News and Blog

New York, New York – January 25, 2018 – Skywire Networks, one of the most active and fastest growing Ethernet providers in New York City, announced today that it has significantly scaled its wholesale and channel partner activities. Subsequent to a significant capital raise completed last summer, the company has now hit a new milestone – it has lit its 450th building and has now published its own near-net footprint of 20,000+ commercial buildings.


"We are incredibly excited to announce our plans to accelerate our wholesale and channel activities. Unlike most fiber providers that have focused exclusively on midtown and downtown Manhattan Class A commercial buildings, our NYC coverage area covers most of Brooklyn, Queens and those parts of Manhattan which have poor fiber density,” says Alan Levy, CEO of Skywire Networks.


Levy goes on to say, “With continued consolidation in the telecom space, there is a shortage of quality carriers that can provide wholesale SLA Ethernet private line access to buildings and businesses throughout NYC. Skywire is excited to help our partners fill this void in the marketplace.”


Skywire sells both wholesale Ethernet private lines to other carriers as well as Skywire-branded voice and data services to channel partners and agents. A key component of this effort will be the launch of our Partners Portal (https://www.skywirenetworks.com/partners). Registered users will be able to search for a NYC building by entering the service address and will immediately determine if Skywire can provide high-speed connectivity and the associated monthly recurring charges.


Skywire’s NYC portal includes Skywire lit buildings (Type 1), Skywire partner fiber buildings (Type 2), and Skywire near-net buildings. Today, the few carriers that do publish a pricing portal only include their own on-net buildings. Skywire’s portal is differentiated as an industry capable tool, in that Skywire publishes a building list of more than 60,000 NYC commercial buildings which covers essentially all of NYC.


Metro-Connect


On January 29th through January 31st, the Skywire Team will be attending the Metro Connect conference in Miami, Florida.
If you’d like to learn more about Skywire Networks and our extensive capabilities, connect with us in room 147 and hear us speak at the event:
Session Title: Understanding How to Cater to the Enterprise
Speaker: Darren Feder, President, Skywire Networks
Date: January 29, 2018
Time: 4:20 p.m. ET




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Skywire Networks' very own Alan Levy discusses why the FCC has lowered broadband standards with Telecom Ramblings.

New York City is a city of skyscrapers, high-rises and water towers perched far above the ground. But so much of what connects our city -- the subway system, water and electric utilities, fiber and so on -- lies beneath the ground. In an old, densely built city like New York, instead of perpetually looking to dig up of streets to deliver essential services to NYC businesses, we should be looking to solutions that allow for minimal disruption while providing the highest quality service.

Two Providers Promise Better Cell Service, Innovative Broadband
by Briana Warsing

There is help on the way for Islanders whose phones regularly drop calls in the Westview arcade, the Good Shepherd Church plaza, the bowels of the Cultural Center, and elsewhere. At next Tuesday’s Board meeting for the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), members will vote on a proposal to increase cellular service on the Island by laying down fiber lines to new, small cell towers attached to lamp posts along Main Street.

The goal is higher capacity and better in-building coverage. Crown Castle has worked with RIOC to determine the Island’s dead spots. Together, they identified specific locations to install new small cell solutions networks based on a careful and thorough review of existing poles and neighborhood sites.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Island, Cornell Tech is getting a boost of a different sort. When looking for a way to bring high-speed internet access to its high-demand campus, the school made the surprising choice to not lay down fiber. Instead, they looked to the sky.

In a nod to the school’s innovative architecture, focus on sustainability, and investment in New York’s tech industry, Cornell Tech relies on Skywire Networks, a company that connects commercial buildings to their network via microwave radios which are installed on the roofs of tall buildings. Skywire CEO and co-founder, Alan Levy, has spent the last five years building the company to deliver high-quality, high-speed internet to buildings traditionally underserved by cable and copper-based carriers.

Fiber

“Fiber is a terrestrial network. It’s in the street,” says Levy, “You have to dig up the roads in order to install it.” According to Levy, most of the fiber in New York City was installed in midtown and in the financial district because those businesses are the ones that could afford it. But in other parts of the city, Levy says, there’s much less fiber installation (less than 5 percent according to his research), which means businesses and buildings have to rely on an old copper technology, and, in many instances, cable technology, for broadband. “That’s the problem we are solving via Skywire.”

Skywire Networks delivers high-speed internet through the air.

In the scheme of fiber haves and have-nots, Roosevelt Island is a have-not. “During construction, many times they will coordinate fiber, and all the conduits inside the building will be built for that,” he says. “Part of it, obviously, has to do with it being on an Island. It’s expensive to dig under the water and lay fiber, particularly for the size of Roosevelt Island. Most times, when fiber is used to deliver high speed broadband, you dig up the street from point A to point B.”

Skywire Networks, he says, can deliver the same speed that fiber delivers. The difference is that their equipment sits on the roof that goes into the building, versus fiber that goes into the basement that goes into the building; it’s just a different path to get into that building.

Skywire’s technology connects to the building, the signal comes through the sky through point-to-point radio equipment. In Cornell Tech’s case, it connects the buildings at Cornell Tech to the Skywire network in Long Island City, where there is fiber. The strategy, says Levy, is to deploy fiber, and then that last mile or so use the microwave radios to deliver the same type of speeds that fiber gets.

Levy says that his company’s installation at Cornell Tech will not impact the rest of the Island, but that he would be happy to work with RIOC in order to connect the rest of us. He is aware that there isn’t great service here. “To the extent there are other needs outside of Cornell Tech, we can address those with the building owners themselves because we can connect to Roosevelt Island.”

Cell Service

For those who spend most of their time on a mobile phone, the Board is expected to vote December 19 on a plan to connect us with new cell towers being installed around Main Street.

In a presentation given at RIOC’s Real Estate Development Advisory Committee meeting on November 9, Joseph Klem and Esme Lombard from wireless infrastructure provider Crown Castle proposed building and maintaining a fiber ring around Roosevelt Island to supply the Island with reliable cellular connectivity. Part of their plan requires them to provide four strands of dark fiber around the Island.

They will then install additional small cell towers in weak-signal or high-data-traffic areas around the Island. Crown Castle is a neutral cell host system, and is designed to host all carriers; “every carrier has a chance to come in,” said Klem.

The good news is that, unlike the Con Edison work that was recently done on the Island, Klem says this work would take only three to six months, and that it can go right on the edge of the curbline.

Skywire Networks' very own Alan Levy shares his thoughts on the future of net neutrality with Telecom Ramblings.

Alan Levy, CEO at Skywire Networks, shares one of his greatest tips for entrepreneurial success with Inc Magazine.

"Serial entrepreneur Alan Levy has quite a track record in the tech industry. Prior to Skywire Networks, in the '00s, Levy created BlogTalkRadio, a digital podcasting platform, and served as its Chairman and CEO. Levy was also President of Destia Communications, a global telecommunications firm was sold to Viatel for over $1 Billion.

After realizing a successful exit selling Destia Communications, Levy took a few years off to get reacquainted with his family and get his financial plan together, and gradually began about what he wanted to do next. While Levy did achieve monetary success as a first-time entrepreneur, he soon realized that he loved so many other things about being an entrepreneur.

He loved the idea of building teams of people with completely different but complementary skill sets. Levy also loved the idea of competing against enormous, non-innovative, dominant telecommunication companies. He loved the excitement, the passion, the hard work, and the idea of that only a thin line exists between becoming great success or a great failure.

Success isn't always measured monetarily. "It's the non-monetary reasons," Levy says, "that keep the fire going.""

I had the pleasure to interview Alan Levy. Alan is the CEO of Skywire Networks, one of the largest fixed wireless broadband networks in New York City, with more than 400 lit buildings, more than 30 hubs and a near-net footprint of 25,000 commercial buildings. Skywire Networks partners with commercial building owners throughout New York City and especially the buildings located outside midtown and downtown Manhattan. The cost of digging up the streets and laying fiber in New York City is impractical and largely uneconomical. Prior to Skywire, Alan was Chairman and CEO of BlogTalkRadio, a NYC based digital podcasting platform. Prior to creating BlogTalkRadio in 2006, Alan was President of Destia Communications, a global telecommunications business which was sold to Viatel in December 1999 for more than $1 Billion.

PETALUMA, Calif., Nov. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Calix, Inc. (NYSE:CALX) today announced it has accelerated past the 100 service provider deployment milestone for its industry-leading AXOS Gfast solutions faster than any other vendor. Armed with Calix AXOS Gfast solutions, which simplify the delivery of new services, service providers globally are cost-effectively upgrading their offerings to a true symmetrical gigabit experience in challenging multi-dwelling unit (MDU) environments. By leveraging the Calix Gfast portfolio, the copper and coaxial cable infrastructure in many MDUs is no longer an obstacle to deployment, allowing service providers to offer a unified gigabit marketing message across their markets, and reap the benefits of AXOS, the world’s only Software Defined Access (SDA) platform, to deliver Always On services to all subscribers in record time.

 Alan Levy , Forbes Councils

Take a look at any ad for a cellphone service provider, and you’ll see that the overwhelming emphasis is always on speed and, more specifically, on the fact that its competitor doesn’t offer the speed you need to do whatever it is you need to do. And yet, when it comes to business broadband, so many people are willing to stick with what they have, either because they are unaware of other options or because their buildings lack the infrastructure to do so. For high-speed broadband in commercial buildings in New York City, for example, there’s a stark difference between the haves and have-nots, especially in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, as well as most areas in Manhattan outside of midtown and downtown. It seems incredibly ironic that NYC, one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world, has such a weak broadband footprint for a large urban city.

Businesses today are 100 percent dependent on their internet connection for everything from internal communications, client correspondence, paying vendors, and in some cases, getting paid for their work in a timely fashion.

Irritating coworkers and your office internet service have more in common than you think. In a survey conducted by Samsung last year, 1,000 office workers were asked what their biggest office annoyances were. Noisy and messy eating, uncomfortable seats and office temperatures and complaining all made the list of top annoyances, but a whopping 92% of people said that slow internet speeds and other technical difficulties were the most frustrating thing to deal with in an office environment.

We were mentioned today on Axios Pro Rata!

"Skywire Networks, a New York-based fixed wireless business broadband provider, has raised $23 million in new funding from Metropolitan Partners Group."

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