Not Enough Room In Burgin For Blue Zoom And Skyline

It was a scene straight out of a classic cowboy movie updated for the 21st century. Instead of two gunfighters squaring off at high noon, it was representatives from two internet providers squaring off at a special-called meeting of the Burgin City Council.

One thing was the same: there wasn’t room for both of them on the city’s water tower.

On one side stood Josh Kidd and Sonya Wilson of Blue Zoom Wi-Fi of Harrodsburg. On the other side stood Steve Hosner of Skyline Broadband Service of Stanford.

Since 2015, Skyline has been paying Burgin $200 a month to operate a Wi-Fi antenna on the city’s water tower.

In March, Blue Zoom asked permission to install an antenna of their own.The company is offering free Wi-Fi on city-owned property, similar to the service they offer in downtown Harrodsburg. However, they want Skyline to remove their’s first.

Josh Kidd of Blue Zoom said two Wi-Fi towers in such close proximity would cause disconnections and data slowdowns.

“Sharing the water tower would cause a lot of interference,” Kidd said. He likened the situation to remote control cars. “They’ll overlap each other and neither one will work correctly.”

To learn more, check out this week’s issue of The Harrodsburg Herald.