Recently, the core team at Freewire Broadband was able to sit and chat (for the 4th time) at one of the roundtable meetings of the OICA – Oregon Independent Colleges Association.  OICA is a highly diverse and tightly knit group that combines the strength of the group to better serve their citizens.  This group we met with was comprised of the CIO and IT Managers for their respective colleges.  A real down and dirty, hold no punches, get to the point, leave the fuzzy stuff behind, if you’re hiding something we will find it, type of group.  My favorite!

Where the topic of the conversation was ours to set, we left the agenda open to discuss “wireless” in general.  One observation that I brought back with me from that meeting was the noticeable improvement in their overall knowledge of “wireless”, and the increase in demands for greater bandwidth campus wide.

Comparing the topics of conversation and the diversity of questions from 4 years ago was nearly night and day.  Where we were talking about the possibilities of wireless then, we were discussing usages and managing their wireless network traffic today.  Where we were discussing the comparison of Freewire to their current T1 provider then, we were discussing adding 100Mb and Gigabit wireless Point to Point connections today.  Where we were scratching the surface of wireless as a viable technology then, we were digging into the details of wireless performance and what new technologies are around the corner today.

As I listen to our sales staff speaking to customers and prospective customers on the phone, the same lesson rings true.  Largely our market is no longer wondering if wireless, but how wireless.