LEBANON - More than 2,000 people have taken advantage of Lebanon's all-city wireless network so far, and city officials say they're pleased with the response.

"I think, overall, we're pretty happy with it," said Tom Oliver, the city's director of information technology. "It's there, and it's working."

First installed to improve communication for the city's police officers, the wireless network's ability to allow public access throughout town was just a nice fringe benefit, Oliver said.

The city also will take advantage of the network for its city maintenance vehicles. Installation of mobile terminals is to begin next month.

Oliver said that as of July 9, some 2,000 people had signed up for the service's 10-session-per-month free access, and another 80 had paid accounts for unlimited access. The system averages about five new users per day, he said.

Perhaps 20 additional people use the system, but they don't show up on Lebanon's report, Oliver said. These users were grandfathered in through specific accounts with PEAK Internet, which provides the service, and thus bypass the Lebanon sign-on page.

Oliver's records show the system has had 10,000 public user sessions per month, with the average session lasting about 1.25 hours.

City officials were surprised that more people

hadn't taken advantage of the paid, unlimited access but aren't concerned about it.

The plan for wireless coverage started several years ago, when the city was looking for a way to provide high-speed data access in the patrol cars, Oliver said. Officers needed more capacity than what was available over cell networks at the time.

"As we started to look at it, we realized if we built a network for the cars, we would have way more capacity than we would need for that application," Oliver said. "The public access freely stood out as a great way to utilize that system."

Work began in late spring 2005. Cisco Systems made the city a test site for new equipment, setting up much of what was needed at no cost and providing discounts on the rest.

The city has invested $108,000 to date, Oliver said, and has recouped about $10,000 of that. The city owns the equipment and operates it jointly with PEAK Internet, which handles all customer support and provides the actual Internet connectivity.

That's what makes Lebanon's system different from free wireless projects in Portland and similar systems in California and Illinois, Oliver said.

MetroFi Inc., based in California, had contracted with Portland in 2006 to create a citywide wireless network, but it was financing and operating the network itself.

"They couldn't make the numbers work," Oliver said. "A private company came in and worked with the city to get access to mount the equipment, and were trying to generate revenue to run the system by selling ads. We didn't feel that was viable at the start."

PEAK Internet is bound by contract, though the company could pull out if it felt it wasn't getting any benefit, Oliver said. But because the city bears the cost of the network, PEAK is looking only at additional Internet use and customer support calls.

As long as at least some of the users have paid accounts, that should satisfy the business side, he said.

"This really wasn't built to be a moneymaker for the city," he said. "We really just wanted to recoup some of the initial investment, and we did."

How it works

To use Lebanon's citywide wireless network, you must first have a wireless-enabled laptop or a wireless access card. Open your laptop, turn it on and a little box will pop up and say something like, "Wireless network detected, click here to associate." When you see the one labeled "Lebanon," you link to it and open the web browser of your choice.

That browser automatically redirects you to a sign-in page, and from there you can either log onto your paid account, open a new paid account for approximately $20 per month, or be walked through the process for setting up a 10-session free access account.

Coverage is available throughout most of the city, but because the idea was patrol car coverage, not in-building penetration, access outside the downtown core may not be available from inside a house, said Tom Oliver, the city's director of information technology.

Residents outside the downtown area may have to take a laptop outside or set up a small repeater on the windowsill to catch the wireless signal.

PEAK Internet handles customer support. The city does not have a call center.

Coverage basically includes the city limits, but the signal on the east side of the Santiam River is very weak because of a lack of streetlights to mount access points, Oliver said. That may change as developments progress.