State Ferries to offer free Wi-Fi service, thanks in large part to Port Townsend company
PORT TOWNSEND — After months of tests by Port Townsend-based Mobilisa Inc., state ferries will offer free wireless Internet service on a test basis to passengers on its high-traffic routes this fall.
This will let travelers surf the Web, send e-mail and download files using their wireless-enabled laptops and PDAs.
The service will be free, most likely until March or April, while ferry officials survey how many passengers want and would use the service, known as Wi-Fi.
If it proves popular, it will be available for a fee on many ferries in 2005.
Getting wireless Internet access on a ferry is a major achievement for Mobilisa — recently named as one of the top 10 small companies to work for in the state — and state ferry system officials.
It is difficult to pick up a consistent signal on a moving vessel, and there can be interference from vessel traffic and fog.
Even cell phone service can be spotty on a ferry.
Jim Long, technology director for the ferry system, said the tests aboard M/V Klickitat on the Port Townsend-Keystone route showed that the quality of service “could not have been better.”‘
Pay to access Internet
The ferry system expects to offer the wireless Internet service on one vessel running from Kingston and Edmonds in late September, with service planned for the heavily traveled Seattle-Bainbridge Island route in November, followed by the Seattle-Bremerton route in December.
If the service proves popular, private contractors could bid in March to operate and maintain the Wi-Fi connections on the ferries — and charge a fee.
Eventually, Long said, he would like to have all 25 boats in the ferry fleet connected to a wireless WAN that treats each “individual ferry boat like an office building” hooked up to a wired WAN.
That’s exactly what Mobilisa has been delivering during the tests, according to Nelson Ludlow, its chief executive officer.
Using new and sophisticated technology, antennas and switching gear, Mobilisa has installed a wireless WAN that treats about 400 square miles of Puget Sound “like one big WAN,” with Wi-Fi service and wireless backhaul to the Internet available on ferry boats operating anywhere in the area.
The Mobilisa tests were funded by a $800,000 grant from the U.S. Federal Transportation Administration.
