Allconet.org is the homepage of the company of the same name, which is dedicated to providing wireless Internet service to schools, government and non-profit entities in the Allegany County, Maryland area. It is a collaborative effort among the county government, school district, library system and City of Cumberland in order to create a low-cost alternative for Internet access, offering much lower prices and similar performance to the commercial providers in the area. The service area is strictly limited, covering all of Allegany County, the cities of Cumberland and Bowling Green, and the surrounding areas.
Allconet was founded in 1996 with $4.3 million in grants and donated resources and now serves over 40 different entities in the area. As a dedicated network for non-profit use only, it is not available to the public at large. The Allconet network provides high speed Internet access, web hosting and email to nearly 10,000 computers in the region, and is nearly unique in that it is a volunteer operation. Allconet.org is supported at no cost to the taxpayer by technical staff from its partner organizations. The system uses a single point of contact support phone number, which dispatches support at need. There is also an email link to report problems. By working in this way, Allconet.org keeps subscription prices low – each member pays a flat $500 membership fee, with $50 additional for each building added to the network. This is a savings of thousands of dollars per year compared to commercial Internet service providers.
