Broadband coming to Markleeville

Markleeville residents will soon have broadband service available. 

MPTI Telecom LLC, with offices in Reno and Minden, began broadband service to computers in the administration building a few years ago.  Service was extended to the superior court, library, and district attorney's office.  service to most residences in Markleeville is coming very quickly.

District 1 Supervisor Don Jardine and County Administrative Officer Pamela Knorr made getting broadband service to Markleeville residents a priority. Those officers approached WPTI Telecom and together they have built "a good relationship," according to WPTI Sales Manager Tony Prestigiacomo.

Presigiacomo said that although "services are few and far between in Markleeville," WPTI has the technology and capacity to provide broadband.

In order to provide this service, there needed to be equipment installed at the administration building and at the water company tank site in Markleeville.    

 Kris Hartnett, board member of Markleeville Water Co. and retired electrician, added that WPTI has a contract with the water company.  "WPTI pays the water company to lease ground space for their equipment and pays a sum of money for the cost of its electricity," Hartnett explained. 

"Don Jardine has worked hard for at least three years to get broadband to Markleeville," said Hartnett.  Hartnett credits Jardine with the success of the project.

"The WPTI equipment is a wireless service port, which is not a cell tower nor which would enable cell phone use," said Prestigiacomo.   The port will send signals to most all homes in the Markleeville area.

Each home will need a wireless receiver, which is provided free-of-charge as part of the broadband service.  Homeowners may install the receiver themselves or pay WPTI technicians to install it for them.

John Endter, of E Squared C company, added that "an Internet router (at an additional) cost can be connected to the subscriber unit that will allow multiple computers to use the Internet connection." Endter warned that each computer uses a part of the connection, so too many computers in use at the same time would cause a slow connection. 

 The basic cost of service to a residence will be $49. There are upgrades on the basic service that would allow speeds up to 3 megabytes per second.  The highest broadband speed (3Mb) is 54 times faster than dial-up, according to Endter. 

Interestingly, Endter noted that although broadband cannot compete with the ultra-high speed of cable, the lowest cost cable internet is slower than broadband.  Endter states that broadband is much preferable to cable. 

More importantly, the broadband wireless link between the administration building and the district attorney's office has been running with no problems. 

Prestigiacomo said that once the Markleeville area is up and running, the company will research expanding service to Woodfords and the Mesa. To contact WPTI and/or Prestigiacomo, call (775) 236-5800, or e-mail sales@wpti.com. There is also a Web site with additional information, www.wpti.net