MALONE -- Franklin County was selected to host a pilot project to bring free high-speed Internet access to rural areas where there is little or no service.

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Chateaugay and Burke will be the first communities to try it with hopes to expand to the Saranac Lake-Tupper Lake area as well as Bombay, Fort Covington and beyond.

At the same time, work will begin to bring fiber-optic service to connect communities globally, to attract economic development in the North Country and to increase opportunities for health-care networks, education, e-government, distance learning and emergency services.

Julie West, director of the Community Broadband Network, along with county Information Technology Director Rob Green, explained the pilot program during a presentation to legislators Thursday.

Her office and the Technical Assistance Center at Plattsburgh State, which had initiated the Adirondack-Champlain Community Broadband Network, are working to create an open network to which digital-service providers can bid for the new rural-customer base that would open.

She said the competition will drive down prices for all Internet-service users.

The Mountain Lake PBS broadcast tower in Lyon Mountain will transmit a signal to a receiver atop a 400-foot tower affixed to the summit of Averill Peak.

From its elevation of 4,100 feet, Averill Peak will send the wireless signal to both communities just shy of the international border with Canada.

From there, about 100 families within the Chateaugay Central School District with either slow dial-up Internet service or no service at all will receive free wireless access for six months.

To obtain service, each home will be issued an antenna a little larger than a television remote that is encrypted so no one can use a laptop or other computer to tap into it.

After six months, households can either pay a monthly user fee to retain the service or discontinue it, she said.

Requests for proposals are expected to go next week to digital-service providers who want to bid on bringing the wireless connections to Chateaugay and Burke.

West said that during the Sept. 1 to Feb. 1 trial period, she will survey students, for example on how much the service was used by the families, what type of data was sought and for what purposes, and if and how much students' homework and grades improved. There will be no electronic monitoring.

Those survey results will help determine if additional grant money can be obtained to expand the pilot program into the other areas and how long those ramp ups will take, she said.