Kwikbit: Fixed Wireless Comes to Mobile Home Parks

Kwikbit is a network operator with a unique business model. The company focuses on providing fixed wireless internet service to manufactured home communities, more commonly known as trailer or mobile home parks. Kwikbit CEO Joe Costello noted that most of the 6 to 7 million manufactured homes in the United States—which house 20-25 million people—are underserved or unserved by broadband. “If the mobile home community was a state, it would be the third largest state in the United States, just behind California and Texas and ahead of Florida,” said Costello. Most people in these communities rely on mobile phones to connect to the internet, and fiber network operators often skip over mobile home parks as they build out fiber networks. Fiber can be tricky and expensive to install in trailer parks, and residents may not be able to pay as much as traditional homeowners. When the economic and technological challenges of bringing fiber to manufactured homes are too great, Kwikbit offers a solution. Branching off a local fiber backbone, Kwikbit uses next-gen 60 GHz fixed wireless broadband technology to offer high-speed internet to mobile home residents. Kwikbit offers 1 Gbps symmetrical upload and download speeds via a wireless connection, with a single installed transceiver at each manufactured home. Mobile home residents are sometimes skeptical of promises of better internet, so Kwikbit offers a free month of service, a price of $50 per month, no data caps and no contract, and a guarantee that the price will not change for two years.