Appearing in the Daily Hampshire Gazette
March 9, 2006

Free wireless for Amherst? - UMass profs seek OK; board notes defense ties
 By MARY CAREY Staff Writer

AMHERST - Two University of Massachusetts professors say they want to
bring free, grant-funded wireless Internet service to the entire town
so they can study how regions can maintain communications following a
disaster.

The Select Board, however, wants to hear more details about the
project, including its sponsors and its potential costs to the town,
before approving the plan outlined Monday by UMass computer sciences
professors Mark Corner and Brian Levine.

Kris Pacunas, the town's information technology director, is a strong
proponent of the project, which he maintains will vastly improve the
town's communications capabilities, secure police communications that
are not secure now and provide free wireless service to everybody in
town.

Communities nationwide, including Westfield, are now borrowing money
trying to accomplish the same thing, Pacunas said.

Select Board members said they would vote whether to approve the
project at their meeting next week, as Corner and Levine are trying to
meet a deadline for funding.

Among the concerns board members expressed was that the proposed
$635,000 project would be funded, in part, by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA.

DARPA, one of the original funders of the Internet, is the central
research and development organization for the Department of Defense.

According to the description on the agency's Web site, www.darpa.mil,
DARPA 'manages and directs selected basic and applied research and
development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology
where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide
dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.'

'Can the town listen in on people's cell phone conversations, can they
home in as in a spy movie and get all this personal information?' Anne
Awad, Select Board chairwoman, asked Corner and Levine. She prefaced
her remarks by saying to the professors that her queries probably
seemed 'really dumb.'

Awad said it would likely also be necessary to assure residents that
there are no health risks involved, as some people believe cell phones
and cell phone towers can contribute to cancer.

Corner said there are strict controls on the project and that he and
Levine could lose their funding and their jobs if there were any
security or privacy breaches. They want to study how areas can cope
better after natural and manmade disasters, they said, pointing to the
confusion caused by communications problems following Hurricane
Katrina.

Board member Hwei-Ling Greeney said she was concerned about the
potential cost to the town of maintaining the system, which would be
installed initially in the center of town, enabling free wireless
access for a square mile. Eventually, service would be extended
throughout Amherst.

'I don't know if the town wants to get into the business of providing
free Internet service,' Greeney said.

Pacunas said he would research the cost of maintaining the system, but
that it likely would be far less than the financial and other benefits
to the town. 'The possibilities are really staggering in terms of
public services,' he said.

Among the benefits Pacunas outlined were increased security for public
safety communications. Now, anyone in town can listen in on police
communications via the Internet.

Pacunas said the system also would offer savings on town-owned cell
phones and allow the town to monitor its water supplies more
carefully, besides providing free service to residents and helping to
foster businesses, which would save on wireless Internet access.