Foundation Projects
Broadband for All - Yap State FSM
Boom! Inc.
For decades, Micronesian citizens were unserved and underserved with little to no access to basic Internet connectivity and had no access to broadband connectivity (at least 25/5Mbps).
In 2018, with assistance from the World Bank and other donors, a submarine cable was laid to connect Yap to the world via high-speed undersea fiber optic cable. Sadly, that connection was not utilized to provide the much-needed broadband connectivity to island residents. Instead, it terminated as dark fiber at the Cable Landing Station, and the island residents, who historically were unserved and underserved in terms of Internet connectivity, remained so.
Boom! Inc. had already begun the arduous task of utilizing this submarine cable connectivity to connect Micronesians with reliable and affordable broadband Internet access. Boom! applied and were accepted as the first private licensed telecommunications company in the FSM.
Their main objective for this project was to continue the progress they had already begun and realize their goal of providing true broadband Internet access to all on the island state of Yap. This next phase aimed at establishing an island-wide Fixed Wireless Access broadband network.
This project set out to achieve the development of a fixed wireless access (FWA) network on the main island of Yap. Specifically, it accomplished the following:
- Extended consultation with Wireless experts in the US Mainland to explore various cost-effective options for FWA and various specifications and arrived at the following initial determinations:
- It used 2.5Ghz spectrum
- It used 4G LTE initially
- It used AirSpan hardware with a hybrid core
- In order to overcome a lack of crucial data to properly determine the best path forward, Boom! purchased the following to set up and generate things like Fresnel coverage maps:
- Ubiquiti LTU Rocket
- Ubiquiti AirMAX sector antenna
- Ubiquiti LTU Pro CPEs
- Boom! also purchased all the hardware required for a very basic single site/single sector FWA setup and shipped it all to Yap consisting of the following:
- AirHarmony 4000
- Alpha Wireless AW3406 / 65 degree Antenna (2596-2696Mhz)
- BEC RidgeWave 6900 CPE
- BEC 6500AEL router CPE
- 25 Sim Cards
- Boom! purchased Fiber Optic cable and pole mounting hardware to extend the fiber network for backhaul to future 4G LTE sites.
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