(WHITE CLOUD, Kan.) Grey Snow Communications and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska hosted a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the launch of their project.
They celebrated the completion of a $1.3 million fiber optic project, which will bring high speed internet to the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska community.
The launch of the internet service will support digital sovereignty and long-term infrastructure for the tribal community.
Lack of sufficient access to online education and telehealth services during the pandemic led to severely limited high speed connectivity.
David Tam, CEO of Grey Snow Management Solutions, said the lack of access sparked the idea for the project.
“The internet here is about 25 megabytes,” Tam said. “This was fairly slow. Now, we’re up to 10 gigabytes. We have the capacity up to 10 gigabytes, which is 400 times faster than the current infrastructure for White Cloud.”
The Iowa Tribe included various partners in the project such as Doniphan County, Kansas Office of Broadband Development and Rainbow Communications.
Angie Kreider, director of business development for Rainbow, said the company would provide the internet over the system, install customer services and market to them.
“So the technical side of installing internet, the grant funding provided for the infrastructure to be built, so the fiber lines are brought in, either underground or overhead on aerial lines, and then from then the customer calls in, requests service, and then we install a drop to their house,” Kreider said.
It would be called Rainbow Fiber Internet with the basic plan starting at $67.50/month, the popular plan at $87.50/month and best value plan at $99.50 per month.
The basic plan includes classic Wi-Fi. Popular plan includes stream and gaming Wi-Fi. Best Value includes family and smart home Wi-Fi.
Grey Snow Communications helped secure the $1.3 million in grand funding to bring the internet to 158 homes and two institutions in White Cloud, including Tribal housing.