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Blythe Clement , 8, watches her brother Baron , 17, surf the Internet in his bedroom . He said his family would benefit from Sahuarita's initiative to provide wireless Internet service because six computers in the house connect to the Internet via a slow dial-up modem.
Will Seberger / Special to the Arizona Daily Star
More Photos (3):
Speedier residential Internet service
Some Sahuarita residents can only access dial-up Internet service at their homes, not high-speed broadband Internet.
A townwide wireless high-speed Internet signal could allow residents to go online for free, which could reduce bills for some residents or upgrade those who do not have access to high-speed Internet service.
Members of one Sahuarita family without access to high-speed Internet said they would benefit from a town-wide wireless system.
April and Nick Clement and their two children live north of Anamax Park. They use a dial-up connection to access the Internet for personal and business purposes, because they don't have Internet service in the American Hair salons they own in Sahuarita and Green Valley.
April Clement said the high cost and slow speed of business Internet service are partly why they do not subscribe to it at their salons.
"If it was provided for free, we would have it at work, too," she said.
Their 17-year-old son, Baron, uses the Internet to chat with friends and do research for school projects.
"It would change how I would study," he said. "We're confined to books because dial-up is so slow."
The Sahuarita High School junior said he goes to the library when he needs to use a computer for research and doesn't have time to wait for the slow dial-up connection at home.
If high-speed access could reduce the 28 hours he spends on the computer every week, Baron said he would be more inclined to use the Internet.
April Clement said she and Nick could save some time if they had the ability to go online at their salons.
"We can look up hair-color formulas from the company's matrix," she said. "Sometimes we have to go home to do that."
Enhanced public safety cited as a plus
A townwide wireless high-speed Internet connection would improve public safety, not just serve residents, according to the town manager.
The Sahuarita Police Department would be able to identify which officer is closest to a crime or accident scene and dispatch that officer, which could improve response time, said Jonathan Baltuch, president of MRI, the consulting firm hired by Sahuarita to do a feasibility study on the project.
Fire departments would be able to monitor how many firefighters are in a burning building, or see floor plans of a building before they enter it in a dangerous situation, Baltuch said.
The potential for real-time streaming video could help police and firefighters see the kind of call they are responding to before they get there, he said.
The Sahuarita Police Department received approval Monday from the Town Council to buy computers for each police vehicle so that patrol officers can access data without calling dispatch. This system would work with the wireless high-speed Internet system, giving officers a wider range of communication, such as a visual link to a call site before they arrive on scene, or faster access to data, said Sahuarita Sgt. Don Lafreniere.
The new computers are expected to cost about $180,000, he said.
"It could enhance our system quite a bit. We're hoping for a lot of different applications with it," Lafreniere said. "Depending on the bandwidth for it … one of the things we're hoping for in the future is surveillance cameras set up in areas targeted by criminals. That could give live feedback to patrol cars."
Right now, officers who have computers in their vehicles are not connected to the department's computer system and have to upload their data to the main Sahuarita Police Department computer system at the end of their shift, Lafreniere said.
How it would work
● The signal would start at Town Hall, where the actual Internet connection would be. From there, that signal would be transmitted to receivers around town. Those receivers would pass the signal to other receivers and to computers with wireless cards.
What's next
● Town staff members are writing a request for qualification, which means a request for companies to show interest in providing the Internet service and installing all the required equipment. After the request for qualification is written, companies can begin sending proposals to the town.

East

Sahuarita weighs Wi-Fi zone for high-speed Web access

Nearly instantaneous access to the Internet would be available throughout the community by year's end
Stories by Andrea Kelly
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.30.2006
Sahuarita will have free or inexpensive wireless high-speed Internet access by the end of the year if all goes as planned.
The Town Council approved a measure Monday to ask companies to submit requests to the town to install a wireless high-speed Internet system town-wide, so anyone with a computer and a wireless card could jump online at any time, almost anywhere.
"We considered the possibility of enhancing our own public safety and operations. One of the ways to do that was with wireless," said Town Manager Jim Stahle. "We'd gotten to the point where we realized the chance for citizens to benefit, not just the town."
Wireless Internet townwide would not just be convenient for residents, Stahle said, but would also make the police and fire service communication in the area cutting-edge.
The wireless Internet would be able to connect to computers in police vehicles, provide on-site access for building inspectors, help fire districts navigate, and assist in the daily business at Town Hall.
Some of the specifics, including the total cost to the town or the cost to residents, will remain unknown until the town receives estimates from the companies that would install and maintain the wireless systems.
1st free access in Florida town
The town paid MRI, a Florida-based municipal consulting company, $13,900 to do a feasibility study to see if a wireless high-speed Internet system in Sahuarita is realistic, said Jonathan Baltuch, president of MRI.
The firm did a feasibility study for St. Cloud, Fla., which subsequently installed a wireless high-speed Internet system. The city has had the system since the beginning of March and is the first city nationwide to offer it to residents for free, Baltuch said.
The city saved enough money with the high-speed Internet system, on things such as cell phones and manpower, to afford to offer it to all residents.
That's the goal in Sahuarita, Stahle said.
Throughout the country, towns have been seeking ways to increase their public safety infrastructure and attract new businesses, and going wireless does both, Baltuch said.
When Sahuarita gets the bids back from companies, and the staff decides if the town can afford to enter into a wireless agreement, the town will also see how the wireless system will be physically put into place.
Transmitting from Town Hall
In St. Cloud, wireless signal-senders were placed on towers and utility poles, Baltuch said. Stahle said it is likely that poles would be used in the Sahuarita plan as well.
The wireless signal would begin at Town Hall, then would be transmitted to wireless receivers around town. These receivers would pass the signal from one to another to another, so if one went down, other signal transmitters would still be able to send a signal to that area.
The town plans to start the project on about a 15-square-mile area because that's the inhabited space in town limits, Stahle said. The plan is to expand that as more houses and businesses go up, he said.
Potentially, once the system is in place residential and commercial developers would have to pay to have the wireless high-speed Internet signals installed in new developments and would be required to incorporate that into their plans so all residents would have access, he said.
Quail Creek computer club ahead of the curve
The Quail Creek community center already has high-speed Internet access, and members of the community computer club can use the computer lab and take classes there.
The computer club's vice president, Merlin Anderson, said he is waiting for more information on the proposed town-wide wireless high-speed Internet system before he will be able to gauge the full impact of such a system.
"At this point, I'm like a lot of other people, just trying to learn about what happens in municipal systems like that, now that there are a few municipal wireless systems throughout the country," he said.
Since most of Quail Creek is wired for high-speed Internet access, the system may allow for expanded access there, he said.
"It opens the possibility for people to use Internet when they otherwise couldn't," Anderson said. "Here at Quail Creek we've got a number of different kinds of connections that are used. There are some buildings that are not wired for Internet access, and presumably through this system they would be."
Town staff could benefit
Residential building inspector Arthur Hill said he and town workers like him would save time with wireless high-speed Internet access.
Hill begins his workday at Town Hall, where he checks his e-mail and gets his list of inspections for the day.
Next he goes out and does building inspections. He inputs data from each inspection into his laptop computer. At the end of the day, he goes back to Town Hall and uploads the information to the town's computer network.
On average, Hill said, he does inspections at about 12 to 14 sites a day and spends two hours on the computer at Town Hall.
The wireless high-speed Internet access the town hopes to have would eliminate his first and last stops of the day because he could send building inspection reports from his vehicle, he said.
"At times we have to go online to check a manufacturer's specs," Hill said. "It would save a trip; we could do it right then."
That time saved could mean more time at each inspection site, or more inspections, he said.
"At each one we would have more information at our disposal," Hill said.
● Send suggestions for stories about growth in your area to reporter Andrea Kelly at 807-8414 or akelly@azstarnet.com.
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