About Us

How does a company survive 80 years of business? By changing. Don Clowdus, president and owner of Arbuckle Communications, which was founded in 1931, said his company has known what its skills are but has also not been afraid to go into new but related lines of business. It’s a tricky distinction to make and too many people and businesses fail to judge it right. They are either too conservative, ignoring developments in their industry, or take too many risks. For example, the railroad businesses that dominated transport failed to see that the business was changing and failed to invest in trucking companies even as those companies were taking customers and profits from the railroads.

In 1972, Don Clowdus and Don Turley took over Arbuckle Communications. The two had worked for the company for many years and also knew each other through the local ham radio association. Business grew steadily until 1981, when the region was hit by an oil shock, a rapid decline in the price of oil. “We went from 16 employees to 3,” says Clowdus, who is president and sole owner of the company since Turley’s retirement in 1992.

As an old business began to decline, a new business arrived. Arbuckle entered the paging business in the 1980s and grew it rapidly towards the end of the decade. The company already owned some towers for its two way radio business, and it rented even to its competitors in the paging industry. Clowdus says that this period of time brought home to him the value of recurring revenues. The rents from the towers allowed Arbuckle to keep investing during tough times. “We covered Oklahoma, Texas, Southwest Missouri, and Western Arkansas. Even some of the big paging companies did not have as good coverage as we did,” says Clowdus.

In the early 1990s, the company built and then sold a dialup business.

In 2006, Arbuckle began to offer wireless internet, over 2.4 GHz and 900 MHz spectrum. Clowdus says that because he’s on towers that are taller than the towers the average WISP uses, and because many of those towers are on mountains, he can deliver service to customers 18 miles away, and 20 miles away in some cases. That’s double the industry average. “Our average customer is about 10 miles away from the tower,” Clowdus says. From 2006 until today, Arbuckle Communications, Inc. has continued to grow and expand our Wireless Broadband Internet Infrastructure.The company already understood radio communications, giving it a significant advantage over most WISPs.

Today, the company’s top two installers are Clowdus’ sons-in-laws. His two daughters work in the office. Arbuckle Communications, Inc. has also added several new employees specalizing in IT and value the work of all our new and long time employees. He cares deeply about the safety of installers and recommends a piece of equipment that most WISPs don’t have. It’s a 5,000 pound towable articulating boom called the Genie TZ-50. Often, he says, two storey houses have a steep roof that makes ladders dangerous. The Genie allows the installer to get there safely.

Arbuckle’s local community presence dates back many years. Clowdus and his family are involved in the school and church that they attend. Clowdus is also a member of the local chamber of commerce. All of this helps, but Clowdus says that word of mouth is what matters the most. “Too many big companies today forget about their employees and forget about customer service. We don’t.” We can offer local full-service customer support and truely value our customers. "We Believe in Connecting YOU to the WORLD."