North Central Washington, a Better Broadband Experience Is Coming

If you live in North Central Washington and have struggled with lackluster connectivity options, I have exciting news. Core Fiber is getting ready to bring faster, more reliable internet to over 5,000 homes and businesses across Okanogan County and beyond. 

This latest build-out is made possible by Washington's participation in the BEAD program. Don’t worry if you’re not fully up-to-date on your obscure telecom industry acronyms. Just know that the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program was designed to bring broadband internet to smaller communities where connectivity has historically been limited, if not completely unavailable. For us, that means we can bring Core Fiber service to thousands more of our neighbors in Okanogan County.

Better internet for more of Okanogan County

Anyone from the area knows there’s a lot of ground to cover.

It’s a big, rural county with homes and communities spread across some pretty rugged terrain. That’s part of what makes this such a great place to live, but it’s also what’s made it difficult to run traditional wired internet to every home.

This is where next-gen fixed wireless comes in. Some may associate “wireless internet” with being slow and unreliable. And for a long time, that reputation was well-earned. Traditional wireless was fine for low-lift Web 1.0 tasks like checking email or browsing the web, but it struggled with brawnier tasks like streaming video. 

It was the if-you-had-to option. 

Fast forward to today, and breakthrough wireless technologies can deliver high-capacity connectivity at speeds up to 65x faster than previous generations, without running a cable to every home.

Smaller communities across the country use Core Fiber’s next-gen wireless networks to access speeds up to 1 Gbps and support high-bandwidth activities across multiple devices, like streaming 4K movies, uninterrupted video conferencing, and lag-free gaming. With next-gen wireless, you can do everything the modern internet was made for. 

We’ve been part of this community for a while

While the Core Fiber name may be new, our connection to North Central Washington isn’t. NCI Datacom, which is now part of Core Fiber, has served this region for decades. Our team members have been working with customers everywhere from Omak to Okanogan, Twisp to Tonasket, and more.

This latest expansion gives us an opportunity to build on those local roots and bring a better broadband experience to even more households and businesses throughout the county. 

Our goal is pretty simple: reliable internet that works the way you need it to, straightforward information about your service, and real support when you need a hand.

So, when is service coming?

There’s still work to do before service becomes available everywhere. The build-out across nine projects will happen in phases starting now, with completion expected in 2028. You can always enter your address here and see if next-gen wireless is available where you live now.  Over the coming month, we will publish a schedule for all residents to review the status of their serving tower.

As individual communities get closer to going live, we’ll share more information about where service is available, when you can sign up, and which plans are offered in your area.