Release Date: Friday, February 29th 2008

Tribune-Review: Downtown Wi-Fi a "donation"

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership has a new operator for its Downtown Wi-Fi network -- a Bloomfield Internet service provider and data center that has run the system for four months without pay.

The partnership signed a three-year agreement with aspStation on Jan. 29, but was not ready to announce it, said the company''s president, Ed DeHart. The new terms: His company will not charge the partnership a dime.

"We''ll provide it for free," said DeHart. "We''d love for the system to break even, but it''s really a donation to the city for the next three years."

AspStation replaces US Wireless Online Inc. as the company responsible for maintaining the system and collecting subscribers'' payments. Louisville, Ky.-based US Wireless Online filed for federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Oct. 8.

Wi-Fi users Downtown get two hours of free access each day. After that, a monthly fee of $14.95 applies, but aspStation has not been collecting those fees.

Within the next two weeks, aspStation will introduce "a newer, lower monthly rate," as well as a daily rate for the first time, said DeHart. The company is awaiting implementation of a new accounting system to accommodate the changes.

"We''re really pleased aspStation has stepped up and helped us out," said Downtown Partnership President Mike Edwards. "We''re excited to be working with them."

The Downtown Partnership terminated its contract with US Wireless Online in October because of the company''s financial problems.

DeHart said US Wireless bought its Internet connectivity from aspStation, and while he heard the company started falling behind on bills early last year, it continued to pay aspStation for much of the year. The company has one part-time and four full-time employees.

US Wireless stopped running the network in September after a series of layoffs, DeHart said. At that point, with a $3,000 unpaid bill, aspStation faced a choice.

"We didn''t want to disconnect it, because that would have killed the whole project they had going on," he said. Also, he and other aspStation founders are native Pittsburghers, and "the last thing we wanted to do was cause something that would be a black eye to the city."

The company arranged with the Downtown Partnership to keep the system running. DeHart hired a former US Wireless employee to maintain it.

Use of the system overall appears to be steady, DeHart said, and he''d like to stretch it beyond its current reach: basically Downtown, Uptown and nearby areas.

"I think the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership has probably done as much as they want to do with it, and we have the OK to expand it out if we want to do that," he said. "We are not going to keep it at status quo. We are going to try to make it a little better."

Seven Pittsburgh-based foundations paid for the Wi-Fi network, which US Wireless built in the summer of 2006. Service started that September.

Edwards said the system through 2007 averaged between 5,000 and 6,000 users each month with the average time on the network at 85 minutes per day. The peak hours tend to be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., when 120 to 150 users are online at any one time, he said.