PORT TOWNSEND — The busiest run in the Washington State Ferries system joins the Wi-Fi Internet wave of the future Friday when a Port Townsend company launches its latest “wireless over water” technology.
Mobilisa Inc.’s co-founder and CEO Nelson Ludlow joins U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Acting State Ferries Director Mike Anderson aboard the 10:40 a.m. Seattle-Bainbridge run for a “cable-cutting ceremony.”
Murray, D-Shoreline, who sponsored the $800,000 U.S. Department of Transportation research grant for Mobilisa’s ferry wireless project, is set to cut the cable that symbolically takes the MV Wenatchee into the wireless age.
A contract with Washington State Ferries enabled Mobilisa last year to become the world’s first company to offer wireless Internet aboard a vessel — on the Port Townsend-Keystone run in 2004.
The company, led by Ludlow, his wife and chief financial officer, Bonnie, and chief operating officer Amy Hughes, then provided wireless Internet on the MV Spokane ferry, which runs between Kingston and Edmonds.
‘Jazzed’ over WOW
Saying he and his 31 Mobilisa employees are “jazzed” about taking the ferry system wireless, Nelson Ludlow on Wednesday explained that Wireless Over Water system — WOW — incorporates limited-reach wireless with cellular phone technology to allow the wireless signal to roam with the vessel, like cellular.
“Wi-Fi was never set up to do that,” Ludlow said at his office Wednesday morning.
“It was set up for coffee shops and other small businesses.”
Mobilisa’s wireless connection allows ferry commuters the opportunity to surf the Internet or check e-mail using wireless-enabled laptops and pocket computers or palm pilots.
Wi-Fi, as the wireless computer service is called, allows Web access at speeds many times faster than a dial-up telephone connection.
Free Wi-Fi access was launched earlier in 2004 on the Port Townsend-Kingston route — and by extension is available through downtown Port Townsend.
