johns Island. The store’s main concern was network speed. With higher speeds, the business can use its Internet service more efficiently to make contact with customers, create purchase orders, and send invoices. Before installation and operation, the second location on Johns Island forwarded roughly 95 percent of its paperwork to James Island for processing. With a faster network connection, the Johns Island location can operate more independently and efficiently.
IT Industry
Fanelli Boys, Inc. (“Fanelli Boys”) was established twenty-eight years ago and offers networking and on-site IT support for businesses and schools. Now with ten locations in the mountains of West Virginia and eastern Ohio, Fanelli Boys also repairs smartphones, tablets, computers, and consumer electronics. At two of Fanelli Boys’ locations in rural Parkersburg, West Virginia, RSAccess installed four wireless links. The service will help Fanelli Boys’ repair business, which requires a robust connection to download and, for security purposes, to store digital files off-site before initiating repairs.
In anticipation of 5G and the proliferation of point-to-multipoint systems, Fanelli Boys has partnered with Novation, RSAccess' field service contractors, to train and certify Fanelli Boys’ technicians on point-to-multipoint systems using links like those in the RSAccess system. Once trained, Fanelli Boys technicians will be able to install or provide much-needed technology support for point-to-multipoint systems, like those installed by RSAccess, throughout their region.