Let me preface this review; as I was finishing it, I realized I sounded like a bot or someone involved with Jackrabbit based on my high praises and knowledge of the team. Rest assured; I am neither of those things. Just a very content customer.
If you don't want to read my story, let me cut to the key points for those who just want the meat and potatoes of this review. Jackrabbit is:
1. Honest
2. Reliable
3. Fast
4. Knowledgeable
5. Caring
6. Young and smart. Young would scare me in some situations where I would value years of experience, but Jackrabbit lives, easts and breathes networking. They have the years of experience, but their youth gives them the ability to think outside the standard box and the rules that govern it. Jackrabbit is a team of problem solvers. They haven't been jaded to just give a "No" response.
7. They got us fast internet in the middle of nowhere when no one else would/could.
8. They are hungry.
In December of 2022 my mother, her husband and I bought an old vineyard/farm in Anthony, NM. We are down a dirt road, inside an old Adobe building with 19" thick walls. I basically get no cell service inside. I have AT&T but my mother and her husband have Verizon and also have the same issue. We all get a bar or two of service outside on a good day.
To the best of my understanding, you can cut internet service into 2 types, hard line in, like fiber optics, or over the air, like a radio frequency.
I called the fiber optics provider in our area, we were 3 miles away from a line they had underground, I thought, YAY! Then they told me it would be about a $10,000 build, $500 a month and no timeline. That YAY went away real fast.
I then proceeded to call all the regular big names you can think of when you think of internet service, all either gave me a no right away, never got back to me, or some of the smaller companies that provide microwave service told me we had no line of sight, and it couldn't be done. We are surrounded by Pecan Farms and Pistachio Trees.
Frustrated I turned to good ol'Google, searched "internet" with our zip code. Some of the big names came up, to which I audibly said, "No you don't"...in an empty room. I then saw Jackrabbit Wireless. I had never heard of them, but they had fantastic reviews, less one crotchety sounding grump. So, I gave them a call, I'm glad I did.
I first spoke with Robert, I informed him of our location, the issues we were running into, what minimums we were looking for. Immediately Robert gave me a bunch of potential solutions - one of which was his competitor. You don't hear that every day.
Within the next day or two the team was at the farm to assess. After walking the property and looking up some county code, since they are based in El Paso, we settled on a solution. Jackrabbit purchased everything they needed for this unique install (well, unique to me anyways) Using an antenna aimed at a tower, they harnessed LTE cell data streams into a plug-in modem with an ethernet jack and WIFI. We signed up for AT&T Business, they have no data cap, flat rate just for data, no contracts. But without Jackrabbit, we would've never been able to use that service as needed. Jackrabbit transformed it into something we could.
Up on our roof they went, installed the antenna with a hard line down into our office. Set up our whole network, answered all questions - and believe me, I always have a ton.
The entire time Jackrabbit was extremely kind, helpful, knowledgeable and mindful of costs.
My mother can stream a movie, while I work on our website & Greg replies to emails....all without buffering. Amazing.
I tend to always do my research on companies I am looking at working with. In the beginning, when I listed caring, I had read both gentlemen's bios on their website. Both Robert and Tristan are El Paso locals, Robert graduated with honors, and he wrote/developed/coded a piece of programming that helps areas and countries with low broadband to speed it up and divide it better when and where it's needed. That's the layman's version. When I first met them, their focus seemed to be bringing internet service to underserved communities. There's not a fortune to be made there. They do that out of kindness.
We recently installed a new security system with 19+ cameras and were scared about the WIFI, even though all the cameras but 7 (WIFI) are hard wired IP cameras, we still need to be able to remotely monitor them without too much latency. So, Jackrabbit built us an SDWAN with a second provider that picks up the slack if one starts to slip. Again, my layman explanation.
Rest continued in attached picture. Ran out of darn space. Brevity clearly isn't a strength of mine haha.
