Internet remains online

By Rod Rose/The Lebanon Reporter

Lebanon — iLines stays up.

The Lebanon Utility Service Board voted 3-2 Wednesday to continue providing Internet service through its iLines program.

Dan Lamar and Jim Urban voted no, saying they are concerned over business practices and profitability potential.

“I have to agree we have a great product,” Lamar said, “But we’ve been very poor business people.”

“I agree with Dan,” Urban said. “We have to do it at a profit. This is a public-owned utility.”

Twenty-five persons urged the utility board to ignore a Lebanon City Council recommendation and continue the program.

“We will work very hard,” board president Alan Milburn said. “We will listen to the suggestions very hard as to how we can make the service better.”

A financial analysis in April by H.J. Umbaugh Associates showed the telecommunications division will turn a profit by June 2009, if it adds 240 customers, LU General Manager Mike Martin said.

Wireless and broadband over power line (BPL) service will be retained; commercial customers will be added as long as marginal revenues exceed marginal costs, and the wireless service area will not expand outside Boone County, Martin said.

Fiberoptic service will be limited to industrial and commercial customers, with no customers outside the city limits, Martin said. Revenue from fiberoptic service will be assigned to the electric division.

Among those urging the service be continued were Witham Health Services CEO Ray Ingham; Boone County Senior Services Executive Director Sue Ritz; Lebanon Community School Corp. Superintendent Bob Taylor; Boone Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Kristie McKillip; Boone County Learning Network Director Audra Poe and Boone County Extension Educator Tony Carrell.

Ritz said Senior Services has eight computers for employees and eight more in a computer lab and two wifi hot spots. The data speed, local presence and superior service make iLines more attractive than national companies, she said. “I love iLines and I’m asking you please, keep iLines for our community,” Ritz said.

The audience applauded.

Several persons said they could not operate their home-based businesses without iLines, because they had no other access to high-speed Internet.

Stan Skillington, who is a service manager for AT&T; and who operates an organic farm about five miles east of Lebanon, said he could do neither without the high-speed access.

“It’s not uncommon for me to get a call at 2 a.m. that a site is down in Australia,” he said. He can have technicians working on the problem in seconds.

Chuck Ritz, a Lebanon attorney, said the existing wireless network puts Lebanon ahead of federal mandates that will soon require utilities to provide time-based rates and daily rate information to consumers.

“You are way ahead of the curve,” he told the board. “You already have an infrastructure that will support that.”

McKillip said Lebanon has a powerful advantage in attracting new businesses because of the wireless accessibility.

Profitability might not take as long as the Umbaugh study estimated.

Rudy Yakym, representing Cyberlink, a wireless Internet provider based in South Bend, said his company wants to become partners with a municipality to offer fiberoptic/wifi service.

Cyberlink could offer up to $500,000 to improve LU’s wireless network, and add up to 1,500 customers in a year.

“We could cover half the county by next weekend, if we need to,” he said. “The immediate goal is profitability.”

Yakym said a successful partnership potentially could lower the iLines wireless cost by $30, to $19.95 a month.

Milburn said in fall 2007 the utility could see that BPL was not going to be as successful as the utility board had hoped. The board voted to restructure, create a fourth utility division, pay off the $2 million loan it used to start up BPL, and continue “while closely monitoring expenses.”

“When decisions are made, then it’s time to have closure and everybody pull on the rope,” Milburn said. “I’m confident we can do that.”

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