The La Cañada Wireless Association (LCWA) is a non-profit, member-owned and member-operated community wireless network association. Our mission is to provide high-speed internet access to people who live and work in our coverage areas, with a particular focus on providing service for hard-to-reach areas that other profit-based service providers avoid. Our current service areas include rural areas south and east of Santa Fe, starting near Canada de los Alamos, down to El Dorado, down to Lamy, and then west to Cerrillos, and Madrid. See our coverage map below.
LCWA embraces the concept of the community wireless network model in which members of the association work together to satisfy the needs of the association. We are wholly non-profit, self-funded and self-organized. We strive to provide high quality internet access for all of the association’s members.
Because the members are also the owners, the membership itself chooses how to meet its needs, including, but not limited to, determining membership fees, bandwidth, infrastructure, coverage areas and management. All work involved in designing, constructing, and maintaining the members’ access is performed primarily by volunteers.
Brief History
The La Cañada Wireless Association (LCWA) was founded in 2003 as a 501(c)(12) non-profit under the IRS classification of ‘Benevolent Life Insurance Associations, Mutual Ditch or Irrigation Companies, Mutual or Cooperative Telephone Companies, etc.” Specifically we are considered a utility cooperative.
LCWA was started by by seven Eldorado residents who wanted access to high-speed Internet. The founders are:
- Mike Engledinger
- Scott Gerber
- Bob Knight
- John McDermon
- Bob Slusher
- Matt Vandomselaar
- Glenn Wikle
LCWA’s first connection to the internet was through a T-1 line at a member’s home in Eldorado. A second T-1 line was later installed at a member’s home in Cerrillos. The original T-1 feed points were eventually consolidated into a single DS3 line, and the network operations center was set up in a space adjacent to the Qwest Eldorado Exchange office near the corner of Avenida Vista Grande and Avenida De Comprades. This location was called Nexus and from here the entire network was fed on both the east and the west sides. As the network became more complicated, LCWA contracted for technical support. Today the LCWA network operations center is at the National Center for Genome Research (NCGR) in Santa Fe and we obtain our internet feeds from Century Link and CyberMesa.