Main Street Broadband, the company that began rolling out a wireless Internet service in Decatur County in February, is aiming to improve its support for current and would-be customers.

Randy Lindsey, the vice president of sales and marketing for Main Street Broadband, updated Decatur County Commissioners on the progress of offering its service throughout the county.

Just a few months after launching the service locally, Main Street has approximately 550 customers, a number which reflects the number of people who are already using the service or are in the process of getting it, Lindsey said.

Many more have pre-registered their interest in signing up for the service when it becomes available in their neighborhood, he said.

Decatur County Commissioners, who are partially subsidizing customers’ initial service cost, have been fielding citizens’ calls about the work Main Street is doing and when the service will come to their area.

Making the service available to more customers is largely dependent on the installation of antennas onto tower structures around the county, Lindsey noted. Currently there are four antennas, primarily providing service to the area around Bainbridge and Georgia 97 North, he said. Main Street has obtained permission to put an antenna up in Climax and is in the last stages of getting the OK to put another antenna up along U.S. 84 East, which could make wireless Internet available to a large swath of eastern Decatur County.

“There is a tower lease agreement, which has been presented to the Town of Brinson and we have received significant interest from people living in that area,” Lindsey told The Post-Searchlight.

Company officials have also identified seven additional sites and hope to have coverage over most, if not all, of the county sometime later this fall, Lindsey said.

“We’ve highlighted high-demand areas and continue to take pre-registrations,” he said. “We’re also aware of some places where there are gaps and we are working on several technical solutions.”

In addition to the residential high-speed Internet service, Main Street has plans to offer Internet phone service, Internet-driven remote services for farmers and Wide Area Network capability, which would let a business easily share data wirelessly between multiple sites, Lindsey said.

Main Street also has plans to offer wireless Internet to Donalsonville and Colquitt after the Decatur County project is finished.

Main Street Broadband has six local businesses serving as resellers; it also allows signup or pre-registration through its Web site, mainstreetbb.com/decatur/. Interested persons may also call 888-807-3278.

In business that was not directly related, commissioners unanimously approved a new cell tower to be constructed to the west of Georgia 97 North, between its intersections with Deese and Martin roads, to be used for AT&T cellular service.