The buzz in town

If you listen carefully, you might detect a new buzz in Brookline's airwaves. It's whispering through Starbucks, in the schools and libraries, and down the corridors of Town Hall. The buzz is wireless, and it stands to change the face of Brookline.

There are critics, and any townwide move to wireless would require the approval of selectmen and Town Meeting. But its supporters have a vision of a brave new world for Brookliners. What would ''going wireless" mean for residents? In a year, a building inspector could download original building plans on site to spot a violation and file the report instantly. A low-income student could check out a laptop from school and use the Internet to research a history report at home at night, without having to worry about affording a computer and Internet access. Police could still have the wireless services they use today, while the town would save the $50,000 a year they currently pay Verizon for access to a public safety network. Schools wouldn't have to wait for money for a capital project to upgrade wiring for networks; instead, they would just need laptops with wireless cards.

A little further in the future, a motorist could pull up to a parking meter on Harvard Street, insert a credit card into a nearby kiosk, and receive a sticker to put on the window, showing how much time was purchased. Ten minutes before time was up, the meter could send a message to the driver's PDA (personal digital assistant). Then, either more time could be added, or the driver could run back to reach the car before the parking officer -- who, of course, was messaged, too. Water meters could automatically report usage to the Department of Public Works, and utility bills could be sent and paid via the Internet, by residents sitting in a park on a warm spring day.

Many other towns have begun the move toward wireless, to greater or lesser extents. Chaska, Minn., a suburb of the Twin Cities, installed a townwide wireless network in January. Start-up costs were about $600,000 for the equipment, and Tropos, the company that provided the hardware, estimates Chaska will earn back that money and start making profits in about three years.

Spokane, Wash., created a wireless network in a 100-block area downtown last fall. And on April 7, Philadelphia became the first major metropolitan area on the East Coast to request proposals for a wireless network, which would cover the city's 135 square miles. A nonprofit company has been created that would run and own the network, after buying the hardware to create it for an estimated $10 million.

Brookline, said to be the home of the world's first public dial-up Internet access, has often been on the leading edge of technology. In 1989, The World, operated by Coolidge Corner-based Software Tool and Die company began offering the Internet service, according to Brookline-based technology consultant Geoff Cohen, who serves on the information technology advisory committee. Town residents already can pay parking tickets, tax, and utility bills online, and four schools, the public libraries, and the Police Department have wireless access.

Brookline police were among the first forces in the state to switch to Verizon's wireless public safety network last year and now can access FBI, state, and local databases from their cruisers and file reports without returning to the station. Within six months, said police director of technology Scott Wilder, they hope to expand the information available to officers on the street by using wireless geographic information systems (GIS) technology. (In Greater Boston, most police officers have wireless access in their cruisers, and in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston residents can pay for tickets, taxes, and other bills online.)

Lead, don't bleed

Brookline takes pride in its plans to go out on a wireless limb, according to Patrick Cafferty, the town's information technology officer. ''We want to be on the leading edge, but not the bleeding edge," he said.

But the town is not yet on the local leading edge of wireless access. While officials in Cambridge and Somerville say their residents can get wireless access at many local coffeeshops and universities, only a few businesses in Brookline provide wireless. Starbucks has such service through T-Mobile, but it costs money. Hotels in town often have wireless access, but only for guests.

To begin to fill this gap, the selectmen created a committee to examine wireless two months ago, and the town has had informal talks with vendors. On Tuesday, Maverick Construction, a wireless network installment and management company headquartered in Boston, will attend a public hearing to talk about services and potential business models for a network in Brookline.

The town's wireless network would probably be created by a series of small transmitters installed on sides of buildings or on utility poles. Called a Mesh network, this system doesn't depend on any one source for wireless service. If a transmitter breaks, the system reroutes through others, for seamless coverage.

Town could run show
Brookline could buy all this equipment and then operate a wireless network itself. That would give the town the most control over use, access, and pricing, but would also require a lot of infrastructure and money. Setting up a network could cost about $50,000 per square mile covered, and Brookline is about 7 square miles. Essentially, the town would be providing wireless as a utility, like water and garbage pickup.

Another option is for a company to provide free wireless services to town departments in exchange for being able to charge residents. Because installing the system wouldn't require running cable to each house, and because the wireless service provider would be competing with Comcast and RCN, the fees would most likely be lower than broadband cable access, possibly about $20 a month.

As the town doesn't have money allocated in the budget for wireless equipment, Cafferty says officials will almost certainly push for a business model that wouldn't cost the town anything.

''That would be our primary focus, to have a company come in at no cost to the town," he said. The wireless committee could have a proposal for a pilot program in place for the fall Town Meeting. Or, if the town gets the right offer from the right vendor, Cafferty said, a Special Town Meeting could be held earlier to accept the offer, and wireless in Brookline could be a reality within a year.

No child left behind
''A wireless network would be fantastic!" said Sandra Sicard, director of instructional technology for Brookline schools. She worries that right now, some children are losing out because their parents can't afford computers or a monthly fee for Internet access. A network would ''make sure kids aren't left behind," she said. ''Having a townwide resource for everyone to share would make the playing field level for all of the students who live in Brookline."

Wireless could also level the playing field for businesses. A possible compromise between free and subscriber services could be that wireless would be provided at no charge to commercial areas like Coolidge Corner and Washington Square, said Cohen. In other words, he added, Starbucks wouldn't have an advantage over Athan's or the B&D Deli in Washington Square.

Wireless is entering town politics. Andrew Fischer, who is running for selectman, has made creating a Wi-Fi network an example of the kind of forward-thinking he says he would bring to the board.

''A wireless network is a win-win-win situation," he said. ''It supports local businesses, by giving them the same resource that Starbucks provides, it potentially generates revenue, and potentially provides all of us with cheaper Internet access than we're getting from big corporate providers."

Fischer says he's gotten almost exclusively positive comments about his position on wireless, and he's not the only one in the town who thinks this is an idea most Brookliners would support.

''If a credible candidate [for selectman] can support wireless, it's a mainstream idea," said Cohen. ''There are a lot of exciting possibilities, and we're just scratching the surface." Wireless would improve the efficiency of town employees who are frequently on the move, Cafferty said, and probably save the town money. In some cases, the new technology could actually make money.

Parking payoffs
Next-generation parking meters could be kiosks, or ''pay stations," that accept credit cards and print out a sticker to show the amount of time purchased. People tend to put more than enough money in parking meters when using their credit cards, as opposed to having to scrounge for change, said Glenn Booth, director of marketing at Vivato, a vendor for wireless networks. And because payment is on a sticker attached to a car, there would be no freebies for drivers pulling into spaces with time left on the meter.

''That's a revenue booster for the town," Booth said. ''Towns can gain 20 or 30 percent profit on parking meters," and avoid the labor-intensive process of collecting and depositing coins. Many cities have already switched to using pay stations that link to credit card companies through a cellular connection. Seattle and Portland, Ore., have replaced traditional parking meters with parking kiosks altogether. New York has about 1,000 pay stations for on- and off-street parking. Boston had 13, introduced in 2003 as a pilot program, but they were removed last year, and the city hasn't decided whether to use them in the future, according to Tracey Ganiatsos, City of Boston Transportation Department.

When the technology becomes available, the cellular connection could be switched to Wi-Fi and be modified to allow back-and-forth messaging between meters and PDAs or cellphones, said Booth.

Town officials say the potential for wireless goes far beyond smarter parking meters. ''By definition, I can't even think of some things in the future it would allow you to do," said Cafferty.

Not all are gaga
Some think this might not be a good thing, however. Regina Frawley, Town Meeting member and candidate for selectman, is concerned that the town is relying too much on technology and moving quickly toward Wi-Fi without considering that it may be obsolete within a few years. ''We're replacing people with technology," she said.

Cafferty stressed that no town employees will be let go as a result of increased technology. If positions are eliminated, the people will be reassigned, he said.

Peter Butler, chief technology officer at Russet Communications, a Lawrence technology consulting firm, also questioned the soundness of the cable-company-type business model. He predicts that WiMax, which is a wireless, currently very expensive technology with a wider coverage area and faster speeds, will be the next big technology and could end up replacing Wi-Fi entirely.

Still, some in town seem willing to let the potential of a wireless network outweigh concerns, at least for now.

''We don't know, and can't expect, what things wireless will allow to happen," said Cohen. ''But I do expect those things to happen."

And, he added, Brookline's generally wealthy, educated citizenry is the perfect population to take full advantage of the new technology.

''We had the first public dial-up Internet provider on the planet, and in that spirit I think Brookline ought to be as much an innovator in wireless network access," Cohen said.

A public hearing on bringing wireless technology to Brookline will be held Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. on the sixth floor of Brookline Town Hall.