As appeared in the Times-Republican, Central Iowa's Daily Newspaper, August 19, 2005:

WiFi May Spread to Other Parts of the City

By RYAN BRINKS
T-R Staff Writer

The savvy of Marshalltown's technological downtown district may soon spread to other parts of the city if the Marshalltown City Council agrees to a proposal by Mediacom to expand Internet service, according to discussion at Monday's council meeting.

Mediacom stepped forward to partner with the city and, in addition to taking over management of the downtown hotspot, provide two more WiFi hotspots, $19.95 per month full DSL residential Internet service (Mediacom's lowest discount nationwide), and a high-speed business service at reduced cost, all on a 1-year trial basis.

"We had discussions with Mediacom. We had discussions with other providers. That also led to a WiFi hotspot downtown, which has been used more heavily than people anticipated and has certainly gotten a lot of national, very favorable publicity for the community," said City Administrator Dick Hierstein.

Public interest inspired the discussions, and the Marshall Economic Development Impact Committee (MEDIC), particularly board chairman Mike Miller, helped bring this enhanced Internet service to the table, Hierstein said.

With the agreement, the city would treat and promote Mediacom as its partner.

"We commend you on the foresight and vision to do this," said Bill Peard, Mediacom's government affairs manager.

Councilman Jeff Linton asked about pricing change after the trial period (for residential Internet) and the free trial usage limit in the downtown hotspot, which would be one hour a day and 10 hours a month for non-Mediacom customers. Peard responded saying he thought and hoped that the agreement would go far beyond one year.

"You guys are one of the first cities in the nation to be given these kinds of speeds and this kind of Internet WiFi access," he said. "We think these prices will go lower."

The proposal is an informal agreement between the city and Mediacom. Peard said a formal contract would bind the city if prices indeed went lower.

Internet speed in the existing WiFi hotspot downtown would also increase from 128 kilobytes per second to 256 if the proposal is agreed on.

The two additional WiFi hotspots ‹ two pieces of WiFi equipment ‹ would be equal in geographic coverage size and their locations would be unrestricted by Mediacom. The existing downtown hotspot consists of seven pieces of WiFi equipment because the density of downtown buildings limits the signal.

MEDIC President Ken Anderson said, as an example, the Marshall Town Center mall could potentially be served by one piece of WiFi equipment.

Because of differences in the technology to install each service, the agreement would allow Mediacom up to 60 days to provide the residential Internet service, up to 120 days for the high-speed business service, and 150 days for the WiFi hotspots.
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Ryan Brinks may be reached at rbrinks@timesrepublican.com