PAGOSA SPRINGS ­ A network, linked together in the sky, which actually works. This was the description that popped into Jered Davis's mind when he was tossing around names for the company he would start in 2003 with younger brother Justin Davis. He came up with the name Skywerx.

Five years later, Skywerx has grown to nearly 1,000 customers in the Pagosa Springs area and is expanding its footprint into Bayfield and Durango. While other Internet Service Providers offer wireless services (in addition to DSL or dial-up), fixed-wireless service has been the Skywerx specialty from day one. Justin said they are the largest WISP (wireless ISP) so far in Southwestern Colorado.

"In regards to DSL/cable," said Jered, "sometimes the cable infrastructure is either old or doesn't reach as far, especially in a mountainous area. What makes our services unique is that we can hit the people in the last mile, where the infrastructure doesn't exist (for DSL)."

"Fixed wireless is where you have a point to multi-point connection shooting from a tower location to a residence or business," said Justin. "We have links up as far as 24 miles."

So far, Skywerx has eight towers in place in Pagosa Springs, three in the Bayfield area, and two towers going up in the Durango area, ranging in height from 60 feet to 140 feet. They are hoping to expand in residential areas in La Plata County such as the Forest Lakes development near Bayfield.

To get set up on the Skywerx network, a potential customer fills out a form (available on its web site); a technician is then set out to the site to gauge where the residence or business is in relationship to one of its towers. "If the technician can see the tower or if they are in the vicinity of one of our non line-of-sight access points, then we can set them up," Jered said.

The technology of Skywerx's infrastructure is set up to match the capacity/reliability of fiber if need be. When its tower on Missionary Ridge is lit, Skywerx will have a 40-mile link from Durango to Pagosa Springs that can reach speeds of 800 megabytes — coming off a fiber backbone — which can then be redistributed on smaller scales to businesses that need a 20-megabyte connection, for example.

"We have the infrastructure already in place to bring fiber-capable speeds to Pagosa Springs and surrounding areas," said Justin.

"We buy capacity off of fiber from an upstream provider," explained Jered, "but we're totally independent as far as getting bandwidth to Pagosa Springs."

Jered added that because Skywerx is shooting point-to-point at high elevations and owns the frequencies, inference is not an issue. And investing in the most up-to-date wireless technology, a strategy they have employed since the company's inception, has paid off.

"We went with the best equipment out there, military-grade equipment," said Justin. "The reliability of it, when installed properly, will give you a down-time of maybe an hour a year — in the worst-case scenarios. We spend more time focusing on implementing new tower locations and hooking up new customers than we do with trouble-shooting our network. Our tech-support side is minimal — that's how we can get away with only having six or seven employees."

The only reason Skywerx service was down this winter was because of power outages that lasted four or five days.

"We were out in waist-deep snow pushing gas-powered generators up the side of a mountain to restore power to access points, because the battery-backups were dead," said Jered. "There's no way you could actually get a snowmobile up to them — we just used elbow grease and a sled."

The brothers just finished building the R.A.T.V. (Road Access Team Vehicle), which looks like a cross between an off-road, heavy-duty truck and a snowcat, for easier accessibility during winters such as this. The R.A.T.V. is one of many ideas that the siblings, both in their 20s, have concocted between them — although working with family isn't always easy.

"It's tough because you have the family aspect, so you can get away with saying things that you probably wouldn't say to someone who's just a business partner," said Jered. "We can get into a knock-down, drag-out argument, but I'll forgive him tomorrow because he's still my brother."

"We balance each other out," added Justin. "He's more conservative, and I'm more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants."

Yet both had the notion at the same time to start their own business and fill a need for a service that is quickly becoming, for some, as important a utility as electricity or water. The Farmington natives were just finishing or had finished college (Justin was in his last year and Jered had recently graduated), when they decided to launch Skywerx. In lieu of pursuing a professional baseball career, Justin had decided to finish his degree in economics; Jered had secured a job with a big telecommunications firm after completing his degree in management information systems, but was laid-off just before he was to start. The timing, and the idea, was just right.

"As soon as Justin graduated, he moved to Pagosa with 10 bucks in his pocket," recalled Jered. "We started with a shoestring budget, and since I come from an IT background, we didn't have to outsource anything. But for the first month or so we were like, is this really going to happen? Then all of a sudden, boom!"

"We continue to put money back in because we want to see it grow, to further it along by adding new technologies and thinking outside the box."

Added Justin: "We are bringing the technology that will attract businesses. It's the age of telecommuting."

 

For more information, visit HYPERLINK "http://www.skywerx.com" www.skywerx.com

 

Christine Rasmussen: ras_mammoth@yahoo.com