Roswell wired for free at city hall, three parks

By Ralph Ellis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Roswell has come up with a free way to provide wireless service to the public at city hall and three parks.

Under a contract that pays nothing, Wireless Town, a local company, installed and maintains the routers and provides internet service. The company makes money when businesses buy advertisements that pop up on the laptop screens of people using the Wireless Town network.

The arrangement differs from most municipal wi-fi deals, in which a city either buys and maintains the equipment itself or pays a company to provide the service.

Decatur used a $427,500 grant to launch a system covering most of four square miles. Kennesaw spent $110,000 for equipment and startup to provide wi-fi at two parks, a community center, the historic depot, the Southern Museum and city hall.

“All we did was provide Wireless Town access to electricity,” said Patrick Dale, Roswell’s information technology director.

The service is a big hit with Angela Smith, who usually spends a few hours six days a week in the lobby of the physical activities center at Roswell Area Park while her son practices with the boy’s gymnastics team. They live an hour away in Snellville, so going home and coming back is out of the question. Now she can work on her laptop.

“Before we got wi-fi I’d go to Starbucks or Moe’s,” said Smith, a legal researcher. “It makes a huge difference.”

The city wanted wi-fi at the parks because of complaints from parents who needed an internet fix while waiting for their children to finish ballet or gymnastics classes. But Roswell, like most towns feeling the economic pinch, wanted to limit new spending.

The contract specifies that the service will be free to the city and that the vendor can advertise, as long as the ads occupy no more than 20 percent of a viewable page. Ads cannot be obscene, endorse alcohol or tobacco or imply endorsement from the city. Wireless Town was the only bidder.

Wireless Town founder Scott Brumley said the new company was looking to expand and had been giving away the service to spread the name. The firm services a handful of Roswell businesses.

“They like the idea that we support the community and it brings people closer,” Brumley said.

People get real close at places like Roswell Area Park. On a recent afternoon, the lobby of the physical activities center was filled with high-pitched little girls in leotards heading into the gym and parents plopping down in chairs with books and laptops.

Though the wi-fi was installed mid-summer, many people don't know about it. Jan Oetinger discovered just last week she could work on her laptop while her son and daughter attend gymnastics.

"I work part-time,"  said Oetinger, an employee contractor with Home Depot, "so it helps when I leave to pick up my daughter and have things left to be done."

Brumley said the wi-fi service doesn’t require a password or sign-in procedure, so it’s faster to access than most city or coffee shop wireless services. So far the service is limited to city hall and the interiors and immediate exteriors of the physical and community activity centers at Roswell Area Park and the recreation centers at Hembree and East Roswell parks.

Dale said the city hopes to expand to bleacher and field areas soon, as well Riverside Park. But covering all of Roswell with wi-fi is out of the question, Dale said, because it would cost millions of dollars.