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DSL News
Wi-Fi helps small Missouri town gets connected
Article #: 7
| Date: | | | Written By: | AMY SHAFER | | Article: | Jim Adams had become so desperate for high-speed Internet access he considered leasing equipment to set something up for this small southwest Missouri town.
His architectural firm was using ISDN, short for integrated services digital network, which Adams describes as a "very expensive, slow" method to transmit large electronic files, such as the movie images Adams & Associates Inc. use for some of its projects.
"It used to be you kind of, you'd just kind of leave your computer and come back in a half an hour," Adams said. "We were technologically starved for a while."
That was before Wi-Fi.
With help from the local government, Wi-Fi, short for wireless fidelity, arrived earlier this year. Wi-Fi radiates an Internet connection that multiple computers can share, at very fast speeds, for about 300 feet - a single hot spot.
Wi-Fi has become increasingly popular in the last couple of years as hot spots have been placed in coffee shops, hotels and airports in bigger U.S. cities. Some small towns, such as Half Moon Bay, Calif., and Athens, Ga., are experimenting with Wi-Fi that provides seamless coverage throughout their downtowns. Wi-Fi has started popping up in other small towns as a way to provide relatively cheap, easy access to something that previously was expensive and difficult to get: high-speed Internet.
In Golden Valley, Ariz., residents and businesses gained access to T1 Internet speeds earlier this year after SkyFrames Inc. and Arizona High Speed Internet Access installed Wi-Fi and satellite broadband services.
In Nevada, a town of about 10,000 along U.S. 71 in western Missouri, city leaders spent years seeking high-speed Internet access before reaching a deal with NeighborLink Wireless late last year.
"Our cable company does not provide Internet services. Our local phone company does not provide DSL services," said City Manager Craig Hubler. "So the challenge has been, we were limited to a dial-up modem using phone lines. And that's just not acceptable in business. It doesn't work effectively."
Adams now hopes his architectural firm can use Wi-Fi as one way to lure tenants to a town house development project it is working on.
"Folks in the city, you probably have DSL at your home and your apartment or wherever. ... So I mean, it was kind of like, `I didn't even ask for it and they came to me and tried to get me to use it' kind of thing in the city," Adams explained. "But in the rural areas, see, we didn't have that. So it was like we went out seeking somebody to do it."
The city, which paid NeighborLink $25,000 to set up Wi-Fi for the local government, sees wireless Internet as a way to ensure its communications systems could be up in the event of a disaster, such as the tornado in May that went through Stockton, about 40 miles away. Area businesses and residents, meanwhile, can subscribe to NeighborLink's service and add their own hot spots - for a fee.
"This has been instrumental in our strategy to attract entrepreneurial type businesses," said Sam Foursha, executive director of the Nevada Area Economic Development Commission.
"They want the quality of life that they can find in a small community like this. But (it's) very fundamental, if you don't have the capability here to support their business, then they're gonna have to look elsewhere," Foursha said.
An agreement such as the one between Nevada and NeighborLink may not work in some cities, said Andrew Kreig, president of the Wireless Communications Association, which wants federal loans to help rural areas gain broadband access. The group believes wireless Internet is the best and most cost-effective way to do that.
"If there's another provider, that provider may feel it's unfair for the government to take sides against their competitive offering," Kreig said.
Nevada officials, however, point out that they had to pick someone to provide the local government with Internet access.
Although Nevada's city and business leaders are excited about the service, only about 60 people have signed up so far, NeighborLink President Darrell Gentry said, adding that the company hasn't done any advertising. Subscribers also generally don't take advantage of their ability to sit in town square with a laptop, blazing through the Internet at high speeds, although Gentry said they could. And NeighborLink isn't marketing to those passing through Nevada; Gentry says he doesn't think there's much demand for Wi-Fi from visitors.
NeighborLink subscribers pay from $35 to $120 per month for Internet access. To have their homes or businesses connected, they must pay for equipment and installation up front - a cost ranging from $50 to $300, depending on how close they are to the main antennas that relay the Internet.
"It's a lot cheaper than DSL or T1 connections," said business owner Bill Denman of Denman Land Title Co. "And, again, we don't have to have another phone line or a designated line or anything like that. So it saves time and money, and time is money, and we're just pretty pleased with it so far."
NeighborLink hopes to eventually sell wireless Internet to other communities in Missouri, as well as in Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma.
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