Towerstream: Dedicated Business Internet & Fixed Wireless Solutions
Towerstream provides high-speed Fixed Wireless internet to businesses in major U.S. markets, offering rapid deployment and 99.99% uptime via a private network.
Overview
Towerstream is a leading Fixed Wireless Managed Service Provider (MSP) that delivers high-speed Internet access to business customers in major metropolitan areas across the United States. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Middletown, Rhode Island, the company was a pioneer in the fixed wireless industry, recognizing early on that the limitations of traditional wired infrastructure would eventually bottleneck business growth.
Today, Towerstream operates an extensive digital microwave network that covers major markets including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, and Miami. Their service portfolio is centered on providing "Business Class" internet, which includes dedicated internet access (DIA), point-to-point wireless links, and temporary bandwidth solutions for events or construction sites.
The company serves a diverse range of industries, from small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, and healthcare providers. Their market presence is defined by their ability to provide a viable, high-performance alternative to traditional telecommunications monopolies. By leveraging their own private network, Towerstream eliminates the need for local loop providers, allowing them to maintain strict control over network latency, packet loss, and overall service quality. This independence has made them a preferred choice for organizations requiring mission-critical connectivity and robust disaster recovery solutions.
Positioning
Towerstream positions itself as the "Superior Alternative to Fiber" and a primary challenger to legacy telecommunications giants. Their strategic positioning is built on two pillars: Speed of Delivery and Reliability. In a market where businesses often face 60-90 day lead times for fiber installation, Towerstream messages its "Ready-to-Work" capability, targeting businesses that need immediate, high-capacity connectivity.
Their competitive strategy focuses on the "Last Mile" problem. While competitors focus on laying more cable, Towerstream positions the air as the most reliable medium for data transmission. This allows them to target specific high-value segments:
- The Infrastructure-Challenged: Businesses in older buildings or urban areas where trenching for fiber is cost-prohibitive or physically impossible.
- The Always-On Enterprise: Organizations that use Towerstream as a diverse secondary path to ensure 100% uptime, positioning their wireless service as the necessary complement to a wired primary connection.
- The Rapid Growth Startup: Companies that cannot wait for traditional carrier timelines and need scalable bandwidth that moves at the speed of their business.
Compared to incumbents like AT&T or Comcast, Towerstream's brand positioning is more agile, specialized, and customer-centric. They don't try to be everything to everyone; instead, they position themselves as the specialist in high-bandwidth urban connectivity.
Differentiation
The primary technical advantage of Towerstream’s product suite is its Fixed Wireless technology, which delivers fiber-grade speeds without the physical vulnerabilities or installation delays associated with subterranean cabling. By utilizing point-to-point microwave technology, Towerstream can bypass the "last mile" infrastructure of traditional carriers, which is often the source of outages and congestion.
Key product differentiators include:
- Rapid Installation: While fiber installs can take months due to construction and permitting, Towerstream can typically deploy symmetrical bandwidth in 3 to 5 business days.
- Symmetrical Bandwidth: Unlike many cable providers, Towerstream offers equal upload and download speeds, ranging from 10Mbps to 10Gbps, which is critical for cloud-based enterprises and VoIP services.
- Redundancy and Diversity: Their service provides true local loop diversity. Because the signal is delivered over the air, it is immune to "backhoe fade" (accidental cable cuts), making it the gold standard for secondary or failover connections.
- Guaranteed Reliability: Their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) guarantee 99.99% uptime, backed by a private, interference-free network that does not rely on the public internet for backhaul.
- Scalability: Bandwidth can be scaled up on-demand via software configuration, allowing businesses to grow their capacity without needing new hardware installations.
Ideal Customer Profile
The ideal Towerstream customer typically fits the following profile:
- Size: Mid-market to Enterprise (20–5,000+ employees).
- Industry: Finance, Healthcare, Legal, Media, and Technology sectors where downtime results in significant revenue loss.
- Location: Businesses located in major US metropolitan areas (e.g., NYC, Chicago, LA, Miami, Boston) where Towerstream has an established "hub" footprint.
- Technical Maturity: Organizations that already utilize or are moving toward cloud-first architectures (AWS, Azure, SaaS) and require highly reliable "always-on" connectivity.
- Budget: Companies willing to pay a slight premium over "best effort" cable circuits for a Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) solution with a 99.99% SLA.
- Use Case: Organizations seeking a primary high-speed link that can be installed in days, or a diverse secondary link for disaster recovery.
Best Fit
Towerstream is the ideal choice in the following scenarios:
- Mission-Critical Redundancy: For businesses that cannot afford a single minute of downtime, Towerstream provides a "true" redundant path. Because it uses Fixed Wireless technology via the air, it is completely independent of the underground fiber and copper infrastructure used by traditional telcos.
- Rapid Deployment Needs: Companies moving into new offices or setting up temporary sites (like construction or film sets) often face 60-90 day waits for fiber installation. Towerstream can often be installed and active within 3 to 5 business days.
- Fiber-Constrained Locations: In many urban areas, "lighting" a building with fiber is cost-prohibitive due to construction costs. Towerstream bypasses these physical barriers by beaming high-speed internet directly from their rooftop hubs to the customer's location.
- Bandwidth Scalability: Organizations that experience seasonal spikes or rapid growth benefit from Towerstream’s ability to scale bandwidth up or down via software, without needing new hardware or truck rolls.
Offerings
Towerstream offers several distinct service packages tailored to business needs:
- Dedicated Internet Access (DIA): Their flagship product. Symmetrical speeds ranging from 10Mbps to 10Gbps. This is a private, dedicated pipe with no oversubscription.
- Redundancy/Failover Solutions: Specifically designed as a secondary link. Towerstream provides a diverse path from traditional telcos, ensuring that if the "ground" connection fails, the "air" connection remains.
- Temporary / Short-Term Service: High-speed connections for events, conventions, or temporary job sites, available for durations as short as a few days or months.
- Wholesale / Carrier Services: For other ISPs or data centers looking to extend their reach into buildings where they don't have physical fiber.
- Managed Services: Optional managed router and firewall services for companies that want a "turnkey" internet solution without managing their own edge hardware.
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Introduction
Welcome to the Towerstream Buying Guide. In an era where business continuity is synonymous with digital connectivity, choosing the right Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a critical strategic decision. Towerstream stands out in the crowded telecommunications market as a leading Fixed Wireless provider, offering a high-bandwidth alternative to traditional fiber and cable.
This guide is designed to help IT directors, CTOs, and procurement professionals evaluate Towerstream’s unique "on-net" wireless microwave technology. You will learn about the specific scenarios where Fixed Wireless outperforms traditional wired solutions—particularly in terms of installation speed and network diversity—and how to determine if your facility is a candidate for their high-speed, point-to-multipoint delivery model. By the end of this guide, you will have a clear understanding of Towerstream’s service tiers, technical requirements, and how their 99.99% uptime SLA fits into your disaster recovery and primary connectivity plans.
Key Features
Towerstream’s service is built on a private, carrier-grade microwave network. Key features include:
- Fixed Wireless Delivery: Uses point-to-multipoint and point-to-point microwave technology to deliver high-speed symmetrical bandwidth without the need for underground cabling.
- Guaranteed Throughput: Unlike shared cable "best effort" services, Towerstream provides dedicated bandwidth with symmetrical upload and download speeds.
- Aggressive SLAs: Offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee, backed by financial credits, covering latency, jitter, and packet loss.
- Rapid Scalability: Bandwidth can be increased remotely (e.g., from 100Mbps to 1Gbps) within hours, providing agility for growing businesses.
- Path Diversity: Provides a completely separate physical entrance into a building, protecting against the "backhoe effect" where a single construction accident cuts all underground fiber lines.
- Low Latency: Optimized for real-time applications like VoIP, Video Conferencing, and Financial Trading, often rivaling or beating fiber latency in urban corridors.
Use Cases
- Scenario 1: The "Always-On" Law Firm: A mid-sized firm uses fiber as their primary link but cannot risk losing access to cloud-based case files. They use Towerstream as a secondary, "wireless" backup. When a local utility project severs the fiber line, the firm stays online via Towerstream without interruption.
- Scenario 2: The Fast-Growing Tech Startup: A startup moves into a new office and is told fiber will take 4 months to install. They contact Towerstream and are fully operational with 500Mbps symmetrical service in 4 days, allowing them to meet their launch deadlines.
- Scenario 3: High-Density Events: A major tech conference requires temporary 1Gbps connectivity for 2,000 attendees for one week. Towerstream installs a temporary link on the venue roof, providing high-capacity WiFi backhaul that is removed immediately after the event.
- Scenario 4: Urban Construction Hubs: A construction company sets up a temporary trailer in a metropolitan area where no wired infrastructure exists. Towerstream provides the high-speed link needed for CAD file transfers and project management software.
Pricing Models
Towerstream utilizes a contract-based pricing model common in the enterprise ISP space:
- Monthly Recurring Charges (MRC): Based on the committed bandwidth (e.g., 50Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps). Pricing is typically fixed for the duration of the 12, 24, or 36-month contract.
- Installation Fees (NRC): A one-time Non-Recurring Charge covers the site survey, equipment mounting, and cabling. This can sometimes be waived or reduced with longer-term contract commitments.
- Bursting Options: Some plans allow for "burstable" bandwidth, where customers pay a base rate but can exceed that limit during peak times, billed at a 95th percentile rate.
- Tiered Packages: Pricing varies by service type—Business Class (shared/value), Enterprise Class (dedicated/SLA), and Event/Temporary services (premium short-term).
- Add-ons: Additional costs may apply for expanded static IP blocks or managed router services.
Technical Requirements
To deploy Towerstream, the following technical conditions must be met:
- Line-of-Sight (LoS): The most critical requirement. There must be a clear, unobstructed visual path between the customer's rooftop and a Towerstream base station.
- Power Supply: A standard 110v/120v AC power outlet is required for the indoor subscriber unit (usually located in the MDF/IDF).
- Cabling Path: A path for outdoor-rated Ethernet or fiber cable from the rooftop to the internal network closet (often utilizing existing building risers).
- Mounting Surface: Availability of a "sled" mount (non-penetrating) or a wall mount on the roof to secure the small radio dish.
- Hardware Compatibility: A router or firewall capable of handling the contracted speed and supporting Ethernet handoff.
Business Requirements
To successfully implement Towerstream, organizations should ensure the following:
- Rooftop Access Rights: Since the service relies on a small radio/antenna, the business must have the legal right or landlord permission to install equipment on the building's roof and run cabling to the server room.
- IT Network Readiness: A technical point of contact is needed to configure the handoff (typically Ethernet) to the internal firewall or router.
- Change Management: If using Towerstream for redundancy, the IT team must have a strategy for automated failover (e.g., SD-WAN or BGP routing) to ensure seamless transitions during a primary link failure.
- Process Readiness: For temporary sites or events, early engagement with Towerstream is necessary to verify line-of-sight from one of their base stations.
Implementation Timeline
Towerstream is known for one of the fastest deployment cycles in the ISP industry:
- Discovery & Site Survey (Days 1-2): Towerstream engineers perform a remote and/or physical site survey to confirm clear Line-of-Sight (LoS) to a nearby hub.
- Contracting & Permitting (Day 3): Finalizing the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and obtaining necessary building access permits from the landlord/property manager.
- Physical Installation (Day 4-5): Technicians install the antenna on the roof, run CAT5e/6 or fiber cabling to the customer's suite, and install the indoor subscriber unit.
- Testing & Go-Live (Day 5): Bandwidth throughput testing, latency verification, and handoff to the customer's network equipment.
- Note: Timelines may vary based on building height and landlord responsiveness, but most urban installs are completed in under a week.
Support Options
Towerstream provides a tiered support structure focused on rapid resolution:
- 24/7/365 US-Based NOC: A dedicated Network Operations Center monitors the network around the clock and is available via phone or email for immediate troubleshooting.
- Proactive Monitoring: Towerstream often detects and begins remediating link issues before the customer is even aware of a problem.
- Dedicated Account Management: Enterprise-tier customers are assigned a specific account manager for billing, upgrades, and long-term strategy.
- On-Site Technicians: If hardware failure occurs, Towerstream dispatches local technicians to replace rooftop or indoor equipment within specified SLA windows.
- Customer Portal: A web-based dashboard for viewing bandwidth utilization reports, ticket status, and billing history.
Integration Requirements
Towerstream provides a standard handoff that integrates easily with modern enterprise stacks:
- Physical Handoff: Typically provided via a standard RJ-45 Ethernet port or SFP fiber interface depending on the bandwidth tier.
- IP Addressing: Support for static IPv4 and IPv6 blocks to accommodate internal servers, VPNs, and hosted services.
- SD-WAN Compatibility: Fully compatible with all major SD-WAN vendors (Velocloud, Silver Peak, Cisco Meraki) for load balancing and failover configurations.
- BGP Support: For enterprise customers with their own IP space, Towerstream supports Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to facilitate multi-homed routing environments.
- Network Monitoring: SNMP support for integration into third-party monitoring tools like SolarWinds or PRTG.
Security & Compliance
Towerstream maintains enterprise-grade security standards to protect data in transit:
- Encryption: Wireless signals are encrypted at the physical/link layer using proprietary technology and AES encryption standards to prevent eavesdropping.
- Private Network: Towerstream operates its own end-to-end network, meaning traffic does not traverse the public internet until it reaches a secure peering point.
- DDoS Mitigation: Available options for distributed denial-of-service protection to ensure link stability during attacks.
- Physical Security: All hub sites and data centers are secured with biometric access and 24/7 monitoring.
- Regulatory Alignment: Their infrastructure supports customers who must comply with HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and SOC2 by providing secure, reliable transport for encrypted data.
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