At Cambium Networks, we have long stated that our mission is to connect the unconnected and deliver results – not only for our reseller and systems integrator customers but also for the end users we serve. All over the world, in the most extreme conditions, hardware solutions from Cambium Networks help deliver connectivity to underserved populations and remote geographic areas.
We believe that we can do well by doing good.
This is why we are so proud of our association with the team at Sacred Wind, a telecommunications company that is providing home-based telephone service and high-speed internet to the Navajo Nation for the first time. The Navajo reservation is home to tribal members who live in remote areas of Northwestern New Mexico, with fewer than 7,000 occupied homes scattered across 3,200 square miles of fields and farms that have no access to various sources of internet connection.
At the time of Sacred Wind’s acquisition of this coverage area, fewer than 30 percent of its residents even had phone service, and none had broadband access. This is where Sacred Wind CEO and Cambium Networks “Connectivity Hero” winner John Badal took up the challenge of delivering basic voice and broadband service to area residents. Sacred Wind developed a technical approach that included a redesign of their existing fixed wireless network so that it could support 100Mbps speeds. The redesign included integrating the use of low-cost solar power as well.
The company also needed to offer service at a price accessible to the area’s many low-income and retired residents, as well as to meet the challenge of a new market competitor which started offering fiber broadband adjacent to Sacred Wind’s coverage area. The Sacred Wind solution needed to both exceed the competitor’s data offerings and to do so at a disruptive price and with more expansive reach into the area’s varied terrain than the competitor’s trenched fiber.
Sacred Wind selected Cambium’s PMP 450 with cnMedusa™ Massive MU-MIMO technology and developed an implementation plan that included the installation of both solar units and fixed wireless equipment from Cambium Networks on each customer’s home. Customers that have been migrated are now enjoying the 100 Mbps speeds predicted in the design, due in large part to the groundbreaking spectral efficiency of the PMP 450, a massive 14 x 14 multi-user MIMO system that makes the Sacred Wind network resilient, easy to operate, high-performance, and agile. The PMP 450’s cost-effective connectivity is backed by end-to-end network management capabilities via Cambium’s cnMaestro™, which offers a “bird’s-eye view” of network performance through a single pane of glass interface in the cloud.
Thanks to the combination of Cambium Network’s technology and Sacred Wind’s clever technical and business approach, subscribers are more than satisfied. End-user customers often surpass the 100 Mbps design spec and can download files quickly, as well as stream videos from several devices in the home simultaneously. More than 1,000 subscribers off the Navajo reservation are currently on the Sacred Wind network, and in the near future the company hopes to engage with an additional 3,000 potential subscribers located within Sacred Wind’s tribal service territory. Thanks to Cambium Networks, Sacred Wind’s higher speeds are expected to increase subscribership and reduce customer loss due to competition.
Sacred Wind has earned praise for delivery of superior service and has mapped out a business trajectory that should deliver a full return on investment in less than two years. As a result, in terms of the way we think at Cambium Networks, Sacred Wind is a perfect example of doing well by doing good.