Living in the country is wonderful for many reasons, but one downside is that you most likely only have 2 choices for getting online; wireless and satellite. I've always been told by my very smart tech oriented friends that wireless is the better and more reliable choice. I'd kill for a fast internet connection delivered by a wire to my home, but in my area of the boonies, we have just a few choices in wireless internet service providers. A big company (Rise Broadband) and a small one (Open Air Wireless). I have used them both. Open Air is the better choice for one reason alone; top notch service. There will always be speed and signal problems with wireless internet because there are so many points where failures can occur. And the speed you've been promised WILL vary because there is just so much signal to be doled out to everyone along the way...you're going to get slower speeds at certain times when everyone is using their signal at the same time or playing online video games that use tons of band width. That's the nature of the beast. At some point you will need service either at your home or along the chain of towers that deliver the wireless signal to your home. When your signal gets slow or goes dead, you have to make the call to tech who will start to work out where the problem is. I have found that with Rise Broadband, the company is huge and there are various levels of tech support. Don't get me wrong, the folks at Rise tech support are wonderful, but if they can't fix the problem with a "reset" on their end, they can't just send someone out to fix you. They have to "elevate the case to the next level". It's nothing to them if you're completely out of a signal for a week or two. Meanwhile, I have to turn my phone into a hotspot and pay for precious cell data while they take their time going through the proper channels. This is not the case with Open Air Wireless. When you call in with a problem with your signal, you're most likely going to get Matt, the owner of the company who turns you into a top priority. He tells me when he will be able to respond and I have to give him (and his wife who works at the office when he is unable to directly respond) an A+ for courtesy and responsiveness. I can't expect them to stop what they're doing but they are very aware that it's a big deal and they will get to you quickly. It wasn't too long ago that my only choice out here in the country was dial-up. I'm very grateful that I have choices now and Open Air is my top pick. read more

I heard that they were doing some planned maintenance on the Volo water tower, and that they promised more consistent speeds and low latency, but my download speed still stays at a snail's pace 2 mbps, even though I buy the extreme package. I created an account just to write this review, and I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. The owner Matt is rude to anyone who doesn't agree with him, and the internet overall is just flat out mediocre. read more

Nearly impossible to play any sort of game, ping is almost always over 300. Would not recommend to anyone, and if I could rate this 0 stars, I would. read more

Impossible to do online class. I get disconnected every 5 minutes and cannot get any work done at all.

Ive had open air wireless for about a few months now, and the disrespect i have received from matt plus the mediocre quality of the service is absolutely unacceptable for a "professional" business. on top of this, a few of my friends also had open air wireless. but have switched to much better services because of the absolute horrible quality of open air wireless. the worst part of all of this is that they left bad reviews on here, but those reviews have since been removed by matt! i (and my friends who had their reviews deleted by matt) would NEVER recommend this service, even if your life depended on it. read more

I received an email that said that Open Air Wireless was upgrading their towers, and that I would be receiving multiple gigabit connections, but my internet download speed is still in the kilobits per second, even though I purchase the medium plan. Your service is absolutely unacceptable! The worst part is that in one of these yelp reviews, a customer gave a bad review, and the owner Matt responded that their review was not one of the Yelp recommended ones, but all the good reviews are the ones that AREN'T recommended (isn't that ironic?). I might just cancel my internet plan and use my phone hotspot as my home internet, as it is miles faster than the garbage that Open Air Wireless offers, so thanks a lot Matt! read more

Very disappointed, service hardly works. I paid for the extreme package of "high speed Internet" to read the fine print and find out it only streams 10mbps.. wasn't even enough to play Xbox online. When I called to ask if there were any issues with their service, I was rudely greeted by a woman who claims she's the "owner" and wouldn't let me explain myself, but only talk over me and insist there was nothing she could do. DO NOT GO WITH OPEN AIR WIRELESS. Unless you want to pay for something that doesn't work. read more

(4/10/15) Upgraded to 5 stars. The issues mentioned in my original review, below, have been resolved. Matt has consistently shown excellent customer service. He's upgraded bandwidth as requested. The few issue we've had have been quickly dealt with. Our ping times and bandwidth are consistent (I know because my server logs ping times continually), and when the network suffers Matt is reachable and provides very quick response time. HD video streaming is a reality, even in rural McHenry county, and I don't even have to deal with ATT or Comcast. ====================== Original review follows: We have been a customer of Open Air Wireless since 2010. Matt, the owner, runs a quality service and we have been very happy with them. Reliability for a wireless provider has been excellent - I doubt reliability will ever be as good as a wired or fiber provider, but Matt works hard to keep service up and running. We have been customers of several other wireless services over the last 10 years, but were always disappointed in the service they provided. Dropped connections, extremely limited bandwidth, and wildly varying latency limited our online activities to web surfing and email - certainly not streaming video or VOIP. Over that frustrating period, I decided to utilize our server to continuously monitor our ping time, and saw just how bad the service we were receiving was. Open Air Wireless, which has been continually monitored by me for the last 3 years, has very stable ping times, good sustained download speeds, and very good reliability. The connection is stable and fast enough to watch streaming video with medium-high resolution from Netflix and Amazon. We have had limited success with VOIP but perhaps we are too picky with audio quality. So why not 5 stars? Open Air Wireless is so close to 5 stars, but not quite there yet. There are 2 improvements which could be made: 1) We've been asking for more bandwidth - would like to be able to watch full HD videos but we can't quite do that yet. We'd like Comcast like bandwidth - not realistic in our rural setting, but a speed bump from 3.5Mbps to 5.0Mbps would make a big difference. 2) The other issue, more out of OAW control but a frustration nonetheless, are the relatively rare outages. Matt is very responsive and outages typically end quickly, but it seems as if some could be avoided (better UPS... more farmer training...). Summary: we feel very fortunate to have an excellent service provider like Open Air Wireless. We'd like to contribute to their growth and have been actively promoting them to others in our rural subdivision and surrounding area. Good job Matt! read more

Called and asked if they serviced my new location as we were moving. We wanted to use a local/small business company vs. Comcast/AT&T. Was told I'd get a call back once they checked if the tower reached the new house, that was 2 weeks ago, Comcast already came and installed. read more

Open air wireless has been a pleasure to work with. Everything was thoroughly explained when they came out to install our equipment. They were prompt and efficient. They were even able to move up my appointment time at my last minute request. And so far the bandwidth we've seen at our house has been more than enough for our needs. Thanks for the great service guys! Keep up the good work! read more

Matt is great and always willing to make sure we get online at our trailer. The pricing is fair and we love having internet at our summer place. He always follows up and makes sure that we are happy! Thanks Matt. read more

I've been a customer of Open Air for over a year and they have been phenomenal. The personal service I receive has been great. It's been nice to be able to call and have someone answer that knows you by name. Matt and his team are extremely helpful and always on top of it. You never get the kind of personable service they offer from Comcast or AT&T. Keep up the great work guys because your service is the best! read more

This company comes out and fixes the Internet when it doesn't work. This is a big improvement over the large company I had before. I am very happy with the service I have gotten from this company. read more

The owner is incredibly disrespectful and is absolutely unprofessional. In an attempt to set up my new router, as they LOCKED ME OUT of the one that was currently in use, I was told they'd have to set it up on a static IP address. When mentioning that I understand networking and how to configure my router to a static IP, he got very rude and, in a very unprofessional manner, demanded I give him step by step instructions on how to do it, and when I asked to speak to a manager he says "I'm the owner!" and hangs up on me. Literally the worst customer service I have ever experienced, and their internet service isn't quite up to par either. If 0 stars was on option, they'd have it. *Update* So we called again at 9:30 Monday morning for a tech to come out, and were told they'd send someone out sometime that afternoon. We received a call early afternoon that they could have a tech out about 5:30, but she (the wife of the owner this time) also insisted that we remove this post or they will no longer service us, which I had actually offered to do if I received an apology for the attitude, to which I was told that would not happen. Needless to say, we refused to remove our honest feedback. Well, we get a call at quarter to 6 that the "techs have been rerouted to a location that will actually make us money". She also told us that the last 2 weeks we are paid up for we will receive a refund check for. Once again, extremely unprofessional and rather childish, considering that this arose from their own attitude problems. Altogether, this experience was rather unpleasant and both their attitudes distasteful, and I rate their customer service at an F-. We have a new provider scheduled to come out later this week. *Update to Matt's reply* What he is claiming is a bold faced lie. The reason to denying me the static IP address was not due to me not being on the account, as he never once mentioned that during our two encounters on the phone, but because "if I set the wrong IP address, it could knock out service for other customers in the area". How shoddy is your network that a single router with an IP out of place can disrupt the entire network? The reason I was calling is because my dear grandparents are not technologically literate, and their old router was not evenly dispersing bandwidth; one device would be fine until you added a new one, and then the initial device would receive next to no bandwidth. They had been silent customers for years because they primarily used it for facebook games, no streaming or any strenuous usage. Once it had been stress tested the last few months, it was not delivering as it should have, which i believe was mostly router issues, but nonetheless was not up to par. As for the verbally abusive part, once again, a flat out lie. I never once cursed, put him down, and did not take up an attitude with him until he became abrasive and took up a tone with me. I was simply asking as to why it was such a big deal that I can't configure a static IP on my own if I knew how, and the only reason I was so insistent on doing so was because when I had called him the first time I told him we would be home with a new router at 4:30, and he said that was fine and to call him back then. The way he said it I had assumed that meant he can either do it remotely, or he could have a tech ready to send out and set it up for us, but when we called at 4:30 the first words out of his mouth were "oh wow you're cutting it pretty close here". He should not have led us on to believe that it was an issue that would be resolved that night, and he should not have taken such a nasty attitude; but of course he's going to flip it around on me. For further testament to his attitude, just go ahead and read the other 1 star reviews about him specifically; others have experienced his unpleasantness before. read more

I was not satisfied with our internet provider and asked friends in the area for suggestions. Several people recommended Open Air Wireless. When I called, a live person answering the phone - refreshing in this day and age! They answered all of my questions and scheduled an appointment to come out the next day during convenient hours for me. There were two service options for the things we wanted, and they indicated the less expensive option would work for our needs. We were switching to wireless and wanted to stream videos, which we had not done before. Though it was cold and snowing, the team of technicians had the installation completed in no time. They then took the time to assist us with setting up streaming and walked us through it, answering all of our questions along the way. We are now spending less for internet service and getting more options than through our previous provider. Several days after the installation, we received a follow up call just checking to make sure things were meeting our expectations. We are very happy using Open Air and would recommend them to anyone in this area. read more

Not only is Open Air cost efficient, but my internet speeds are fast and their customer service is really good. I've had them for 8 months now and I am a fan! read more

Open Air wireless has been my internet provider for years. I have never seen a more qualifyed company that can get the job done and know there technology better than anyone in the wireless industry. My service has never had any issues and the speed is great and price is perfect for my budget. I would defenetly recommend to anyone to try this service no contract and they are very helpful when you need service for pc's and other wirring in your home. read more

The customer services is excellent. We have used Open Air Wireless since 2011. On the occassions where there has been an interuption of service, the owner is on top of it and always gets back promptly. He knows his customers and pays attention to details. read more

I've been with Open Air Wireless for about 3 years at Fish Lake Beach and have had no problems with the company or Matt. I've experienced very little problems with the service. Matt's price is very reasonable!!!! read more

Well, I should have followed my gut. Wanted to get internet service with someone local. Small business champion. Keep my money local. I saw the negative reviews but thought, nope going to give them a chance. Their website says they cover my area so I gave them a call. Three weeks of ME having to call THEM to get service. They talk a good game, oh we're building a new tower and we were out all day. Worst communication ever. Finally today after I called them YET AGAIN. They finally called me back only to say....wait for it. We can't service your area. Yep. 3 weeks. I'm the idiot. When they never called back, when I had to basically chase them down to get answers. I wouldn't put up with that from anyone, but I did from them because I need internet and will not do that horrible comcast and AT&T didn't really sound like a good alternative Besides, I really believe in supporting small business. What a sucker I am. I bet they're laughing their *&&^*^ off in the office stating how they kept me dangling for 3 weeks. Run don't walk folks read more