Water is the pathway to communication, now pass the spray paint?

Since the beginning of time, human beings have settled on the banks of oceans, lakes, and rivers. For centuries, these bodies of water provided food, commerce, protection, trade, and most importantly, an outlet to stay connected.

As the settlements grew from tents and shacks to cities, and canoes transformed into sailing ships, the importance of spreading news and information to one another grew in importance as well. These connections by water could literally mean the difference between life and death in the “old days”. Too bad it took a few months to cross an ocean back then.

Moving forward in time as steamships and paddle wheelers moved up and down our coasts and rivers, one of the most important commodities they carried was communications in the form of letters, contracts, messages, maps, and any other information people needed to share for business, entertainment, and simple family life.

Let’s fast forward about a hundred years to middle America and a landmark in thousands of small towns across the country. Sometimes on the outskirts on a nearby hill, or smack in the middle of the town square stands a water tower.

No matter the natural habitat they are found in, water towers all seem to look the same.

Usually painted white or blue or gray with a town name proudly displayed hundreds of feet in the air. Many times they are scarred with graffiti affirming teen love, letting the town know a certain graduating class or sports team “rocked” or marked with areas of mismatched paint covering up some four letters words. No, I don’t mean “love”.

One specific water tower located down south somewhere was the subject of a very popular country song in the 1990s. If I remember correctly that teen artist (Billy Bob) professed his love to Charlene with a ten-foot heart and green letters three-feet high.

Again, just like the oceans and rivers of old, water is still a key to keeping communities connected. With all due respect to Billy Bob and Charlene, water towers are playing an even more important role in keeping small towns and communities connected to each other and the world with wireless internet service.

For nearly two decades, Wisper Internet has been installing wireless broadband equipment on dozens of water towers in small towns across the Midwest. Since they are usually the highest point in the center, or near center of a town they are perfect to connect every household within line of sight.

In Wisper’s infancy, it understood the importance of water towers and today has equipment attached to 176 water towers in communities like Waterloo, Ill., Lead Hill, Ark., Orongo, Mo., Bluejacket, Okla., and Riverton, Kan., just to name a few. If the internet was around back in the old days, Wisper would have found a way to attach our equipment to whatever we could to keep information flowing.

Just like hundreds or even thousands of years ago, water is still key to keeping people connected and the use of water towers today, shows Wisper’s humbly confident focus on customer service, commitment to serving one another, lifelong learning, and driving to solutions.

Wisper cares about small towns because that’s where we live too!