Hudson Oaks, TX, and Milpitas, CA — September 22, 2022 — Nextlink Internet and Tarana announced today their formal collaboration toward large-scale improvements in the US broadband landscape. The companies are partnering to bring reliable, low-latency gigabit broadband service to an extensive set of under- and unserved communities and rural regions in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. The team expects to expand service to hundreds of rural counties over the next several years, covering over a quarter million households.

Nextlink is using Tarana’s G1 platform to compete in local markets with fiber providers, taking market share with rapid deployment of fast, affordable broadband service. Nextlink is also using the platform to go above and beyond its regulatory commitments, delivering 500 Mbps service where it was obligated to deliver 100 Mbps service. Finally, Nextlink plans on utilizing a combination of fiber and gigabit fixed wireless to meet its RDOF obligations. Tarana is uniquely positioned to help Nextlink deliver on all of those promises. 

Tarana’s G1 platform can deliver gigabit services at impressive distances and in non-line of sight (NLoS) paths. The difference is a technology Tarana has termed “next generation FWA” (ngFWA) powered by Tarana’s purpose-built, innovative broadband architecture featuring fundamental advances in real-time radio signal processing. This unique approach enables reliable, fiber-class service in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum and is a perfect complement to a fiber build, delivering superior blended economics and shorter deployment timelines. Its upcoming platforms will deliver even more speed and reliability.

Bill Baker, Nextlink’s CEO, noted that “The digital divide remains a pressing issue for most Americans in rural areas, and service affordability is also a big problem in many mainstream markets. G1 is enabling us to address these issues at large scale at a pace measured in months instead of years. Early users on the network are enjoying affordable, uncapped high-speed internet access. We’re looking forward to building this network out quickly.”

Tarana CEO Basil Alwan added “Our mission from the start has been to enable materially faster progress in closing the world’s persistent digital divide — we’re honored and excited by our collaboration with Nextlink to that end.”

Nextlink’s network initiative is leveraging a new set of G1 capabilities from Tarana. You can learn more about those at Tarana’s upcoming product launch event, live-streamed on September 27. Register to attend here.