Oskaloosa Telecom To Offer Game Changing Service

Oskaloosa will soon benefit from MCG’s Gigabit Internet Project.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – A local telecom made an announcement this week that usually draws national attention. Places that enjoy such technology include, Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle, Omaha, Minneapolis and Cedar Falls, Iowa. In Cedar Falls, that internet will cost you around $250.00 per month. In Oskaloosa, the service is slated to be just $70 per month.

Mahaska Communications Group this week announced their implementation of gigabit internet to parts of Oskaloosa and Indianola beginning in 2015. All of Oskaloosa, Beacon, University Park and Keomah Village will be covered by the service by the end of 2017. Map of availability HERE.

Communities served by Google Fiber will have nothing on Oskaloosa after MCG lights up the Gigabit network, according to MCG’s General Manager Frank Hansen.

MCG has served Oskaloosa since 2000 with Internet, TV and voice services over a state-of-the-art Fiber-to-the-Home network. Currently, MCG customers can get speeds ranging from 3Mb to 100Mb, but now capabilities will be raised more than 10 fold.

“We have always said we wanted to serve our community with the best products available, and Gigabit Internet is it. Our existing products are great, but now customers get to go to the next level. They are in rare company,” said Hansen. “With this product, gone are the days of seeing the spinning pinwheel while something buffers and loads on your computer, ROKU box or smartTV. Gigabit Internet opens doors of opportunity that, I’m sure, we don’t yet appreciate. This amount of bandwidth provides entrepreneurs and businesses room to innovate, and in the process create jobs in the community.”

A solid and reliable communications platform is one of the major building blocks for companies. Start-ups and small businesses will enjoy the increased speed to online services that will help them make the most of their time and efforts. Larger companies will see the benefits in connection to cloud services, video conferencing and data transfers.

Gigabit internet is a top recruiting tool for communities around the country in an effort to draw business to their communities. Chattanooga, Tennessee is no different. On their site, “This is the ultimate tool for entrepreneurs. For established companies looking to become game-changers. For anyone needing a system that can help test and prove ideas.”

“We know, based on talking with customers, that numbers associated with Internet don’t mean a lot to customers, so our goal is to make it easier to understand,” said Steve Burnett, MCG Marketing and Sales Manager. “Everyone knows that 1000Mb is more than 5Mb, so consider it this way. Gigabit is 1000Mb. At that speed, an HD movie will download in 7 seconds. By comparison, it takes 22 minutes with 5Mb. That’s significant and why Gigabit service is such an exciting opportunity. Less than 8% of people in the U.S. have service of this nature, so Oskaloosa is a leader in technology.”

Hansen continued, “An obvious question may be: why do I need all that bandwidth? The short answer is: most of what you receive to your home or office is coming in the form of ‘data’ and we all have a lot of devices connected to our Internet connections. Usage per Internet user has grown 700% in the past 5 years, and that trend is expected to continue. Much of the traffic is caused by streaming video, from websites or entertainment providers, that we all watch on our computers or tablets. HD streaming requires more speed and generates even more data.”

MCG was formed in the early 2000’s when MUSCO needed better communication to increase reliability and capacity, locate their sales force closer to customers around the world, and provide a reliable system to support customers and operate Control Link™.
Existing providers could not offer adequate service, so MCG constructed a high-capacity, fiber optic network to ensure that MUSCO and other industries had a system that would allow all to do business globally. A plan was soon in place to offer the network to all residents, which led to the build-out of a community-wide system.
Over the last 12+ years, MCG has given the community the capacity needed to sustain and grow business, education, health care, and government services, while cutting costs by nearly 40 percent.

As a result, Oskaloosa continues to be the corporate hometown headquarters for MUSCO and others who need broadband to innovate and sell. Businesses are able to attract skilled team members thanks, in part, to a “future-proof” broadband network, which will now be capable of 1 Gigabit Internet and unlimited Internet to serve customers with multiple devices at work and at home.