Wireless Internet Getting Wider Reach
But for Port City Java, Angel Bair would have blown through Wilmington.
Instead she chanced upon the downtown coffee shop's free Internet signal and lingered much of Monday, checking e-mail and doing work on her laptop in the window on Front Street
"If I didn't find the wireless access, I would have just hit the road," said Bair, a medical researcher who's driving the coast to investigate places to relocate to from Philadelphia.
Charleston was even better, she said. A public-private effort there gave her a swath of free Wi-Fi access independent of coffee shop hours.
Wilmington may be inching in that direction. A city-business partnership is planning to soon expand four small wireless "hot spots" that opened last year, blanketing the north side of downtown with free wireless access from the Isabel Holmes Bridge to Market Street and from the river to North Fourth Street. And that is intended as only the beginning.
"Our goal is to cover the entire city with high-speed wireless," said Marty Hollingsworth, head of Epproach Communications, which owns the network that also will offer secured access for official city use, including police communications.
Some people are dubious of public involvement in what they see as a private realm, saying city networks will driveaway competition, leaving consumers with an unchallenged, ultimately inferior product.
And it doesn't always work out as planned. Carolina Beach spent nearly $50,000 to open in 2004 one of the state's first municipal wireless systems that its police and fire departments have stopped using because of frustration with dead spots. Envisioned public subscriptions have not happened in the 20 months since it opened. The town intends to work out the kinks, spokeswoman Valita Quattlebaum said.
But across the country, cities are champing at the bit to go wireless, a service they see as having the potential to bring Internet access to poor residents, time-saving tools to city workers and a sophisticated sheen to the city itself.
"Who knew Wilmington was so progressive?" said Linda Marks, a recently retired member of the Coast Guard who was also on a road trip checking out places to move, recounting how she found Wilmington's existing free signal. She was kicked off quickly, however, and went to a coffee shop.
There is no clear map on getting "un-wired." St. Cloud, Fla., paid millions of dollars to create a public network that is free to use. Tempe, Ariz., built its own system, but it charges users to surf the city system. Others have shifted the cost to companies that have built networks for free in exchange for the potential for advertising or subscription fees.
San Francisco is getting Google and Earthlink to pay for a free wireless network that charges users for faster-speed access. In Charleston, a technology company and the publisher of The Post and Courier newspaper are building a system based on a similar model.
Likewise, Wilmington's downtown wireless system relies on business to do the heavy lifting with the city agreeing to let its fixtures like light poles be used for radio signals. Dave Spetrino, one of downtown's biggest developers, is paying $35,000 for the transmitters and first-year operating costs.
It's an altruistic gesture that he admits had selfish beginnings. He wanted another way to distinguish his high-end North Fourth Street lots. Building-wide wireless seemed a good attraction.
When he learned that for 50 percent more he could send signals as far as the river, it seemed like a good investment. His buildings get wireless. His company, Plantation Building, gets publicity via an ad on the log-on page. And North Fourth Street gets greater ability to go online, theoretically helping narrow the "Digital Divide," a goal of city council.
"The north side of town is going to go from industrial wasteland to lower Seattle," he said.
Hollingsworth, whose company is laying out the network, said he ultimately wants to get sponsors to pay for a citywide system, in exchange for advertising on the log-in pages and other marketing advantages. He sees the areas around the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the Landfall gated community and New Hanover Regional Medical Center as places that sponsors would pay to reach.
The City of Wilmington has also budgeted $25,000 this year for the network, in part to expand coverage to poorer areas that may have less commercial appeal, said Larry Bergman, director of the city's information technology department.
Wilmington Downtown, a nonprofit organization that promotes economic development, is interested in expanding the network to south of Market Street. Police Chief Ralph Evangelous is one of the biggest boosters for an eventual city-wide wireless umbrella.
"We are waiting with bated breath," he said. "It's a longtime coming."
High-speed wireless would allow officers in the field to access criminal records, mug shots and even cameras in places like banks or high-crime neighborhoods.
Still, such full city coverage is a distant goal, with many financial and technical hurdles. Ernest Andrade, director of the Charleston Digital Corridor, said Charleston's $500,000 system has unfolded more slowly that anticipated, requiring three times more radio transmitters than expected.
The more connected a community is the more good things happen like business investment and the attraction of an educated populace, he said.
But the technical and financial underpinnings of the privately funded system are under constant analysis.
"It's part art and it's part science," he said. "The key is not to raise expectations too soon."
By Sam Scott
Star News Staff Writer
sam.scott@starnewsonline.com