Our History

1954

Communication Specialists Company has been providing mission-critical communications to southeastern North Carolina since 1954. The company was founded in Wilmington, NC, as M & W Electronics by Frank McNeill and Sid Withers. M & W Electronics was renamed to Communication Specialists after Sid left the company in 1956.

1959

The first remote branch office opened in 1959 in Jacksonville, NC for radio sales and services in the Onslow County market, primarily focused on the Marine Corp Base at Camp Lejune. This branch grew to expand in later years and became Communication Specialists of Jacksonville, LLC.

1971

CSC opened its second branch office in Raleigh, NC providing Mobile Radio sales & service, community repeaters & trunked radio systems for the Triangle area. This became Communication Specialists of Raleigh, LLC.

1976

The company was the first to offer radio paging services to the Wilmington and New Hanover County market. At the same time CSC formed a partnership in Jacksonville, NC with retired Marine Corps officer Jim Hamilton. Communication Specialists Partnership began offering mobile radio and paging services to business and industry in the Jacksonville and Onslow County area.

1996

CSCs President Frank McNeill founded Beacon Communications, LLC which currently owns and operates seven (7) radio tower sites in New Hanover, Onslow, Brunswick, and Wake counties respectively. Beacon is a proud addition to the Communication Specialists family of companies.

1997

Wilmington Communications, a seventeen year old company and two-way radio dealer, merged with CSC. This brought its founder, Mike Savage, and staff on board.

2001

The company acquired Oson.net, a local ISP company and began branding its high speed internet service as comspeco.net. CSC established the area’s first wireless point-to-point high speed internet link from Carolina Beach, NC back to the NOC at the CSC headquarters in Wilmington.

2003

The designer and programmer launched BroadSail Online, an automated pay-as-you-go billing portal, allowing anyone within range of the wireless network to access the internet, billable in multiple increments depending on the customer’s needs.

2004

CSC re-directed its focus toward two way sales and service, with a broader emphasis on the Public Safety market. CSC continued with dynamic growth by acquiring qualified personnel and expanding its geographic footprint over the next 10 years.

2005

In 2005, our designers and programmers launched BroadSail Online, a proprietary, automated, pay-as-you-go billing portal allowing anyone within range of our wireless signal to purchase, in real-time via ecommerce, high-speed wireless Internet in 1 hour, 1 day, 3 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 month and 6 month intervals.

2007

In 2007, Comspeco.net began franchising its BroadSail Online billing portal to other ISPs.  One of our franchisees, Surfmasters, Inc. contracted with Comspeco.net to provide the backhaul for a 20 node wireless hotspot infrastructure across Wrightsville Beach and Harbor Island. Comspeco.net also added Delmarva WiFi as a franchisee, extending the BroadSail Online billing portal to parts of Maryland and Delaware.

2008

By 2008, Comspeco.net had established a network of Internet hotspots on Pleasure Island and within the Town of Topsail Beach, NC.

2009

In 2009, Comspeco.net purchased the Wrightsville Beach wireless infrastructure formerly known as SurfMasters and is the area’s #1 wireless Internet service provider, or WISP, serving thousands of customers in Topsail, Wrightsville and Carolina Beaches, as well as in Wilmington, Leland and beyond.

2014

Our company was recognized as the leading Mobile Radio sales and service distributor in Eastern NC by both our customers and vendors. CSC received several awards during this period from publications

2018

The focus on marketing was inevitable. CSC began the new brand image for the company, including an update to the headquarters facility, new and improved company logo, domain name and website