Food with a side of
online
By Brett Clanton
Montgomery Advertiser
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| Billy
Clein, owner of Omni Broadband, demonstrates wireless,
high-speed internet access Thursday in Cafe Louisa. So far,
three eateries in Montgomery have the service. |
|
-- Photos by Mickey Welsh,
Advertiser |
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Local Internet service provider and software development firm
Omni Broadband has found a new niche.
The two-year-old outfit recently has begun installing wireless
Internet service in local restaurants and coffee shops around town,
or in Hot Spots, as the company likes to call them.
The first "WiFi" stickers advertising the service went up in the
windows of El Ray Burrito Lounge, Tomatinos Pizza and Bread Shop and
Cafe Louisa coffee shop in Old Cloverdale about two weeks ago. More
stickers will go up soon.
Omni Broadband President Billy Clein said his firm is about to
close several other deals with local restaurants to provide the
service.
Here's how it works: Bring a PC or Mac laptop into a restaurant
(most of the new machines are WiFi- ready), plug in a wireless
network card, flip the computer on and start surfing the Internet --
at super speed. Broadband Internet service is about 50 times as fast
as most dial-up services through phone lines.
In the case of the Cloverdale restaurants, the service will be
free to users, and the signal will be available at all corners of
each property.
While it's not uncommon to find wireless Internet service in a
coffee shop in Atlanta or New Orleans, Clein said, "No one's really
targeted this market in Montgomery yet."
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| A sign in
the window of Cafe Louisa indicates the Omni Internet
service. |
| |
That doesn't mean Omni is betting its future on the service
taking off. The firm has grown by offering a wide range of services,
from Web site development, network design and maintenance and e-mail
hosting.
Omni streams videos of Sunday morning worship services onto the
Internet for Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church.
"I get e-mails from people all over the country who are watching
this," said Darin Lightfoot, computer director for the church.
The firm also is helping develop an upgraded Internet auto-pay
service for Fast Phones Inc., a reseller of residential phone
service.
"I've found them to be very knowledgeable," said Ashley Allen,
chief operating officer of Fast Phones. "They had good solutions at
an affordable cost."
Clein, 34, started Omni Broadband in 2000, turning a hobby for
Web site design into a business. The company, which he owns with a
silent partner, now has four employees and operates an office on
Carmichael Road. With more Hot Spot wireless accounts coming
together and demand for the firm's other services growing, Clein
said 2003 could be a big year for the company.
"We've really been banging," he said.
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Business - Jan. 31, 2003
