Appearing in the Daily Hampshire Gazette
April 15, 2006

UMass profs reduce wireless Internet plan
By MARY CAREY Staff Writer

AMHERST - Two University of Massachusetts professors have scaled back
their plan to bring wireless Internet service to the entire town,
because grant funding for the project was less than expected.

Mark Corner and Brian Levine, professors in the UMass computer
sciences department, had hoped to wire all of Amherst in the coming
months to study how regions can maintain communications following a
disruption caused by natural and manmade disasters.

Kris Pacunas, the town's information technology director, had
estimated it would $975,231 to cover the whole town, an amount Corner
and Levine were hoping to secure in grants from the National Science
Foundation and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

But Corner said this week that they have received $100,000, and are
not assured of receiving more that that.

''We've scraped up enough to do one-tenth of it, which seems like not
very much, but one-tenth of Amherst is approximately the entire
downtown, about 2 square miles,'' he said.

Pacunas said the smaller project would still carry many of the same
benefits to the town, including more seamless wireless Internet
service downtown, better communications between public safety
personnel and savings on some cell phone costs. ''It's not a huge
variation from our original plan.''

The town already provides wireless service to Sweetser Park, the Town
Common, Jones Library and branches, downstairs meeting rooms of the
Bangs Community Centers and all of the meeting rooms in Town Hall.

Pacunas estimated it would take several months to get the expanded
system ready by installing pieces of equipment about a foot long and
six-inches wide on various buildings and traffic lights.

The Select Board endorsed the project last month, although members had
had some initial reservations about potential maintenance costs and
the Department of Defense's role in the project.

Pacunas said the savings would outweigh the maintenance costs, and
Corner and Levine assured the board that the Defense Department would
not have access to any private communications.

''What we're really focused on is that during some sort of disaster,
you're going to lost some subset of your communications capability. We
could lose our fiber link to Springfield. Comcast could go belly up,''
Corner said.

''Increasingly, disaster management is all about communications and
getting communication systems that are robust even in the case of
massive failures,'' he said.

Corner said his and Levine's research involves testing how long it
takes to get a message from ''Place A to Place B,'' in normal
circumstances and under simulated ''challenged'' circumstances.

Mary Carey can be reached at mcarey@gazettenet.com.