Willie Nelson hits the road again with bonded broadband

by Steve Ragan - Oct 18 2009, 14:00

If you follow music, you know who Willie Nelson is. After more than forty years in the business, one of the nation’s most notable music icons and recognized advocate for biodiesel is still on the road, supporting both his newest album and a company we’ve covered on The Tech Herald in the past, Mushroom Networks.

Considering Willie’s history, the irony of him using gear provided by Mushroom Networks on his tricked out tour bus isn’t lost on us. At the same time, this story isn’t about trippy gear, it’s about frustration with service providers.

Willie and his crew travel about 200 days per year. Since members of his fan club get access to exclusive video and audio, you can bet some of that comes from the tour. However, before Willie can send those extras to his fans, he’ll need to upload them to his site. Before, tour groups like Willie’s used satellite-based Internet providers. This kept them connected to the Internet from venue to venue, but had the drawback of being both expensive and extremely slow, according to the story told by Willie’s tour manager David Anderson.

So, to fix this, they took a less expensive option, broadband connect cards. AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon sell them, each has decent coverage, and offer good speeds all things considered. However, Anderson noted, the speeds and coverage are layered now since they started using broadband bonding on Willie’s bus. The bonding comes thanks to Mushroom Networks, whose gear allows you to take up to five broadband connect cards, any vendor will do, and combine the total bandwidth capacity. If you’re curious, Willie is using the PortaBella device on his bus.

Considering that using broadband connection options from a single carrier would cause issues in undeveloped areas or outside of the coverage option, what difference would five of the same card do?

The coverage offered on the bus, and the difference broadband bonding makes, comes thanks to the use of the PortaBella’s support of five USB broadband card connection slots and multiple carriers, Anderson noted. It is because of this that, “…we rarely lose connection even in rural areas or if one card goes down,” he said.

“We have been supplying Internet connectivity to Willie Nelson while he tours across the country since 2002,” stated Bill Adams, who owns one of the reseller channel businesses used by Mushroom Networks. “Reliable Internet has become a ‘must have’ while Willie is on the road and the PortaBella has provided that high-speed infallible service.”

So what does the big man himself think? After all, it is his tour and bus. “Sending music files just got easier; and I always have my email now,” Willie added.

While broadband technology is cool on its own, Willie has been doing something else that should get mention too. His tour bus runs on biodiesel, a renewable fuel made from vegetable oils or animal fats. He’s been using it for years, in an effort to raise awareness about it and help the environment.

The images below show the bus and Willie filling up the tanks.

The header image is from the blog Sounds Like Austin.

 

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