Door County Broadband Expands Into Kewaunee County

Door County Broadband is expanding its high-speed rural internet service to Kewaunee County.

The company announced July 3 that it has purchased Kewaunee-based WIZ Tech and will fold its 350 customers into the service, which provides internet service via satellite.

Kevin Voss, owner of Door County Broadband (DCB), said they’ll improve technology across the board for Kewaunee customers.

“It will take a while, but we are sending our network folks out there, eventually, to strip and rebuild,” he said. “We stay very current with our technology.”

Voss bought DCB in 2014 and said it took almost four years to update technology for all of their nearly 2,500 customers.

The company provides wireless broadband service via line-of-site connection to transmitters placed on towers throughout the peninsula.

“We still have holes but we’ve tripled our size by going on new towers and improving technology,” Voss said.

While Kewaunee County is rural like much of Door County, the new territory does present new challenges for the company, Voss said.

“Our goal is to have roughly the same number of customers in Kewaunee County as we have in Door County,” Voss said. “But Kewaunee is a lot more ag base, so you have fewer trees and greater line of sight distances, so the distance between customers is greater. The concept is the same – to give a customer a line of sight connection – but the dynamics are different.”

To help understand the territory Voss hired Eric Barrera, an installer for WIZ Tech, who knows the customers and the territory well.

WIZ Tech was previously owned by Pagel Farms, which had purchased the company to provide internet at its Kewaunee County dairy.

“Here at WIZ Tech we’ve taken it as far as we can technology wise,” said JJ Pagel in a video released by DCB. “So we are turning it over and transitioning.”

Door County Broadband will soon relocate operations to a new building under construction the corner of Hwy EE and Hwy F in Baileys Harbor. The new building will house its 12 employees and warehouse.