Even for UGA users, the WAGZone’s Net access is not the main selling point. Partly to prevent a conflict with ISPs?and keep the Net from becoming its focus?the WAGZone was not designed to reach indoors, only to reach public spaces. Shamp emphasizes the Zone as part of the walking around experience, the tie between visitor and place.

Making that happen depends on developing WAGZone content, and building that bridge between location and technology. And, of course, content depends on users who depend on content.

To tap into the WAGZone network requires at least an investment in a handheld and a wireless card?something that could set you back more than $500. Will they get cheaper? No doubt. Will they eventually become as common as cell phones? That’s tough to predict. Athens does have the advantage of being a well-visited city (host to Georgia Bulldogs football games, for example) and home to many well-educated professionals not intimidated by technology.

Even so, it should be a long time before the WAGZone system is stressed, Shamp says. For now, the WAGZone database runs on a New Media Institute server. The cloud itself uses the 802.11b or Wi-Fi wireless protocol. Wi-Fi operates in unregulated spectrum, which in theory means anyone can set up competing systems on the same frequency. The hope is that no one will do that unless they want to be part of the WAGZone and are willing to negotiate an interface. But it is a risk.

It is a risk for users too. New Media bought a turnkey firewall from Bluesocket for about $5,000, but there’s a conscious trade-off here between cost and security. The idea is not to have a lot of confidential data that needs protecting on the WAGZone, Shamp says. "It doesn’t matter how secure you are, somebody can break into it, if they are dedicated to it. I tell people, I wouldn’t do anything on the WAGZone I wouldn’t do in the park with my mom watching."

Hardware for the WAGZone system costs less than $35,000. Someone duplicating the system elsewhere could spend more, since virtually all the WAGZone work?the brainstorming, the software and code-writing, the lobbying of a few businesses downtown?was done by students. Even better, the maintenance of the system can be done by a New Media employee; its demands are so low-key that they can be tucked inside the worker’s 10-hour-a-week assignment, Shamp says.

WAGZone’s goals are to lure wireless companies?carriers and content providers?to a wide-open startup. To make downtown an ever-more vibrant?and cool?place. And of course, for Athens businesses to make more money and for the city to prosper. Yet the commercial aspects of the Zone are almost as nebulous as the WAGZone itself. "I won’t lie to you," Shamp says. "They haven’t figured out how to make money on this. But the [business owners] are willing to do it because they don’t have to pay for it."