The Greenville firm NYAIR.net is a wireless broadband Internet service provider that currently serves residents in Greene County and elsewhere.

The firm uses microwave rays to “beam” Internet access to residents. Reynolds, Stephen Renault, Mid-Hudson Cable’s chief technology officer, and Arnie Cavallaro, president of NYAIR, met with officials and residents of the Town and Village of Chatham and the Town of Ghent Thursday evening, October 23, to discuss the potential of offering high-speed Internet access to the area.

Currently, said Chatham Village Trustee David Chapman, high-speed service is limited to Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), which is not as fast or efficient as wireless broadband. Higher speed access is not available through landlines because providers do not believe it to be cost effective owing to the rural nature of the area where residences can be several hundred feet or more apart, he said.   

“It can be very frustrating because, if there are a lot of subscribers on at once, [DSL] can be extremely slow,” Chapman said on Friday.

To address that frustration, NYAIR and Mid-Hudson Cablevision could provide the broadband service to the region if it is deemed economically effective and if an existing tower location in one of the two towns could be leased on which to place an antenna.

“We need the research to see where the site could be and if an agreement could be worked out,” Reynolds said. NYAIR, he said, would do the “promulgation studies” and take the lead in researching the potential for offering the service. “They will be going through the due diligence studies to see if it makes sense,” Reynolds said. Mid-Hudson’s role, he said, would be to provide the Internet connection.

Without knowing certain factors–such as how much leasing a tower would cost and how many customers would subscribe–a “ballpark” estimated cost per month for the service would be between $39.99 and $59.99, Cavallaro told officials at the meeting. Nothing more specific could be estimated at this time.

The plan would require the cooperation of the towns and the village, as well as the service providers, Reynolds and Chapman said.

“There are a lot of components that need to come together,” Chapman said. Still, he said, “odds are that it would work well in our area. It’s an interesting proposal that bears more investigation.”