Eric Meltzer, the veteran Philadelphia publishing and telecommunications banker, says Broadband Ventures II, a fund set up by his firm, Telecom Capital Corp., has closed a deal to acquire Charles Street Partners, a Baltimore firm that owns wireless Internet services on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake and in Arizona, from Boston-based J. Barclay Knapp's Abry Partners, the group that owns, for example, RCN Corp., which competes with Comcast and Verizon in Delaware County and other markets.

Telecom Capital, Abry and other investors have put a total of $17 million into Charles. The company plans to apply for up to $20 million more from the Rural Utilities Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to extend Internet to people who don't have it, with help from Obama's economic stimulus program.

"In remote areas, where you don't have Verizon FiOS or Comcast, (Charles Street) provides Internet access," Meltzer told me. The group has about 6,500 customers, and hopes to expand.

Knapp, who formerly headed the European cable roll-up company NTL, and his partner Albert E.R. Schneider 3d "retain a small interest" in Charles Street, Meltzer told me.