Breeze Broadband, a wireless internet service provider owned by Union Pacific Railroad, is shutting down its service.
The company didn’t provide any further details about the action except to say that it “allows us to focus on our core business.”
Breeze Broadband operated like many other fixed wireless providers: It broadcasted a signal from its cell towers to receivers on nearby homes and offices in order to deliver internet service. But Breeze Broadband leveraged Union Pacific’s 32,000 miles of railroad track across 23 states, locations where Breeze could install its own cell towers.
Breeze launched in 2017 in Iowa and had planned to expand into California, Kansas and Texas.
The company’s service cost between $50 and $90 for download speeds of up to 58 Mbps, using spectrum in the licensed 3650-3700 MHz range.
Breeze’s exit from the fixed wireless space coincides with the entry of a wide range of other players. For example, startup Starry is working to expand its own fixed wireless internet services to cities ranging from Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, Indianapolis and San Francisco.
And AT&T just yesterday announced it expects to cover 660,000 homes and small businesses by the end of this year with LTE-based fixed wireless services in the 2.3 GHz band. The company plans to eventually expand that number to 1.1 million locations by the end of 2020 in 18 states including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.