Northwoods Town to Join High-Speed Internet World, by WJFW

While half of St Germain has had high-speed internet available by way of DSL from Frontier (formerly Verizon) since 2005, areas north of Highway 70, east and west of Highway 155, welcome the SonicNet tower and expanding services by Frontier and ChoiceTel in 2012.  Many real estate buyers need to locate where high-speed internet is reliable to facilitate their business needs as well as their family’s demands for the service.    

The following story ran tonight on our local NBC affiliate, interviewing our Managing Broker, Richelle Kruse:

St. Germain – High-speed Internet is notorious for being unavailable to much of the Northwoods.
But St. Germain residents and business owners will soon have better internet service with the construction of a 150 foot tower meant to provide Wi-Fi coverage for the whole area.

“There’s a lot of people that are going to be awfully happy.”

Elmer Mages manages the Whitetail Lodge in St. Germain, where most people who call to make reservations ask if they provide internet access. “Today of course, everyone has to be connected; that’s just the way it is. So if we don’t offer something that’s satisfactory to them it becomes a bit of an issue,” says Mages.

But the lodge is out on HWY 70, where they don’t even get DSL. North of HWY 70 and west of 151 is no-man’s land, where dial-up is slow, and other options are few.

“You can go out and buy a high-speed data link an some of the bigger companies have done that. But for the Mom and Pop resort owner, or restaurant owner it’s really not feasible for them to do that,” says Bill Neider, Executive Director of the St. Germain Chamber of Commerce.

At the Whitetail they offer WiFi to guests, but during the tourist season, since it’s from a satellite, the increased traffic can make that connection really slow.

” It’s very accommodating when there’s a few people here. When there’s a lot of people here it can become a real aggravation,” says Mages.

Thanks to the new contract with SonicNet, the entire area will have the option of WiFi, helping not just the tourism industry, but the real estate market as well.

“We have had customers only buy in areas that have high-speed internet. So the fact that St. Germain is getting it will definitely increase the salability of our listings in this area,” says Richelle Kruse, Managing Broker at the St. Germain office of Eliason Realty.

And competition between existing DSL provider Frontier and SonicNet will help.
“Multiple vendors now opens up new doors for people,” says Neider.

“People who have been regulars here for 17 years are going to be very happy. Because they can stop asking about it,” says Mages.

Some business owners seem a little hesitant to get excited yet… internet in St. Germain has been promised for a long time. But Neider says the tower could be ready with that WiFi signal in as little as four months.

Written By: Lyndsey Stemm

http://www.wjfw.com/print_story.html?SKU=20120314181349
http://www.wjfw.com/video_center.html – video of Newscast

– Shared by Eliason Realty of the North, of Vilas County, WI.  Meet our Eagle River and St Germain sales agents.

Eagle River Sales Team: John Ariola, Keith DeVos, Denise Goldsworthy, Brian Hotmar, Bob Merz, John & Diane Misina, Brenda Schmidt, Debbie VanCaster, Norm Warner

St Germain Sales Team: Ted Gregg, Bernie Kazda, Tim Kruse & Richelle Eliason Kruse, Rick Lovdal, Chris Nickolaou