Amye Mercer – Hometown Internet Hero for Lucas Texas

It’s probably too early to pick this year’s “Hometown Hero” for Lucas, but Amye Mercer and Big Wave Wireless definitely deserve a place on the list.

In late 2018, the City of Lucas knew it had a problem. 400 or so residents filled out the city survey and about half of them were saying they were unhappy or very unhappy.

While the gears of government slowly chewed on the problem, Amye and her husband Josh took a different approach. She cashed in her 401k and all her savings to start “Big Wave Wireless” and to actually start solving people’s internet problems asap.

Now in Oct 2020, Big Wave Wireless is delivering  premium fixed wireless internet access to 150 subscribers.

150 people…That’s oddly close to ½ of the 400 number of people that were unhappy on the 2018 city survey. Those 150 people don’t have internet problems any more. And if they ever do, Amye is instantly on the case, even before they call her. 

Ayme recently published a letter to the Lucas community, discussing her plans to offer 100mbps service to more neighborhoods and eventually 250mbps. Beyond that she talks about getting funding to run fiber to the neighborhoods hurting the most. 

This! This is hero stuff. We’re lucky she’s our neighbor.

When you get a chance, reach out to her and say thank you for helping the city…and thank you for caring about her neighbors. 

With Amye’s permission I’ve included her full letter below:

Dear Lucas Community,

First of all, I want to wish everyone a Happy Monday and hope you are all staying warm and dry! Brr! It got cold, quick! I just ordered a cord of firewood to be delivered in preparation for the winter!

I want to introduce myself to those who don’t know me and provide some information on my plans for Lucas internet expansions as well as clear up a few misconceptions.

My family and I moved to this great community 14 years ago and have had the great privilege of raising our 2 daughters in a country style setting and watching them grow and flourish in our wonderful Lovejoy school district. We moved here as a compromise to my husband’s request to live on 10 or more acres and my insistence that we could only live on as many acres as he was willing to keep mowed as I am not fond of critters! He keeps it mowed and I am now much less squeamish around critters!

My husband and I both have a background in wireless, WiFi, Telecom, Networking, Design & Deployments. We have both worked for carriers deploying wired and wireless networks, products, services, etc. Prior to launching Big Wave Wireless, I owned another company that designed and deployed WiFi networks nationwide for medium to large businesses and manufacturing plants as well as school districts. We also deployed DAS networks for major carriers to extend their network coverage in both urban and rural areas. Josh was also working as a consultant performing feasibility studies for Municipal Fiber Networks, Municipal Emergency Service Networks & Co-op Networks. Josh is a Network Design & RF Engineer who has spent the majority of his career designing and deploying both wired and wireless networks for carriers, rural cooperatives, school districts and medium to large businesses.

In July, 2019, I submitted my resignation to the carrier I was employed with, liquidated all of my stocks, 401k and personal savings and founded Big Wave Wireless, LLC, a Fixed Wireless Internet Service to provide service to Lucas, Texas and contiguous areas. I did this in an effort to serve my community and provide service to under-served areas and anyone looking for more choices for internet service. I am a small, female owned technology business that values our customers and this community.

We launched our network in December, 2019 and began installing customers in January, 2020. We are now over 150 customers strong and growing. We offer several subscription packages (including our new, unadvertised 100 Mbps service in the Forest Grove Rd. area) with no contract, no throttling and no data caps. We also offer discounts to First Responders, Veterans, Military and Senior Citizens.

As a local ISP, I take pride in my network, my business model and work hard to ensure each of my customers is connected 24/7 for work, school and entertainment. I live in this community and in the event of a subscriber outage, I am working to get that subscriber back online within minutes of the event. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, I am on top of it and getting them back online quickly. I also made a commitment to not oversubscribe our network like many of the other services in the area.

At the onset of the pandemic with school and business closures, I opened my network up to all of my subscribers giving everyone access to 100 Mbps bandwidth speeds and reinvested in the network to add additional capacity to ensure we would meet and/or exceed demand for services.

Early into this journey and business formation, I communicated my plans for growth and expansion to several members of City Staff as well as a few City Council members. 

My husband and I each presented at 2 different Technology Committee meetings in 2019 and also communicated our immediate plans as well as expansion plans to get internet to the under-served areas of our city. It is and always has been my intention to launch the fixed wireless network, grow the subscriber base to be able to leverage the assets in order to gain funding to pull fiber into the areas that are hurting the most, then expand from there.

I have been working with multiple outside resources as well as fellow WISP owners and our member organization on gaining access to funding to build a fiber network in areas of Lucas that need it.

Next steps for expansion in Lucas to offer more neighborhoods up to 100 Mbps and eventually 250 Mbps speeds over Fixed Wireless and funding for fiber builds in neighborhoods that desperately need it will depend on the results of the votes on Proposition B.

I am happy to answer any questions and provide more detail to anyone that has questions. All are welcome to call me at (469) 640-0030 or email me at: amercer@bigwavewireless.com. You can also visit my FB page @BigWaveWireless. I haven’t had time to keep it updated lately but will begin posting updates on that page regarding services, coverage areas and expansion plans.

At the end of the day, we are all neighbors and members of this community. I support local businesses; I buy American whenever possible and I help my neighbors when they need it. I hope that after this very contentious National and Local election is over that we can heal, forgive one another and come back together as a community united instead of divided.

Many Blessings to All!

Amye Mercer

You can contact Big Wave Wireless by calling Amye at 469-640-0030, or email at amercer@bigwavewireless.com or by visiting their website at www.bigwavewireless.com.

See more about Big Wave Wireless in our article – Lucas Based “Big Wave Wireless” Sets a High Bar for Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Disclosure:

I’m sharing this information to help other Lucas residents,  “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” style.

I am not a Big Wave Wireless customer.

This is not a paid endorsement. I have not and will not receive any fees or services from Big Wave Wireless in exchange for this article.