Iola company announces plans to expand internet service in Eudora

An Iola-based company has informed the Eudora City Commission it plans to expand internet service in the community.

Zachery Peres, vice-president of KwiKom Communications, updated city commissioners Monday on the company’s plan to lease space on Eudora water towers to provide microwave fixed wireless internet and phone service in Eudora and neighboring rural areas. The company also is looking into providing in-ground fiber-optic service in the community.

“Eudora is a great-fitting community for us,” Peres said Wednesday. “We’re mostly focusing on the smaller communities. We started in Allen County. We’re expanding pretty aggressively.”

Eudora City Manager Barack Matite said the city welcomed KwiKom’s interest in expanding an important service in the community. It would not take long to complete the water tower leases because the city has worked through the process before with other providers, he said.

Peres said it would be about two months before KwiKom completed work in Miami County and was ready to start installing equipment on the Eudora towers. That would give it time to complete the needed tower leases.

The company currently provides download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second to residential customers with its tower equipment, Peres said. It is experimenting with technology that could increase that to 100 to 300 megabits per second. KwiKom also was looking to add wireless TV service this summer, and it was exploring the possibility of providing fiber-optic gigabit service in Eudora, he said.

KwiKom was also exploring the possibility of providing fiber-optic gigabit service in Eudora, Peres said.

“The wireless will give us the ability to expand service to everybody upfront,” he said. “Then, we’ll focus on doing fiber where it’s needed most. We got into that last year”

The company already has a presence in Douglas County. It leases space on both Lawrence grain elevators the Ottawa Co-op owns, Peres said. In December it received Douglas County Commission approval to place equipment on a tower northwest of Lecompton.