Residents in the Falcon, Colorado, area have local options to choose from for fiber optic internet service and cell phone service. Falcon Broadband and PCI Broadband are both smaller, locally owned service providers with the ability to provide the same quality of services as larger companies.According to http://highspeedinternet.com, there are 43 different internet provider options in Colorado, not all of which provide fiber optics services.Fiber optics internet is faster than average broadband speeds, is more reliable than copper-based services and is less patchy than WiFi, according to http://fastmetrics.com. The average internet speed in the United States in 18.7 megabytes per second while fiber optic speed can be up to 50 times faster.According to the HowStuffWorks website, ìa single copper pair conductor can carry six phone calls. A single fiber pair can carry more than 2.5 million phone calls simultaneously.îIvan Brown, director of sales for Falcon Broadband, said his company provides fiber optic services for both business and residential customers. ìWe use the fiber optics as our backbone that goes all through Colorado Springs and Falcon,î he said. ìThat backbone delivers services into a neighborhood or service area. Other providers often use equipment to take a signal and direct it to your home whereas we extend that fiber optic backbone directly to the home.îWith about 25 employees, Brown said Falcon Broadband is relatively small but typically is quicker to respond to customer service needs than the larger service providers like Century Link and Comcast. ìA customer could call us on a Tuesday and we would have their services installed by that Friday,î he said. ìIt took two weeks for Comcast to install services at the apartment complex in the Springs where I live and where Falcon Broadband does not provide service.îBrown said Falcon Broadband recently beat out Century Link for a service contract with El Paso County School District 49. ìWe have been their provider for the past seven years and this year, their contract went up for bid,î he said. ìWe won that and will continue to serve about 20 different facilities for D 49.îPCI Broadband started as a dial-up internet provider; and, since then, has branched out to include the faster fiber optics option, home phone, cell phone and voice over internet protocol (VoIP), according to the PCI website.Dave Wainwright, operations manager for PCI, said the company has 11 employees and has provided services to the Falcon area for about 14 years. ìEverybody who works for the company also lives around here,î he said. ìIt is as local as local can be.ìWe have been around a long time and we pride ourselves on good service. We are honest when we think we cannot provide good service to our customers.îBoth PCI and Falcon Broadband have their headquarters in Colorado Springs and have been in business for 22 years and 15 years, respectively.
