This is part one of a three-day series on citywide Internet access developing in Urbana.

Imagine downtown Urbana as a giant pond. At one end of the pond is something of great value, something that is useful to everyone who has access to it. Now imagine a frog stuck on the other side of the pond. The frog, no doubt, wants to cross the pond so he can get to his treasure. He eyes the surface of the gleaming water and calculates the best way to get to the other side. He begins to zig and zag across the pond, hopping from lily pad to lily pad, pausing every so often to reroute.

What treasure lies on the other side of the pond?

The Internet.

This is the analogy that Dave Young, technical lead at CUWiN, Champaign Urbana Wireless Network, uses to explain how his organization’s open source wireless mesh networking software is bringing wireless Internet access to residents and businesses in Urbana.

The number of municipalities across the nation that are considering citywide wireless networks is on the rise. As of this month, there are at least 53 cities or counties in the nation that have or are in the process of building a wireless network, according to Esme Vos, founder of muniwireless.com, a Web site that collects data on wireless markets around the world and is considered an authority on the industry. There are over two-dozen other municipalities considering similar networks, including Chicago and Aurora, Ill.

“What we’re building is kind of like wireless lily pads, you know?” explained Young, a guy with a dry sense of humor and round, wire-rimmed glasses. “If they’re near enough to each other, the Internet packets, like the frog, can cross their network, just like the frog will cross the pond, by hopping from lily pad to lily pad.”

Urbana has allocated $18,000 to fund the installation of 20- to 25- new nodes on city property in the downtown area, roughly outlined by Water Street on the north, just past Vine Street on the east, Illinois Street on the south and Orchard Street on the west. These nodes will join the existing network of 40- to 50- nodes CUWiN has already installed around the city. Anyone under this network can login to get free access to the Internet, and to each other.

“We’re not talking about super-bandwidth to every household,” said Danielle Chynoweth, an Urbana City Council member who has supported a municipal network since its first mention to the city council in 2002. “We’re talking about basic communications . for e-mail and web surfing so that kids can do their homework, their research, connect to their teachers and (so) people can look for jobs.”

In addition to offering free Internet access, the CUWiN network also acts as an intranet, meaning computers and other devices on the network can communicate with each other directly, without passing information over the Internet. This can be used for anything from messaging between CUWiN users, voice over Internet Protocol, VoIP, telephones or the ability to stream community content, like city council meetings or high school football games, over the network.

The direct connection between network users, something that standard Internet service providers, ISPs, don’t offer, is a crucial benefit of this network said Sascha Meinrath, the CUWiN project director.

“What we foresee is not just low-cost Internet, but also streaming audio and streaming video and chat rooms and web posting and e-mail lists,” Meinrath said.

Urbana serves as the test bed sight of the CUWiN network. Much of their funding comes from organizations, such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, in South Africa, that are looking into implementing wireless networks in areas that suffer from a lack of communication.

The first successful CUWiN network connection occurred with the communication of three nodes in 2002. Three years later, in November of 2005, the second city-owned node was installed on the roof of the Urbana Free Library. The node provides Internet access to library users through two indoor access points, similar to the wireless routers found in many homes.

“I have a philosophy, which is that access to the Internet is like access to the library,” Chynoweth said.

To her, providing public access in Urbana goes hand-in-hand with the city’s long-standing reputation as a provider of information to all citizens, which dates back to the opening of The Urbana Free Library, one of the first taxpayer-supported libraries in the nation, in 1872.

“If cities don’t provide basic Internet access to everyone in their city, it’s like putting a lock on the library door,” Chynoweth said.

Providing wireless access is something the library has looked forward to doing since their 30-month remodeling construction ended last summer, said Urbana library Executive Director Fred Schlipf. Although the network experienced some unpredicted downtime over the holiday season due to a hardware failure, that has since been fixed, reference librarian Carol Linskeep said people are taking advantage of wireless access and that it has been a great success, noting that wireless access helps free time on the hardwired terminals for those without laptops.

Urbana is currently looking at different strategies for installing nodes throughout the city. One option being considered is placing nodes on lampposts that serve double duty as a lily pad for the network and an outdoor access point for Internet and intranet surfing. After the downtown area is connected to the mesh, Urbana plans to look at adding other high-impact corridors to the network, such as the Urbana middle and high schools, or park district areas, said Bill DeJarnette, information services manager for the City of Urbana.

“It’s definitely a positive move,” said Scott Glassman, owner of Crane Alley, 115 Main St., “For people with a couple of hours to kill between meetings, or even during lunch, this will be a huge convenience.”

The CUWiN project received the unanimous support of the Urbana Business Alliance.

“They said ‘absolutely, this is a good idea, we support it, make it so’,” Meinrath said. “For business, it’s a no brainier, right? Somebody’s going to come in and give you free bandwidth.”

The CUWiN group sees the network as more than just public Internet access.

“What it opens up for the city of Urbana are new ways to communicate with residents, new ways for residents to be involved in the civic life of our community, new opportunities for information to be posted and disseminated throughout our community,” Meinrath said. “Think of it as low power FM radio, public access television and Web sites for the city of Urbana all rolled into one. It’s an uber-medium.”

Next: So what exactly can this uber-medium do for you?