Jenks development to be wireless Internet zone

By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer - 11/4/2009


Village on Main, the $60 million retail, office, residential and hotel development planned for Jenks, is set to receive what could possibly become the largest privately funded WiFi hot zone in the state.

Cox Communications Inc. has agreed to provide fiber-optic infrastructure for Village on Main to connect businesses there with Internet, voice and HD video capabilities. At the same time, Cox will place up to a dozen access points for free, publicly available wireless Internet, or WiFi, said Gerald Ferguson, director of product development at Cox Business.

“This will be the largest hot zone we’ve created in the state,” he said.

Duane Phillips, developer of Village on Main, said in a news release that such a large hot zone will help facilitate the feeling of interactivity he wants to incorporate into his project.

“My objective for this development is to create a smart, forward-thinking environment that encourages connectivity,” he said. “Offering free public Internet access along the Main Street corridor of the Village on Main will be a key component in achieving this goal.”

Rather than cover every square inch of Village on Main with WiFi, Ferguson said the project will concentrate the access points along the most heavily travelled corridors — near the shops and restaurants.

“We want to pinpoint the areas that people would be most likely to use cell phones and laptops,” he said.

The hot zone should be active in the first quarter of 2011. Ferguson said he could not yet estimate the cost of the fiber and WiFi infrastructure, since technology continues to evolve and many costs depend on the final designs of the architecture.

Village on Main will be constructed in three phases over the next three years, and will eventually include 420,000 square feet of space.





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