With the city of Tallapoosa working to implement citywide WiFi Internet services, the company in charge of the project says WiFi can potentially be expanded to all of Carroll County if the demand for it is there.

David Nist, owner of Nistworks, the company implementing the wireless Internet service in Tallapoosa and also the provider of information technology services with the county, says the addition of wireless Internet in the city can be expanded to also include all of Carroll County. The feasibility of such a project, he said, would depend almost entirely on whether or not local residents want the service. WiFi service allows users to connect to the Internet without the use of wires or cables, connecting instead through signals in the air.

“We’d have to have the demand. If people want it, we can make it happen,” Nist said. “But if people don’t want it, it doesn’t make sense to do it.”

The demand certainly is there in Tallapoosa, Nist said, as many residents there have never had the opportunity to connect to the Internet in their homes. Now, Nistworks has agreed to provide city residents with wireless Internet for $20 a month per household. In exchange, the city will allow the company to place its antennae in different locations on the city’s right-of-way as customers sign up for the service. The city is also providing a sign-up process to make it easy for residents to acquire the service if they wish.

While there are plenty of places in Carroll County where residents cannot readily access the Internet, there are still issues surrounding the services that need to be worked out before the county can consider moving forward with widespread WiFi, said Trent North, a member of the Carroll County Board of Commissioners.

“We need to know how much it’s going to cost and who’s going to pay for it. We need to know where the money will come from,” North said. “And we need to know if people want it. I don’t want to embark on a journey to give everyone coverage if that’s not their desire. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being on the board for 17 years, not everybody wants to have their road paved. The same would go with technology.”

North said the board has never before formally considered the possibility of county wide WiFi accessibility and the county needs to focus on developing a master plan to govern the availability of technology services in the county for the years to come. Before the county moves forward with developing technologically based infrastructure, a plan needs to be developed and followed throughout the process, North said, and it’s not going to be something that happens overnight.

“It needs some flushing out before we can move in that direction,” North said. “This is going to be more than a 30-minute conversation. We need to methodically work out what we’re going to need to do for the next 50 to 75 years.”

Carrollton City Manager Casey Coleman said the city has not discussed the possibility of WiFi for the entire city, though there was conversation at one point about adding the service to the downtown area.