One night I am sitting in my office wondering what is next for MTIN and I get a call from Steve Narducci in Anderson, Indiana. Steve has this idea he wants to start an ISP. I call up one of my good friends Chris Orr. Chris and I had become good friends out of a chance meeting of him stopping by the office for some thermal Paste. I instantly knew Chris was of the same kind of mold I was. Chris had been hanging out at the office and helping with MTIN for sometime now. Chris is the best *NIX engineer I have ever seen. So I call Chris and ask if he wants to make a little money and so something enjoyable. I think it took Chris awhile to realize I don’t let much hold me back and life is all about going for opportunities or creating ones.
Early one Saturday morning in 2006 Chris, Amber, and I head to Anderson Indiana to hang the first Access Points for what would become ndwave.com. We had been prepping for this for months. T1 line had been ordered, servers built, and equipment ordered and delivered. Little did any of us know we were on the verge of something great. Through a small team we were able to grow to over 1,000 customers under 2 years. Working with NDWave was one of the first times I had the complete package. I had the freedom to shape a growing network and the financial backing to do it. I was as unrestricted as I could get. I felt like I had finally arrived into what I was supposed to be doing. We were working hard and long hours, but it was fun. There is an old saying that goes something like “If you find a profession you truly love, you will never have to work another day in your life”.
During this time I really was able to get to Know Rick Harnish. Rick is the Marlon Brando of the the Wireless ISP world. Rick was eager to share what he knew and help everyone around him grow. Having someone like Rick to have conversations with was a huge asset. He was a major pipeline to the innovation and direction other WISPs were going. Plus Rick is just a plain cool guy.
NDWave really established my credibility in the ISP world. I had been looking for that recognition for quite awhile. Folks like Michael Pelsor, & Debbie Seal would be added to the “family”. These are folks who I consider friends to this day. It was like TCTC all over again. We were on the leading edge of this Wireless ISP wave. The technology was becoming easier to use and more affordable. This meant the average person could now afford reliable service delivered via Wireless. We were growing into areas where there was no broadband. It was kind of like the Wild West gold rush. There were weeks NDWave was putting up 3-4 towers. I was getting to work with Mikrotik, Cisco, Tranzeo, and some other manufacturers. Life was good. We had a fiber feed, rack space at a Premier data center, and got to play with other cool toys.
Then Omnicity comes along and things change yet again….
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