The 900-foot-high KGBT tower just south of La Feria does more than just transmit television signals.
The long-standing tower is held upright by high-tensioned guy wires and is visible for several miles in a wide radius around La Feria. At about 200 feet up, the KGBT tower houses a row of tile-looking squares that are providing what executives of VTX1 Companies call “the next generation of fixed wireless” Internet service. Orlando Quintanilla, the chief operating officer for the Raymondville-based cooperative, recently stood at the foot of the KGBT tower during a ribbon cutting that marked the activation of Internet service for rural communities south of La Feria.
“There are a lot of rural areas out there where people have been neglected for years,” Quintanilla said. “We felt like this was an opportunity for us to go out and expand to some new territories and provide the same quality of services we’re currently providing to our members in other parts of the Valley and South Texas.”
The La Feria project on FM 506 is one of five such projects VTX is launching with the goal of bringing affordable Internet services to wide swaths of rural Cameron County. Communities like Arroyo City, Lozano, and rural areas adjacent to the Port of Harlingen will eventually have the same sort of Internet services that were kicked off south of La Feria in early May.
Patrick McDonald, VTX’s chief executive officer, called the expansion “a significant equalizer” in closing Cameron County’s digital divide.
Point-To-Point Connections
VTX’s reach into additional rural areas is being done in conjunction with Cameron County government.
The public/private partnership is one where the cooperative is expanding its reach without any payment from the county, nor are its customers being subsidized with public resources to pay for VTX1 services. The benefits of the partnership come when the county and cooperative can jointly apply for state and federal grants to boost broadband Internet services in underserved communities.
Texas has over $3 billion available for such broadband equity grants and Cameron County stands a better chance of receiving such funding if it can show cooperative efforts are being made between the public and private sectors.
“The idea is that together we can leverage monies in applying for grants,” said Cameron County Commissioner Gus Ruiz, whose precinct area includes La Feria. “In working with VTX, they have agreed to do these sorts of projects and provide the infrastructure on their dollar, at no cost to the county, to get everyone in that radius access to affordable high-speed Internet.”
In the case of the La Feria project, that radius is eight miles. It’s a point-to-point connection from the TV tower where the VTX1 equipment sits to households in general aerial view of the KGBT tower. A device installed outside of a subscriber location receives the signal from the tower, which is then sent inside through VTX-installed cables to devices in the home.
The cost is $29 a month, Ruiz said, which is an affordable alternative to the much more expensive rates of large commercial carriers that are often reluctant to service rural areas
“La Feria is growing and we’re going to need more services,” said the city’s mayor, Olga Maldonado, at the VTX1 ribbon cutting. “Something like this is very much needed in our rural areas.”
Inside Track
Ruiz estimates at least 2,000 households in rural Cameron County will have access to the technology made available by VTX1 via the equipment it has installed on the KGBT tower.
For VTX1, the partnership with Cameron County means the cooperative specializing in phone, Internet and streaming services can get better insights on what rural stretches of the county are in need of Internet services.
“Having that inside track helps us to fast traffic these opportunities for developments,” said Quintanilla, the COO for VTX1. “We make sure the need is there and then we’re able to get the services to the people who need it.”