CAMDEN — Redzone Wireless Inc. has come a long way since 2005, when Jim McKenna founded the company to deliver affordable high-speed Wi-Fi Internet to residents and small businesses in and around its then-headquarters in Rockland, and beyond.

Back then, his model was to offer Wi-Fi service to towns with populations of 3,500-50,000 and with a "central village within the community," according to a story published on wi-fiplanet.com in September 2006. Jump forward 10 years, and Redzone has new owners, brand new technology to work with and a nod from the Finance Authority of Maine, which earlier this week announced it approved insuring $4 million in financing to move Redzone's business model forward.

Redzone’s hope is to move Maine up from the bottom of the list, 49th out of 50 states, for its quality and availability of broadband Internet service. But for everybody who works, lives, visits and does business in Maine, better connectivity goes a long way to improve communication and access everything available on the World Wide Web.

"FAME is pleased to support Redzone with its plans to develop improved access to broadband Internet for Maine homes and businesses," said FAME Chief Executive Officer Bruce Wagner, in a March 23 press release. "We know how important Internet access and speed are to Maine's economic development and to its citizens in both rural and urban areas. FAME's financing should help provide a much needed boost for development of this important infrastructure."

The newly restructured Camden-based Redzone Wireless LLC, of which McKenna remains president and CEO, was certified in January as a Pine Tree Development Zone company by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. The company also announced recently that the Federal Communication Commission approved its statewide wireless broadband network operating on FCC-licensed Educational Broadcast Services spectrum. The company had also previously announced an exclusive public/private partnership with the University of Maine System for commercial development of this spectrum through 2043.

Redzone Wireless LLC is now developing a new 4G Long Term Evolution Advanced wireless broadband network throughout the state. The FAME-backed loan through Camden National Bank is being used to accelerate improvement in Maine's broadband speed and access by furthering development of Redzone's new 4G LTE Advanced service.

The company's new headquarters are in the Knox Mill complex on Mechanic Street, owned by Matt Orne. What started as some much needed maintenance in preparation for making the Mill’s nearly 170-foot-tall smokestack available to wireless tenants turned into a total restoration effort, when the engineers uncovered major structural issues. It was determined that the top 32-feet could not be saved and was removed last fall. Northeast Wireless Network, an ATT contractor, is the first tenant, said Orne, and RedZone will be the second. He also said there is room for two additional tenants on the smokestack.

The town of Camden adopted a Wireless Telecommunications Facility Siting Ordinance in 2001.

According to Michael Forcillo, vice president of sales and marketing, Redzone is developing a Wi-Fi network "for the last five miles."

"I don't want to coin that as a new term, but one way to describe it is if you take one fiber tower in a community, and put our system on that tower, everybody connects and you can cover the town, about five miles out, give or take. It's not an absolute five miles, because there are variables that affect the actual distance, but let's say it's more practical to cover a town with a single tower than to string fiber lines out from the main pipe."

The town of Rockport in August launched the state’s first municipally-owned ultra-fast fiber Internet network system, starting at the tower, or “main pipe,” and stringing high-speed fiber optic along existing utility lines to ultimately connect users and the Internet.

The state's first municipally-owned Internet network is currently limited to a short stretch of Rockport Village, between Maine Media Workshops + College, the town office and public library, and as of late January, town officials were in the preliminary stages of looking at a feasibility study to expand service.

The Rockport network allows for a variety of service providers to tap in and offer a connection to the end user — residents and businesses along the line. Rockport's new network is a gigabit per second network, meaning that it's theoretically capable of transmitting 1,000 megabits of data per second. At 100 times faster than typical connections, Rockport's new fiber optic bandwidth has been touted as being able to provide a download speed of 84.16 Mbps and an upload speed of 84.50 Mbps.

Redzone can be thought of as one of the potential providers of Rockport's network, but instead of accessing the network through fiber optic lines invested in by a third party, or investing in the infrastructure to lay more lines itself, Redzone is going back up stream to the tower and installing a transmitter to send a Wi-Fi signal out. The Redzone signal is then tapped into by the community with a Wi-Fi box in the home — one simple step, and cheaper and timely, according to Redzone.

"Our system does not work without fiber, we love fiber, because it's how we get a solid, high-speed signal," said Forcillo. "All of our equipment connects to a fiber network, and we all connect through it. You put our system on a selected number of those existing towers, and you can cover the whole state quite easily and fast."

The company has announced that Portland is its starting point, as it has installed equipment on the roof of One City Center on Portland's Monument Square.

Within 12 months, Forcillo said network deployment will allow Redzone to reach 24 percent of the state and provide a signal. Ultimately, with its wireless spectrum, they will expand to reach 90 percent of the state.

"As far as market penetration, it's anyone's guess," said Forcillo. "I would say the level of discontent among high-speed Internet customers is fairly high. And to me, that just converts to a significant need for another option. People need another choice and this is about providing an adequate number of choices."

He said Redzone's entry into the bigger market "may cause the others to be more responsive to their customers, and so be it."

Forcillo said that since sending out Monday’s press release about the FAME-backed loan and the company's plans to be able to provide 4G LTE Advanced service and to more people than it originally could 10 years ago, he's fielded a 100-200 phone calls from potential customers.

And for now, he said, that's OK, because the consumer interest — real and anecdotal — is greater than what their current business model is.

"We have a conservative estimate that we have based the model on, but give me three months of being in business and I can tell you a subscription growth model, "said Forcillo."Customer service is clearly missing in the market, and additional consumer choices would be valuable."

"New technologies that deliver pure content at an affordable price are desperately needed in this marketplace," he said. "And if those guys were doing a great job, Maine would not be down in the bottom of the list as a state, as far as Internet connectivity goes."

He was also quick to point out though, that what Redzone is set to do was not possible a year ago.

"What we bring to the table today was not possible. This is the newest stuff, and it's only really viable and it only makes sense since this new generation of technology became available. It's doesn't make what people did in the past wrong, they couldn't do what we can do now. The available options then looked different. And things look different today than they will at the end of the year, because it will be proven and not theoretical and a story of what we have done."

Related links:

• Sen. Angus King joins in celebrating Rockport's broadband debut

• Knox Mill smokestack repairs begin with installation of scaffolding

• Rockport town manager participates in White House briefing

Contact Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com