It isn't "keep it limping." It's a generational jump.
The paused investment would replace the District's end-of-life Cambium radios with next-generation fixed wireless — the platform the District chose is Tarana G1. Here's a plain, sourced look at what that technology actually is, what it really delivers (and what it doesn't), the District's own field test, and an honest answer to the obvious question: what if a competitor runs the same gear on the same mountains?
Next-generation fixed wireless — radios that beamform at both ends.
Legacy fixed wireless points a smart radio on the tower at a plain dish on your house. The new generation puts an active, steerable antenna array at both ends — and that one change is what lets it work where the old gear can't.
Older point-to-multipoint gear (the District's current end-of-life Cambium radios, and the Cambium and Ubiquiti radios most rural networks run) needs a reasonably clear shot from tower to home. Trees, a low ridge, or a crowded channel and the link falls apart. The new platform — a class the industry calls ngFWA — does three things differently: it beamforms and steers at both the tower and the home, it recombines signal that has bounced off and diffracted around obstacles instead of needing a clean line, and it actively cancels interference so towers can reuse the same channel. verified · architecture
Old gear (what's there now)
- Smart radio at the tower, passive dish at the home
- Needs a near-clear line of sight
- Congested, shared band — "out of usable space" in the District's own scan
- End-of-life; "no possibility for expansion" (District's internal memo)
New gear (the upgrade)
- Steerable array at both ends
- Works in near- and non-line-of-sight — sees around many obstacles
- Clean spectrum, wider channels → far more capacity per tower
- Same seven towers, same backhaul — no new licenses, no new towers
One honest scope note. "Non-line-of-sight" does not mean it beams through a granite mountain or a deep, dense forest — radio can't, and we won't claim otherwise. What it does is reach around ridges and through moderate tree cover that stops the old gear. That's exactly the difference you can see for yourself on the 3D terrain map, where the new gear's reach extends into the timbered slopes and shadowed pockets the old line-of-sight gear leaves dark. verified · physics
How it actually does it — drawn, so you can watch
These claims deserve better than a spec sheet, so we drew them. Our interactive 3D field guide to Jackass Butte renders each mechanism with the real physics — starting with beamforming itself, where you watch an array's ripples organize into a beam aimed at one roof. Then it goes deeper. Click any card to see that mechanism working:
Each figure above is the vendor's published specification or demonstration, labeled as such — the guide links Tarana's own write-ups from every station. The District's measured results are in the field test below.
Engineered for 90°. Measured at about 160°.
This isn't a vendor brochure. The strongest evidence is the District's own field test, obtained by records request: from Jackass Butte, a sector engineered for a 90-degree view delivered usable coverage closer to ~160 degrees — nearly double the wedge of land from the same radio on the same tower.
| Field-test point | Install score (of 30) | Download | Upload |
|---|---|---|---|
| Test point 1 | 30.0 | 900 Mbps | 250 Mbps |
| Test point 2 | 24.4 | 946 Mbps | 163 Mbps |
| Test point 3 | 24.3 | 720 Mbps | 136 Mbps |
| Test point 4 | 21.7 | 807 Mbps | 161 Mbps |
| Test point 5 | 20.3 | 680 Mbps | 130 Mbps |
| Test point 6 | 17.1 | 243 Mbps | 35 Mbps |
| Test point 7 | 14.2 | 470 Mbps | 76 Mbps |
How to read this honestly: these are the District's own measured links at specific spots — strong ones reaching 900+ Mbps, the farthest/most-obstructed still landing ~470/76. Those are best-case point measurements on lightly-loaded links, not what every home gets at once. Independent monitoring of tens of thousands of these radios on real networks shows a typical busy-hour download around 300–450 Mbps — slower than the headline peaks, but still many times the 3–20 Mbps Mbps most customers are sold today. District field test + independent telemetry
Field-test figures: the District's Tarana coverage test from Jackass Butte (public-records request). Typical real-world rates: Preseem, Tarana G1 in Action (2025), passive telemetry across tens of thousands of live radios on independent ISP networks.
The real case: more homes reachable, far more capacity — not "fiber over the air."
Stripped of marketing, here is what the independent evidence supports — and the lines we won't cross.
What we can stand behind
It reaches homes the old gear can't. Two-ended beamforming plus interference cancellation is a real architectural advance, and independent field telemetry confirms it materially outperforms legacy fixed wireless in obstructed, interference-heavy terrain — exactly Okanogan's problem. verified
It is real broadband for funding and policy. On licensed or CBRS spectrum, ngFWA is classified as Reliable Broadband Service by the federal BEAD program and clears the 100/20 Mbps bar — it is the tool federal policy itself leans on where fiber is uneconomic. verified · NTIA/FCC
It's proven in country like ours. The same platform is deployed across the rural and mountainous West — Idaho's panhandle, the Colorado Rockies, Northern California's wildfire forests — and by a tribal utility connecting homes nothing else could reach. verified · deployments
What we won't claim
It's not gigabit to every home. Headline "gigabit / 800 Mbps" numbers are peak, best-case single links. Independent data even shows ~10% of plans sold on this gear aren't fully deliverable by the link (about double the legacy rate) — partly because operators sell bigger plans on it. We quote the typical ~300–450 Mbps, not the peak.
It's not fiber, and it's not forever. Even the independent, FWA-friendly analyses call it complementary and transitional — the best answer where fiber is uneconomic, not a permanent equal. Foliage grows; gear cycles faster than fiber. The honest pitch is "the right tool for this county now," not "future-proof."
It carries ongoing cost. The hardware is expensive (~$21K per tower node) and cloud-licensed — there's a recurring per-radio fee the system needs to keep running. That's a real commitment, and it's part of why a clear-eyed public review matters.
Sources: Preseem telemetry (2025); NTIA BEAD Reliable Broadband Service guidance and FCC fixed-wireless classifications; CostQuest, Broadband in America — Fixed Wireless (2026); distributor pricing (ISP Supplies) and Tarana service-license terms. Vendor performance claims are labeled as such and not used as fact.
The difference, on the real terrain.
We modeled both systems on the county's actual elevation and tree cover. The new gear's added reach — into forest and around ridges the old line-of-sight gear leaves dark — is the whole point of the upgrade, and you can spin and zoom it yourself. Then climb the tower itself: a fourteen-station 3D field guide from the leased ground to the subscriber's rooftop, with every mechanism above drawn in working physics.
Open the 3D network explorer → Climb the tower →
The map is an illustrative engineering model — modeled, not measured — but it's built on real USGS elevation, real land cover, and the towers' true positions.
If a competitor runs the same gear on the same mountains, won't they interfere?
It's a fair question — NCI Datacom shares several of these mountaintops — and we won't wave it away. Here's the straight answer: in principle yes, any two wireless systems sharing spectrum on one site can interfere. In practice it's routine, manageable, and already working here.
Co-location is normal — and it's the financial backbone of wireless. Tower owners lease one structure to multiple, often competing, operators all over the country. Interference is a known risk that gets engineered around every day with channel planning, GPS time-synchronization, directional antennas, and physical separation. It is not a deal-breaker; it's standard practice. industry norm
It's already happening on these exact ridges — and the public network held. NCI has co-located on mountaintops like Eder, Coleman, Jackass Butte, and Tonasket for years. On Eder it has run its own tower advertising at least 600/50 Mbps while the PUD network sold 20 Mbps — and the PUD's customer base still held at peak levels through late 2023. The real-world coexistence test has already been run here, and the public network passed it at a thirty-fold speed handicap, on a platform whose owner had cut reinvestment 92%. The providers held on service alone — the upgrade removes the handicap they held it under. local record (PRA + reseller-reported)
Same gear actually coexists better, not worse. The nastiest interference problems come from mismatched equipment that can't synchronize. If both networks ran the same Tarana platform, they'd share the same timing framework, and the platform's interference cancellation and same-channel reuse are specifically designed for crowded spectrum — so two of these networks coordinate more cleanly than today's mixed bag of legacy radios. vendor-designed
The one real condition: coordination. Clean coexistence depends on operators coordinating channels and timing — exactly the kind of good-neighbor practice the industry expects and a cooperative public utility can lead. (On the shared CBRS band, a federal Spectrum Access System assigns separate channels automatically; on unlicensed bands it's voluntary but standard.) Interference becomes a genuine problem mainly when an operator refuses to coordinate or floods the band with power. verified · FCC/industry
Bottom line, stated plainly: two networks can share these mountains — they already do. The honest question isn't whether it's physically possible to coexist; it's whether everyone coordinates responsibly. That's a reason for a public, professionally-managed network at the table — not a reason to let the public one age out.
Sources: FCC 3.5 GHz/CBRS coexistence framework (47 CFR §96; Spectrum Access System); Cambium TDD-synchronization documentation; tower co-location lease practice (RF interference studies, first-in-time rules); Tarana frame-alignment application note. Vendor interference-cancellation figures are vendor claims and labeled as such; CBRS General Authorized Access carries no guaranteed interference protection.
The upgrade is the best fixed-wireless technology available for country where fiber costs about nine times more per home — proven nearby, classified as real broadband by the federal government, and validated by the District's own field test. It isn't fiber and it isn't magic, and we say so. But pausing it doesn't make the case for something better — it just lets a working public network fall behind. See the full case → · the data → · the 3D map → · climb the tower →