FAIRHOPE, Alabama — Wysper Technologies is the latest company on the high-speed provider horizon and the company’s co-founders say they want to go beyond just providing reliable internet service.

“It’s not just about providing internet service,” said Fairhope native and Wysper co-founder Haden Giddings, “it’s about providing a complete concept.”

In April of 2016, Giddings, who has nearly 20 years of telecommunications marketing experience, connected with Jason Marass, who has a background in information technology, and hashed out a plan to provide locally owned and operated, reliable high-speed service with simple billing, no contracts and personal customer service.

“We sat right down there and drew it out,” Giddings said, pointing out the window from inside the Eastern Shore’s Old 27 Grill to an open courtyard below.

“He (Marass) came to me with the idea and I said, ‘if you’ve got the equipment, we can make it work,’ Giddings said.

By June of 2016, the two had set up a “beta test” using 10 customers on the Eastern Shore.

“To this day using our equipment, all of our customers have 100 percent service,” Giddings said.

So the company has contracted with Southern Light to put their equipment on an existing cell tower in Robertsdale and are expecting to go live with the service beginning in June.

“Wysper is delivering best-in-class fiber fed wireless equipment on cellular towers to provide high-speed bandwidth to the Robertsdale community,” Marass said. “Wysper’s technology allows its Network Operations Center to monitor and react to any issues with its deployed wireless hardware from its tower assets to its customer premise band equipment.”

This advanced monitoring technology allows Wysper staff to detect potential internet issues in many cases before the customer is ever impacted. In addition, all wireless equipment is managed and configured through the remote monitoring system allowing for quick adjustments and fixes without the need to send a technician to the customer’s home or office.

Wysper has also contracted with Gulfsouth Towers to build an additional tower on private property located north of OWA in Foley, connecting the two areas.

“Gulfsouth Towers is excited to partner with other local companies such as Wysper to bring a much needed service to the residents of Baldwin County,” a spokesman for Gulfsouth said in a written statement. “Although we develop tower assets throughout the Southeast United States, Baldwin County is our home. We live and work here, so it’s exciting to be a part of a project that will be so beneficial to the local community.”

Wysper uses line-of-site technology, Giddings said, meaning that service can be provided to anyone who can be seen from the service’s 165-foot towers.

“If we can see you, we can provide you with service,” Giddings said, “and from 165 feet, we can reach pretty far.”

Each tower should be able to reach about a 6-mile radius, he said, providing connection to about 880 customers. Once the towers are full, Wysper could also build a third tower near the Robertsdale location to reach potentially over 2,000 customers.

“The way the regulations work, if the tower has not reached capacity, then you can’t build another tower within a certain distance,” Giddings said. Since the Foley tower is new, they will be limited to one tower at the Foley location, but since they are the last customer on the Robertsdale tower, they could build another tower close by if needed.

Wysper is also looking to contract with Gulfsouth to build smaller towers that can provide service within neighborhoods and communities, Giddings said.

“Eventually we want to be able to reach everyone in Baldwin County,” Giddings said.

Right now, Wysper is offering three plans, a basic plan which will provide 20 by 20 mps service for $60 per month. Additional plans are a 50 by 50 mps service for $80 per month and a 100 by 100 mps service for $100 per month.

“All we are providing is the basic service,” Giddings said, “what you do with it after that is up to you.”

So how does the concept go beyond just providing internet service?

“We want to provide a hands-on service to help our customers ‘cut the cord’ from the high-dollar services,” Giddings said.

“Do you have cable or satellite?”

Satellite.

“With satellite, you get probably 200 to 300 channels, right? How many of them do you watch regularly?”

Probably about 20.

“Right. What if we could show you how, instead of paying $100 per month for 280 channels you don’t watch, you can pay as little as $10 per month to get just the channels you do watch.”

The same is true for basic television, phone and other telecommunications services, Giddings said. Through the internet, services that cost customers hundreds of dollars per month can be obtained at a fraction of the cost.

“We want to provide our customers a blueprint to do just that,” he said.

Wysper’s billing platform allows all customers to pay using their credit card or PayPal account directly through Wysper’s website (wysper.net) as well as scheduling automatic payments, Marass said. The entire billing platform meets all information security regulations and requirements to ensure that sensitive customer data is never at risk.

If you would like to learn more, and to find out if you can get service through Wysper Technologies, visit the website or contact them at 251-706-2922 or email support@wysper.net.