You may recall that the city put out an RFP back in June for a new company to to upgrade, operate and maintain the city’s existing municipal WiFi network.

Welp, on the docket for tonight’s city commission meeting – partnering with Brightlan LLC to take over operation of the network from GTS, who has been operating the network since 2007.

According to a letter from Asst. City Manager Andrea Arnold to City Manager Peggy Merriss (page 55 of the meeting materials)…

“Brightlan is a Georgia owned and operated internet service provider”, who’s wireless networks “cover much of north Georgia.”

Brightlan installed municipal wireless networks in Hapeville and Dublin and serves as the ISP for the City of Hapeville’s wireless network.  Brightlan’s references were positive and emphasized their technical skills as well as their quality customer service.

(Here’s the Hapeville Wi-Fi webpage if you’re interested.)

According to Ms. Arnold’s note, Brightlan will take on marketing and customer acquisition, subscription services, equipment deployment and network modifications, network maintenance and a revenue share with the City.  Arnold states that Brightlan is “committed to strengthening the network and making improvements to its reliability and bandwidth.”

Back when it was originally deployed, many of the criticisms revolving around Decatur’s Wi-Fi investment were predicated on the fact that Wi-Fi would become an outdated model in just a few years.  Well, that hasn’t really happened as quickly as many of those criticisms assumed.  So, if Decatur can find a company that can provide reliable wireless internet access at a discounted rate to residents, it still has the potential to be successful.

However, there are still many hurdles to leap over – tree-interference and the general usability of the login pages being just two of ‘em.