09/16/03

JEFFREY KOSSEFF

Portland leaders are looking toward an invisible solution for the city's economic woes.

Heavy-hitters from government and business last week began collaborating to expand the availability of wireless fidelity, or WiFi, a popular form of wireless Internet service.

Coordinated by the Portland Development Commission, the Portland Telecommunications Steering Committee aims to promote Portland as a tech-friendly downtown by making it easier for companies to lease space on rooftops and install WiFi access points, which transmit high-speed Internet connections to nearby computers.

Among the members are Intel, the state's largest private employer and a developer of WiFi technology; OVP Venture Partners, an area venture capital firm; and Matrix Networks, a Portland telecommunications provider.

"WiFi is creating a lot of jobs," said Nigel Ballard, director of wireless at Matrix Networks. "It's selling a lot of hardware. Companies are forming. We as a committee want to bring publicity to Portland and drive some of the business this way."

An Intel-commissioned survey released in March ranked Portland the nation's most unwired city.

"That gets us on the radar screen, and people think about Portland as this tech-savvy place," said Pete Eggspuehler, senior project coordinator at the Portland Development Commission. "If we can continue to stay in the press and get those types of accolades, that gets people to stop remembering the Doonesbury education cartoons."

Much of Portland's early WiFi success came from the efforts of Personal Telco, a nonprofit that offers free WiFi donated by Portland-area homes and businesses. City leaders say this steering committee hopes to increase the availability of free access and maintain its status as most unwired.

"Unless we get moving on something, we're going to be behind," said Marshall Runkel, an aide to Portland City Commissioner Erik Sten who is working with the committee.

The committee hopes to start by making it easier for WiFi service providers to place access points on buildings owned by the Portland and Multnomah County governments.

The committee would ask that the companies provide basic WiFi service to the public for free, Runkel said. To make money, the companies could charge for faster speeds.

"In exchange for having access to the rooftops of public buildings for free, we would ask that WiFi providers provide a tier of service for free for citizens," Runkel said.

After that phase, the committee hopes to help WiFi carriers easily lease space on the rooftops of privately owned buildings. The carriers would go through a single clearinghouse to gain access to the roofs of participating buildings.

"One contract would cover all of them," Eggspuehler said. "And the revenue goes back to the building owners."

City officials say WiFi could attract a wide range of companies - not just tech businesses - that want to have easy access to the service.

"If a company is thinking about locat ing in downtown Portland, downtown Dallas and downtown Denver, and downtown Portland is covered by a WiFi cloud, that gives us a competitive edge," Eggspuehler said.

Jeffrey Kosseff: 503-294-7605; jeffkosseff@news.oregonian.com