Free wireless to double thanks to $625,000 grant from NY state

A $625,000 state grant is helping double the size of Albany's free wireless Internet system

The city of Albany's free wireless Internet system is going to double in size after the city and a local telecommunications firm received a $625,000 state grant.

Tech Valley Communications, the Albany firm that built what's known as Albany FreeNet, will spend more than $3 million of its own money over the next five years in addition to the grant to build out the network, which offers free Internet access to people with wireless modems on their laptop computers.

And as part of the grant requirements, Tech Valley will lift its one-hour limit on Albany FreeNet, providing unlimited usage to anyone in the city who can obtain the signal.

Tech Valley Chief Executive Officer Kevin O'Connor said Monday that the expanded system would provide free wireless Internet signals to Arbor Hill, West Hill, the South End and along Delaware Avenue, all areas with the lowest Internet broadband penetration in the city.

O'Connor said that the city and Tech Valley Communications are also vying for federal stimulus funds to bring Albany FreeNet to the entire city, a project expected to cost $12 million.

The $625,000 grant was provided through the New York State Office of Technology.

O'Connor said that 75 new wireless access nodes from a Canadian company called BelAir Networks will be deployed as part of the current expansion project. The nodes, small machines that broadcast an Internet signal, are lightweight and are attached to utility wires that run throughout the city.

BelAir has already provided 30 machines to the Albany FreeNet network, and it also supplied equipment to wireless networks in Long Island, Minneapolis and London.

"You're in good company," said BelAir Chief Technology Officer Stephen Rayment. "I have no doubt you're on the road to a very successful deployment."

The announcement, which Mayor Jerry Jennings attended, was held Monday in front of the Albany Public Library on Washington Avenue, where people wait for hours to get onto a computer, said Carol Nersinger, executive director of the library system.

She said that the grant being provided to the city includes money for work force training software that can be loaded onto the library's computers. She said the computers are so popular because most job searches these days have to be done entirely online.

"Everything is online now," Nersinger said. "We're going to help them. It's easy to get on the computer, but to navigate it, that's hard."

O'Connor says that Tech Valley Communications will offset the costs of opening up FreeNet to unlimited use by selling more advertisements on the Albany FreeNet Web site and offering premium services.

"We think this will help us in the long term," O'Connor said.

Source:
By LARRY RULISON, Business writer
First published: Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Albany Times Union