APRIL FOOLS: Entrepreneur offers Longboat Key revolutionary cell-phone tech

APRIL FOOLS -- A system that, at least at first glance, appears to have its origins in television’s golden age might be a cost-effective solution to Longboat Key’s sporadically weak cell and wireless internet service.

WattsupDock Technologies plans to present town leaders with a proposal on Monday to install its prototype LepusAures system for a free, three-year trial on the northern third of the island.

The experimental gear consists of small base units mounted atop mailbox posts, with a pair of 4-foot long, slender antennas extending up at about a 45-degree angle. No digging is required.

“Just don’t call them ‘rabbit ears,’” said WattsupDock CTO Melvin Blank of his company’s Systemically Calibrated Amplitude Multiplexer  (SCAM) units. “That’s technology of the 1950s. The appearance is merely coincidental.’’

The company promises to deliver 75% fewer dropped calls and 60% faster download speeds.

Town leaders are working their way through the final planning and design details of a massive, $50 million islandwide project, slated to break ground later this year. 

Its goal is to replace overhead cables with underground service, while also installing equipment to boost digital service. 

As an alternative to dozens of poles around town erected by 2022 to support a new wireless backbone in the city, hundreds of WattsupDock’s SCAM units could be deployed north of the county line and activated by Thanksgiving, Blank said.  

Blank said the company is coming off encouraging initial testing in Albuquerque, N.M. in 2017 and is seeking to confirm its results with a similar roll-out test here.

“Eh, let me be clear,’’ Blank said. “This is absolutely a no-cost thing. We offer a big carrot, but there really is no stick. We take all the risk. All we ask is that the town allow us to bring potential customers through every now and then to see what it looks like and how it works.”

Blank said the town retains the option of ending the test at any time, resulting in the immediate removal of the devices and no financial obligation. In other words, if the town decides to expand the WattsupDock network into Sarasota County homes on Longboat, such a deal would be easy to make.

 If the town decides to stick with its voter-approved plan, that can be accommodated, too.

“That’s all, folks,’’ he said at the end of his first presentation.

As discovered in Albuquerque, occasional fine tuning is required, but each individual component can be adjusted for height and angle. Blank said a full-time technician would be stationed on Longboat Key for such work.

“Sometimes, to accentuate the multi-plexing signals, a bit of space-grade aluminized mylar is added to one or both of the aerials, but that’s rare. But, boy, does it really upgrade the throughput,’’ Blank said.

Blank said depending on the application and location, components built by such high-tech startups as Philco, Dumont, Admiral and Motorola would be employed on Longboat Key.

Blank said his company also has experience working around owners of novelty mailboxes, and integrating them into the design. He said in Albuquerque, lots of residents loved their cactus or space-alien shaped mailboxes, and there should be “no problem” working around Longboat’s pink flamingos or manatees.

Still, residents were skeptical but eager to learn more. 

“I’m all for talking to my daughter without losing the call,” said Darla E. Sweet. “We call our manatee mailbox Hugh, and I don’t want Hugh Manatee looking like ‘My Favorite Martian.’’’

Town leaders had no immediate comment on the WattsupDock presentation or their willingness to part ways with a voter-approved plan years in the making.