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Exclusive: 2nd Wi-Fi Plan on Way to Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Posted on: Monday, 5 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By Jon Fox, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader

Dec. 3--WILKES-BARRE -- An Internet service provider plans to blanket broad swaths of downtown with a wireless network independent of the Leighton administration's bid to create citywide Wi-Fi.

PenTeleData, a Carbon County-based provider of broadband Internet service, intends to create two Wi-Fi zones covering the campuses of Wilkes University and King's College and surrounding off-campus housing.

A quarter of the network should be online by the end of December and the entire network will be operational by March, said Dan Ellis, chief technical officer of PenTeleData.

The company was among those responding to the city's solicitation for proposals to create a 7 square-mile network.

But Ellis says the company's response likely didn't satisfy the city's expectations, and that's mainly because the company saw no money in the plan.

"We couldn't find a traditional means to make it profitable for the whole seven miles," Ellis said. "Our original plan was to do hot spots ourselves, and if we could work with the city we'd like to."

Public Square and Kirby Park are already covered by Wi-Fi transmitters operated by PenTeleData, which provides broadband service to customers of Service Electric Cable.

More than 40 transmitters will service the two new college hot spots. The wireless zones will stretch from Academy Street to West Market Street between River and South Franklin streets, and from Union Street to West North Street between North River and Main streets, Ellis said.

He said the company sees little demand for wireless Internet outside the college areas.

For PenTeleData, the Wi-Fi network becomes a service add-on and a bid to pull customers away from Verizon, the area's other large provider of broadband Internet access.

Customers who already connect to the Internet using PenTeleData will have free access to the Wi-Fi network; others will be able to connect for a fee. The company will offer free access for anyone into early 2006, Ellis said.

The city and PenTeleData have very different conceptions of Wi-Fi technology.

PenTeleData is looking at Wi-Fi sort of like that tiny spare tire in the trunk -- it's nice to have but you wouldn't want to drive cross country on it. It's not a suitable replacement for the wired broadband access that is currently available, Ellis said.

Wi-Fi can't match the speed of Internet access piggybacked over cable lines, but it is generally faster than DSL access over phone lines.

The city, however, seeks to create a Wi-Fi network that residents can subscribe to as their sole means of access.

PenTeleData, with its hardwired network in place, is disinclined to build a citywide Wi-Fi network.

"It would be competing with ourselves," Ellis said. "Why do I want to build a network that I've already built?"

This summer, Mayor Tom Leighton announced his intention of creating a citywide Wi-Fi network. In October, telecommunication firms submitted proposals to build the network.

Since then city officials have been quiet about any possible negotiations as they try to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to get parts of a network online.

Under state Act 183, passed late last year, the city faces a statutory deadline to have a Wi-Fi web -- at least in bare bones form -- in place by the end of this year.

If the city fails, officials must seek permission from Verizon, the incumbent telephone provider, before proceeding with a municipal Wi-Fi plan.

Officials have said they believe construction of the network would take as little as a month, but November is gone and there is still no announcement.

City Administrator J.J. Murphy has suggested Verizon will not push the issue if the Dec. 31 deadline isn't met and says the city will not be rushed into a bad decision.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader

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Source: The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)

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