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HarborLink Network News & Events
November 24, 2004
Downtown Wireless Network
to Start in April
By Dale Dempsey
Dayton Daily News
DAYTON | The city of Dayton on Wednesday announced its plans to create a wireless network, or Wi-Fi, in the downtown
area that will be available at no cost to residents.
It will start in April.
"Edge-to-edge wireless is a wonderful thing for Dayton," said City Commissioner Matt Joseph, who along
with Commissioner Joey Williams pushed for the project. "It would be attractive to recent college graduates,
and we hope it brings them to Dayton."
The initial phase of the project would cover a one-square-mile area including RiverScape, Fifth-Third Field, Sinclair
Community College and the Oregon Historic District, from Fifth Street to Monument Avenue.
If the tests are successful, the city would seek bids to cover the entire city, according to Bill Hill, Dayton's
director of information and technology.
"When we first began this project a year ago, we coined the term that we wanted to make Dayton a hot city,"
Hill said.
Many cities around the country have "hot spots," the term for areas where people can connect to the Internet
with laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and Wi-Fi-capable cell phones.
Other cities have taxpayer-funded wireless networks, but Dayton's system would be the first public-private partnership
in the nation, Hill said.
The city commission approved an agreement with HarborLink Network, which will create the Wi-Fi architecture. HarborLink,
a division of R.B. Tangeman Co., Inc., will provide the service and pay for it by putting pop-up advertising on
the system.
The city will pay from $5,000 to $10,000 per year to provide the connection to the Internet.
"Quite a small investment for such a great possibility," Hill said.
Hill said the system could in the future be used for automatic meter reading, vehicle location and other functions.
The system will not be installed in individual houses and businesses.
"We are not looking to take business away from companies that already provide that service," Hill said.
The wireless system will be virtually invisible, with only small receivers mounted on light poles.
"Obviously, the world is becoming more mobile, and the new technology worker expects to be able to conduct
business wherever they happen to be," Williams said. "Today is a symbol that we want to be a technology
leader."
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