Kwikbit Models How to Deliver High-Speed Internet
By Joe Costello
If you brought up the concept of a manufactured housing community 10 years ago, eventually someone would throw out the term mobile home park or maybe even trailer park, conjuring images of low-income or transient communities.
Those days are gone. Manufactured homes are the new residence of the middle class, particularly in fast-growing and overheated housing markets throughout the U.S. They now are talked about as the new entry-level housing option for first-time homeowners, millennials, and an emerging generation of people in America who are upwardly mobile and focused on having all the amenities of a home, but in a close, safe, community.
A fundamental amenity for this new changing demographic is fast, affordable, and accessible internet. Kwikbit’s Lawrence Alioto captures the challenge simply.
“Modern manufactured housing isn’t complete without affordable broadband,” the head of strategy said.
As manufactured housing communities aim to elevate their status among consumers, internet access is set to play a key role in attracting and keeping residents.
Manufactured Housing in the Spotlight – Antiquated Technology drives the ‘Digital Divide’
Manufactured housing — currently the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country — is growing at a staggering rate. This is particularly important as Americans seek solutions for the current housing crisis, not to mention increased natural disasters, and economic turmoil. As community residents diversify and grow, internet access isn’t any longer an amenity, it is a required service for this new demographic.
Unfortunately, manufactured housing communities are more often than not on the wrong side of the digital divide. This is through no fault of their own, but rather decades of inattention to upgrades from internet service providers who see these parks as too small or too isolated a market to bother properly investing in them. These providers are sometimes willing to offer high-cost service, but with long-term contracts, and speeds that are more reflective of the early 2000s than what is needed in 2022.
Look no further than the antiquated cable (or worse, DSL) systems in place in a majority of communities around the nation.
Manufactured home communities have been left behind.
Cable systems were designed for television and best suited for “downstream” traffic such as downloading files or streaming. Conversely, “upstream” refers to activity from the user to the provider, such as sending an email, doing a Zoom meeting or having a Facetime session. Typical cable service plans deliver only 5-10 megabits per second upstream.
Cable and DSL networks are reaching the end of their useful life in an era of remote work and online schooling. The promised solution is fiber, but the big problem with fiber is that it requires installing an entirely new set of cables either via utility poles or underground cables. These processes are lengthy, expensive, and even a risk in disaster-prone areas. While a major metropolis might have the funds to sink into such a project and fiber providers might invest to install fiber in a large, affluent community. That rarely has been the case for smaller, or aging manufactured.
The Internet as a Utility
Simply put, manufactured housing communities should not have to settle for aging internet infrastructure. Residents increasingly see this utility as a deal-breaker. From white-collar professionals on a remote or hybrid work schedule to students completing assignments online, to patients taking virtual appointments, the internet is a requirement for full participation in modern society.
This remains true in communities catering to an older demographic. Seniors are increasingly web-savvy and are especially reliant on web connectivity to combat isolation and to provide access social services. The internet is not just a known quantity, it’s an essential tool in daily life, and an inevitable part of their considerations when evaluating housing options.
But even as manufactured housing communities grasp just how essential high-speed internet is for their residents, internet service providers concerned with their bottom line feel no similar sense of urgency. To them, there is not enough profit to warrant the amount of work required to provide fiber-optic connection.
Kwikbit can and will provide fiber-optic speeds without the infrastructural hurdles.
The Kwikbit Model Answers the Call
Kwikbit is a U.S.-based internet provider dedicated to making fiber-like speeds not only affordable but immediate. Sixty GHz millimeter wave radios enable the rapid deployment of multi-gigabit wireless networks, no matter the target size or location. The average customer pays $50 a month for commercial-grade broadband — a better price and better connectivity than most U.S. residents receive.
The company has consistently delivered affordable gigabit internet to manufactured housing communities nationwide with an aggressive 2022 expansion and deployments set for more than a thousand installations in Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, and California in the first quarter alone.
Simply look at Treasure Island Mobile Home and RV Park in the heart of Silicon Valley, one of the few bastions of affordable housing in San Francisco. For years, residents put up with sluggish internet speeds even though a fiber optic cable had been installed in the center of the mobile home park for years. The cost to connect every single household was unfortunately far too high. In 2020, with the community pushed to its limit, students fell behind in class and adults struggled to work remotely. Residents would even drive out to a restaurant or library parking lot just for wi-fi.
“Before Kwikbit, the biggest challenge was finding someone to be able to provide internet for this type of atmosphere,” said Treasure Island General Manager Gianna Arellano. “There just weren’t a lot of vendors that specialized in bringing high-speed broadband to RV parks.”
With the Kwikbit team on site, the first Treasure Island household was online within half an hour, and the community was enjoying state-of-the-art speeds later that same day.
Alimur Mobile Home Park in Santa Cruz has a similar story. Left on the wrong side of the digital divide with their internet providers they even got a government grant of $2.5 million to install fiber — and still not one resident was connected. Kwikbit’s 60 GHz wireless solution spoke louder than words to the Alimur community, according to resident and HOA board member Timothy Norton.
“Kwikbit delivered everything as promised and on time,” Norton said. “We were up and running in one hour and couldn’t be happier with the service.”
The Bottom Line
The internet is a basic utility that residents desire and demand. It is where we work, play, learn, and communicate. It is a conduit for the economy, public health, and public safety. Manufactured homes are no exception, but as long as large providers prioritize larger and more affluent areas, high-speed internet will remain out of reach.
“Our world is always innovating. You either modernize or you get left behind. And if you want to modernize, this is the way,” Costello said. “Kwikbit gives you fiber-like performance at a fraction of the time and cost. No wires, and best of all, no contracts.”
As manufactured housing communities rebrand and expand, high-speed connectivity offers a surefire approach to sell homes, drive occupancy, and boost the quality of life for manufactured home community residents.
Joe Costello is CEO of Kwikbit and executive chairman of Metrics Design Automation, Arrikto, Acromove, and ELPHiC. Previously, Costello led Cadence Design Systems to be the number one company software for designing chips, taking the company from $10 million in revenue to nearly $1 billion and making it one of the 10 largest software companies in the world.
