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Sunday, August 18, 2002

By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer

A high-speed wireless computer network is starting to link East End community groups in Pittsburgh, opening up possibilities for everything from helping students with homework to aiding people as they hunt for work.

The fledgling network links groups through wireless transmissions from the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown, to the WQED tower in Squirrel Hill to four East End nonprofit organizations.

It's expected to expand soon, once wireless equipment is installed atop the Highland Building in East Liberty and the city school district's technology hub on the South Side.

In addition, a similar wireless network installed last year on top of the Regional Enterprise Tower sends signals to several community groups on the North Side, the Hill District and Uptown.

"It just shows the ingenuity and drive of a lot of people in Pittsburgh who are very interested in technology and how it could be of benefit to people in neighborhoods, not just Downtown and the larger interests," said Carl Redwood, program director of the Kingsley Association in East Liberty, one of the groups on the wireless network.

That ingenuity is expected to make it possible for city school students at some community centers to pick up their work where they left off on their schools' computers.

The network also will provide access to streaming video -- high-quality movies --which will make it possible to watch educational videos on computers without the frustration of choppy pictures.

Community group employees will be able to talk to each other quickly by e-mail, making it easier to work together, and those who use the centers to look for jobs will be able to get access to more computerized job listings in less time.

The network's planners also are hoping to put special content on the system, such as programs for helping children and adults learn to read.

Such a network -- often called the I-Net for Institutional Network -- has been a dream of some community leaders for years.

But initial plans to build a high-speed, fiber-optic network through AT&T's cable franchise have stalled because the fiber optic lines are taking longer to install than expected, and the anticipated costs are too high for many of the nonprofit groups, which have limited budgets.

In the meantime, a high-speed wireless network was able to get under way, using the capabilities already available at the Regional Enterprise Tower, also known as the Smart Building.

Among the leading partners in the new network are Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., East Liberty Development Inc. and Parental Stress Center in the East End; Community House on the North Side; YouthWorks, Uptown; Hill House Association in the Hill District; and Information Renaissance, 3 Rivers Connect and The Heinz Endowments, Downtown.

The wireless project began with last year's installation of equipment at the top of the Regional Enterprise Tower and the buildings of three community groups: Community House, Hill House Association and YouthWorks.

Those three groups are in the line of sight of the enterprise tower, so the signal could be beamed directly to their headquarters.

Steve MacIsaac, director of operations for the Hill House Association, said the connection has opened new opportunities.

"We now think differently than we thought before. We think about ways we can use the connection to deliver services, so we're talking to Milliones [Middle] School about how can we maybe use some of the same software or locate opportunities to work together between the school and the Hill House and some of the other community groups."

After that initial success, newer and faster wireless technology was installed by Information Renaissance atop the WQED tower, in the sight line of the enterprise tower, which is the former Alcoa Building.

That made it possible to beam the signal from the enterprise tower to the WQED tower to organizations in the sight line of WQED.

And that led to the hookup of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., FamilyLinks in Shadyside, Eastside Neighborhood Employment Center in Garfield and the Kingsley Association in East Liberty.

Getting a clear sight line can be tricky.

The Bloomfield-Garfield Corp.'s wireless link was working fine until rain caused a tree's branches to move and temporarily block the signal's path. After some study, the tree -- about 800 yards from the building -- was located and plans were made to trim it.

Some of the groups are still adjusting their computers to use the new service.

FamilyLinks, a human services agency that is a merger of Whale's Tale and the Parent & Child Guidance Center, has to upgrade its network so that its 20 offices can take advantage of the high-speed connection coming into its central offices in Shadyside.

Gene Hastings, chief technology officer for Information Renaissance, said installing wireless equipment on top of the Highland Building in East Liberty may make it possible to create a "hot spot" along Penn Avenue within Penn Circle, where those with laptops equipped with wireless cards could access the network.

Grants from The Heinz Endowments have paid for much of the effort. This year, a $65,000 grant is being used for the equipment on the WQED tower, the four community groups in the East End and a fifth one to be added.

Another $200,000 Heinz grant provided the equipment for the school district's South Side technology hub and the Highland Building, as well as funds to plan a community collaboration that ultimately will own the wireless network. Representatives of 15 community groups recently visited the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. to see what its new high-speed service can do.

Getting more groups signed up is critical to having an affordable network. The groups are paying about $100 or more a month, including Internet access, for the network, depending on their use.

"In the long term, if the system is going to be sustainable, we need customers," said Rick Flanagan, youth development director for the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. "We need to get 50 to 60 groups on it."

The network also may allow groups to work together more closely on common projects.

"We're always looking for ways to collaborate with other providers, and this is a very tangible way to do that," said Stuart Swann, director of communications for FamilyLinks.

Eleanor Chute can be reached at echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955.