FAQs

Is residential service available?
Noroc does not currently have a residential pricing model. This is mostly due to the fact that consumer grade services such as Cable and DSL satisfy the needs of most home users. Unfortunately the cost of our microwave equipment does not allow us to be competitive in the consumer residential market.


How is your service different from WiFi?
WiFi is a wireless local area network (WLAN) solution and Noroc's Microwave Ethernet is a wide area network solution. The major differences are that WiFi is typically used indoors on a private local network with moderate to good reliability. Microwave Ethernet technology is outdoor and directional. It is commonly used to link 911 communications sites, cellular towers and provides the foundation for the world's most sophisticated and robust telecommunications backbones. Additionally, Noroc makes use of FCC licensed and coordinated spectrum as opposed to WiFi which operates in unlicensed bands. While WiFi is commonly used on networks connected to the Noroc network, you cannot connect directly to our network with WiFi cards and devices.


How is your service different from Cable/DSL?
Consumer grade services such as Cable and DSL offer many small businesses a fast and affordable broadband Internet experience. Many businesses however require more from their ISP, however. Demands such as a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for uptime guarantees, static IP addressing and a public IP address pool, BGP routing, symmetrical upstream and downstram bandwidth, and unrestricted service require commercial grade Internet service. We frequently tell businesses that if their needs can be met with Cable/DSL, then they should definitely take advantage of those opportunities.


Is this satellite Internet?
No. Satellite based Internet services make use of satellites in orbit around Earth. Our service is terrestrial based in that microwave communications
are between your location and one of our moutaintop tower sites.


What about security? Can anyone tap into the microwave connection?
Yes and no. Anything you put out on the Internet in a plain text unencrypted format is vulnerable to eavesdropping and other unauthorized access. That statement is true whether your connection is via copper, fiber or microwave. In fact, in many instances all three of those mediums are used on the same ISP's network just as they are on Noroc's network. While Noroc delivers service via microwave, today's telecommunications infrastructure is heavily dependant upon microwave communications, particular in carrier backhauls. Microwave connections are point-to-point and use a narrow beam to focus the antenna's energy. The security issue turns more toward the data and protocols employed then the connection medium since eavesdropping is possible on any medium. Noroc's Microwave Ethernet technology supports all VPN and encryption standards and devices.