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A 4-year-old Grand Haven company is teaming with technology firms IBM, Cisco Systems Inc. and a San Francisco nonprofit to make California's Silicon Valley a free and affordable wireless Internet community.

Azulstar Networks Inc. is working with International Business Machines Corp., Cisco and SeaKay Inc. to install a high-speed, wireless network to cover 1,500 square miles and serve 2.4 million people.

"This is a huge opportunity for us to help create one of the first entirely free, wireless communities in the world," said Tyler van Houwelingen, Azulstar's founder and chief executive officer.

Azulstar specializes in developing municipal Internet service networks.

It created Grand Haven's wireless Internet system, which went online in July 2004 and was expanded last October to include neighboring Spring Lake and Ferrysburg.

Azulstar and its Silicon Valley Metro Connect partners hope to begin construction this fall on the California network serving an area from South San Francisco to Santa Cruz.

Further approvals by individual municipalities must be worked out before the network serving 42 local governments and agencies in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Alameda counties gets built.

The project is expected to cost more than $80 million, said Eric Benhamou, chairman of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network.

Azulstar will be the service provider, Cisco will provide infrastructure, IBM will integrate systems and SeaKay will help get disadvantaged people online.

The system will generate revenues through sale of advertising and high-speed Internet service and security for businesses and municipalities, said Seth Fearey, Joint Venture vice president and chief operating officer.

Copyright © 2006. The Grand Rapids Press