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From out of the gym, a new model for WiFi network

Could a Thai kickboxing gym on Spring Garden Street be the city's next telecom incubator? The tattooed Muay Thai combatants James Gregory and David Platt think so.

David Platt (left) and James Gregory picked the name Bamboowifi after Platt's daughter said the network might grow like bamboo.
David Platt (left) and James Gregory picked the name Bamboowifi after Platt's daughter said the network might grow like bamboo.Read moreELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer

Could a Thai kickboxing gym on Spring Garden Street be the city's next telecom incubator? The tattooed Muay Thai combatants James Gregory and David Platt think so.

During one battering workout this spring, Gregory, 35, and Platt, 43, decided to execute on Platt's plan for a pay-to-use WiFi network in gentrifying Philadelphia neighborhoods that would offer an alternative to Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.

Platt, a network engineer, envisioned a "mesh" of WiFi access points through which people would access the Internet in homes and other places in the neighborhood for $30 a month.

And he knew where he could create this wireless mesh: in Northern Liberties and Fishtown, with their brick rowhouse neighborhoods and hip Internet-on-the-go millennials - ideal architectural topography and demographics for a WiFi network.

Restaurants, coffee shops, and retail stores could host WiFi access points in return for a sliver of the network's revenue.

Told to come up with something "green" or "fresh" for a company name, Platt's 16-year-old daughter, Winona, thought it sounded like the new network would grow quickly like bamboo trees - thus, Bamboowifi was born.

Winona, Platt said, also thought a panda icon would appeal to people the way Facebook's "F" and Twitter's bird logos do.

Platt calls Bamboowifi a boutique ISP. Gregory, a Japanese-to-English translator and free-lance Internet marketer, said in an interview at the Stay Fly Muay Thai gym Wednesday night, "We want to break from the stuffy, stodgy image of an Internet company."

That being the goal, they rented a panda costume for $100 at Pierre's Costumes & Mascots on North Third Street in November and recorded themselves around Philadelphia - running up the Art Museum steps and strutting in front of the Comcast headquarters.

Platt did a Comcast panda strut, admitting he was both laughing and anxious.

"If I had lingered there a little longer, they might have asked what I was doing there in front of their building in a panda suit," he said.

Platt, who has his daughter's name tattooed on his neck and Asian art tattooed on his arm, said they had so much fun with the panda costume they might buy one.

Next month, Platt and Gregory hope to raise about $200,000 through a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign. They say they expect that residents in Northern Liberties and Fishtown, or the 19123 and 19125 zip codes, would contribute to help finance a competitor to Comcast or Verizon.

They also hope investors outside Northern Liberties and Fishtown think the concept has promise and would help with funding.

Under Kickstarter rules, Gregory said, Bamboowifi gets no money if it fails to reach its financial goal and cannot launch the network.

Hillol Roy, a partner in the Philadelphia consulting firm IBB Consulting and a WiFi expert, said Bamboowifi seemed like an interesting idea, but with challenges.

Most people today think that WiFi is free and could be reluctant to pay for it, Roy said. And, he added, municipal WiFi is not a new idea. Philadelphia's highly publicized project for a municipal WiFi network failed to get off the ground several years ago. Bamboowifi's plan to focus on Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods - a more contained geography - seems smart, Roy said.

The biggest obstacles, Roy said, could be finding locations for the WiFi access points, electric power supply, and connecting the network to the Internet backbone - also known as the data backhaul.

But, Roy said, Bamboowifi could be innovative in its execution and marketing. Businesses realize that "WiFi is the most universal wireless medium for the Internet and data," and Platt and Gregory are experimenting with new models, Roy said.

Comcast itself has plans for a national WiFi network, using millions of wireless gateways in Xfinity subscriber homes - similar, in a way, to Bamboowifi's plan to create its network through access points in small businesses in Northern Liberties and Fishtown.

Platt and Gregory realize Bamboowifi is far from a sure thing. But they say they have started the conversation on a new model for a broadband network.

"We want to be a technology company," Platt said, "but we are really two guys with an idea and want to try it out."

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