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Wednesday, Apr. 29, 2009

Milledgeville will get high-powered wireless Internet

A new wireless service, meant to provide low-cost Internet access throughout much of Milledgeville, should be up and running this fall.

Propped up by an $862,000 state grant, the project is expected to provide souped-up “4G” wireless Internet service in partnership with a private company called Clearwire. With federal stimulus money coming available for technology grants, similar projects may start in other areas, including a potential project in Macon.

The technology is called WiMax, which is different from the WiFi Internet service available at certain businesses and from various home Internet services. With WiMax, the Internet essentially is broadcast from a tower that covers a large area. It uses a dedicated frequency, which means there should be less interference and a stronger signal than with traditional WiFi service, experts said.

Users purchase a modem and can log on to the Internet from anywhere covered by those towers.

In Milledgeville, five broadcast sites have been identified, and the service should cover most of 20-square-mile area, city planner Russell Thompson said.

That will include downtown Milledgeville and the Georgia College & State University campus, and the system should be running by Oct. 31, he said.

Because a state technology grant is paying for much of the infrastructure, the city and some area residents will get a price break on the service, Thompson said. The city government will receive about 65 free accounts, most of which will be used for public safety officers who will be able to access the Internet, criminal databases and eventually streaming video, he said.

College students will be able to get service for $25 a month, and 250 accounts will be sold to low-to-moderate-income residents for $10 a month, Thompson said.

Clearwire normally charges at least $29.99 a month for Internet service, according to its Web site.

Clearwire offers a similar service in 16 different states, including Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida in the Southeast. The Telegraph contacted city officials in those areas, and it appears the service was provided without public funding in many cases.

But Milledgeville officials decided to sweeten the pot to lure high-speed wireless technology to town, Thompson said.

“Basically, they wouldn’t be doing business in Milledgeville unless there were incentives because the population is just not that large,” Thompson said.

How well the program will work remains to be seen.

The Telegraph was able to reach only a few Clearwire customers in other cities, and they gave the service mostly positive reviews. Thompson said Milledgeville hired an outside consultant to review the service and that the city is confident in the technology.

WiMax is a relatively new technology. A similar project was contemplated in Warner Robins a few years ago, but it lost momentum in part because there wasn’t enough support to fund the infrastructure publicly.

Tom Tourand, who heads the city of Macon’s technology department, said a WiMax signal should be much stronger than the free Internet signal the city provides in downtown Macon.

That service, which is spotty, simply piggybacks on a secure wireless Internet signal used by the Macon Police Department.

“(Our system) is kind of like a 25-watt bulb lighting up an area versus a search light,” Tourand said. “The bottom line (with WiMax) is you’ve got a stronger signal with less interference.”

Tourand said he and other city officials would like to find grant funding to set up the stronger WiMax system in Macon.

WiMax isn’t the only Internet project under way in Milledgeville, which is seeking to remake its economic base in some ways as manufacturing jobs leave town.

Several groups in the area are working with a separate $1.5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of Macon and 25 other U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers in their lifetimes.

The money will be used to set up a training center where people can learn how to use the Internet, said James Wolfgang, director of Georgia College’s Georgia Digital Innovation Group. Small business owners, for example, could use the center’s technology to produce brochures and videos, he said.

The goal is to turn the people of Milledgeville into “a work force that is competitive in the knowledge economy,” Knight Foundation program director Beverly Blake said.

“If you don’t have the knowledge of how to use the Internet in this day and age, you are a second-class citizen,” she said.

To contact writer Travis Fain, call 744-4213.