Main Street Broadband, the company which began rolling out a wireless Internet service in Decatur County last year, now has 75 percent of the county covered, county commissioners learned at their Tuesday night meeting.

Randy Lindsey, the vice president of sales and marketing for Main Street Broadband, described how the wireless Internet service has been made more robust, reliable and available to more people since the service launched in February 2010.

Main Street’s network uses a technology similar to cell phone towers to transmit data over broad swaths of rural Decatur County, as well as Bainbridge and other municipalities. Now using 10 tower sites, the service is available to an estimated 89.2 percent of households.

According to Lindsey, there are tentative plans for four new tower sites which would expand service into north-central Decatur County, including the Flint River Heights subdivision, as well as Fowlstown and Brinson. The fourth tower will definitely be located at the county’s landfill off U.S. 27 South, bringing better service to Attapulgus, however Lindsey said he didn’t yet have a firm date for when that tower would be online.

Main Street has also expanded its network into Miller and Seminole counties, as well as Gadsden County, Fla. The company has 500-600 customers in Decatur County; several hundred more customers have expressed interest in signing up for service, Lindsey said. Main Street has six retail and installation partners.

With the network having matured to a large degree, the focus is now turning to making it useful for agricultural and commercial customers, Lindsey said. He said there is some interest in the agricultural demonstration project which Main Street has been working on in collaboration with Decatur County, Spring Creek Watershed and the iLinc company. Lindsey said farmers will be able to use the wireless network to monitor machinery, soil probes and center pivots.

Schools, medical providers, public safety agencies and businesses are other potential customers, Lindsey said. For more information on Main Street’s offerings, people may call 888-807-3278 or visit www.mainstreetbb.com/decatur online.