Some customers using Tempe's citywide wireless Internet network can check their e-mail from their front porches -- but not inside their homes.
Some subscribers have complained about a lack of service indoors, said Karrie Rockwell, a spokeswoman for NeoReach Wireless.
NeoReach is the private company that installed the WAZTempe wireless network, which was completed earlier this month. The service covers 95 percent of Tempe, Rockwell said.
Users can access the service outside, but some people inside homes and businesses can't use the wireless network without added equipment, she said.
"A lot of the residents and businesses will need what we call a [Customer Premise Equipment] device," Rockwell said. "It brings the outdoor signal indoors."
NeoReach's retail partners should begin offering indoor service and the necessary devices to get it by the start of summer, Rockwell added.
Dave Heck, Tempe's deputy information-technology manager, said NeoReach should have told customers what equipment they needed and provided it to them all along.
"It doesn't make sense to be advertising a service if it's not available," Heck said.
He added he knew the company couldn't immediately provide wireless Internet indoors.
Rockwell said her company planned to better inform customers about the CPE devices.
NeoReach continues to register subscribers despite the lack of indoor wireless Internet, she said.
Rockwell said she couldn't disclose the total number of subscribers, but added the subscription count has doubled in the last month.
Heck said he was confident NeoReach would solve its technical kinks.
"We just need to work through some of the growing pains," he added.
WAZTempe is the first citywide wireless Internet network in the country, Rockwell said.
Secondary education and English freshman Amanda Aafedt, who lives in Tempe, said she hasn't had any problems with Tempe's network.
Wireless Internet lets Aafedt do homework wherever she wants, she added.
"It just gives you more of a relaxed feeling away from the campus," Aafedt said.
Ceramic art graduate student Jinsoo Song said he's used wireless Internet networks in downtown Tempe to do things like eat a snack, check his e-mail and write a paper simultaneously at Coffee Plantation.
"The [Coor] computer lab closes in the evening and weekends, and I can't bring my coffee in there," he added.
Reach the reporter at grayson.steinberg@asu.edu.
