Downtown, city offers wireless Internet
Students looking to use wireless Internet somewhere other than on campus can take their laptops to downtown Mount Pleasant.
Since the fall of 2006, downtown Mount Pleasant has offered free wireless, including in many of the local shops.
"It's an added incentive for coming downtown," said Michelle Sponseller, downtown development director.
Part of the goal of the installation was to draw more people downtown so that they would be able to do things like check their e-mail and surf the web while enjoying the area, she said.
"It wasn't that difficult for us to employ," said Jeremy Sheets, president of CMS Internet.
There are three or four access points to provide wireless Internet for the whole downtown. Installations like apartment complexes require 100 to 200 access points, he said.
The access points are mounted to items such as light poles because the downtown application is not large enough to require towers like in some major cities.
The downtown wireless Internet can be accessed in more than a 10-block radius, between Illinois and Mosher Streets.
"Three years ago when we did it, it was still kinda a 'wow, something like this is happening in Mount Pleasant?' but now the wow factor is kinda gone," Sheets said.
There are now more towns that have this feature, so it isn't as new, but Mount Pleasant was fairly cutting-edge in the area, Sheets said.
Fifi's French Press, 203 W. Broadway St., is one store downtown where people can use the wireless. Fifi's had wireless Internet before downtown added their own installation, but now customers simply use the downtown network.
"People don't come here to do homework," said Allison White, an Ann Arbor junior and Fifi's barista.
White said she hasn't noticed more customers in the shop as a result of the wireless Internet, but a lot of customers are bringing in their laptops.
"Quite a number of people bring their laptop in," Sponseller said.
There is a downfall to using downtown's wireless Internet - it works in hour-long blocks, White said. She said people have to re-log in every hour and should make sure that everything is saved by the hour mark.
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