To augment coverage, Aristotle is turning increasingly to Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), a wireless spectrum historically used by U.S. Navy aircraft carriers for radar transmissions. In recent years the Federal Communications Commission has opened a slice of this spectrum for commercial use, enabling Aristotle to beam broadband as far as 6 miles to distant Arkansans over signal stations—installed atop cell towers, barns, even a prison—that are sort of like massive Wi-Fi routers. The network is fast enough to stream movies and costs a fraction of what fiber costs to build. “We are one of the poorest states in the country, and the Delta is the poorest area of the state,” Bowles says. “If we can solve the problem here, we can solve it anywhere.”
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