As many of you know, Skamokawa Internet was founded out of necessity in 2018 after my wife and I moved here and found out that high-speed, reliable internet wasn’t an option at our house. Working with our closest neighbors, Wahkiakum Port District #2 and Noanet we were able to bring a fiber internet connection onto our street and start serving our neighborhood via a fixed wireless connection. Soon additional neighbors found out about what was going on and we started growing. We added additional relay points in 2019, including the Skamokawa Grange and Little Cape Horn. In 2020 we added the Vista Ridge location and customers in Skamokawa Valleys and Puget Island. In April of 2021 we began serving the former customers from Smoky Waters Communications and then had to remove much of their infrastructure and replace it with additional relay points.
From the beginning we have been working with the PUD, Noanet, the County and others to continue to bring even better internet to this area. Most recently we began talking with Wahkiakum West about extending their fiber network to this side of the county. The PUD and Wahkiakum West are working on a cooperative venture to build the infrastructure to bring fiber services starting at 100 Mbps starting this year. As we worked on this cooperative effort it became clear that the best way to move forward was for Wahkiakum West to purchase Skamokawa Internet Services in order to establish their presence in this part of the county. As of April 1st, Skamokawa Internet Services is now owned by Wahkiakum West.
This will be a great benefit for those of us that will become customers of Wahkiakum West. First, Wahkiakum West has been in business for 100 years and has a great reputation, serving the needs of their customers in the Rosburg, Grey’s River, and Naselle area. They have been doing fiber internet for 10 years and have a great team of engineers and technicians to keep it running. They are locally owned, and committed to the values of our community. I’m very much looking forward to improved speeds on the Wahkiakum West network!
I’ll let Wahkiakum West introduce themselves later this week. The goal is to maintain the wireless infrastructure for customers until fiber is available. Wahkiakum West will be contracting with Computer Link NW (the parent company of Skamokawa Internet) to manage the wireless network and provide support as needed. Billing will switch over to Wahkiakum West in the next couple of months and there will be some behind-the-scenes network changes.
I would like to thank those that have invested in Skamokawa Internet in many different ways. The recommendations were always appreciated. Those that have helped out by allowing their locations to be relay points helped expand the network and made neighbors that couldn’t reach a transmitter on their own very happy. Many of you shared encouraging words and helped troubleshoot issues, and others were incredibly patient while we searched for issues. Thank you! I couldn’t have done it without you!
Steve Carson
Computer Link Northwest LLC.
360.795.5000