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W-B Area officials, Auditor General reps about high school

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945 apply for Section 8 during Luzerne County Housing Authority one-day opening Thursday

<p>WILKES-BARRE TWP. &#8212; The Luzerne County Convention Center Authority on Thursday moved closer to approving a contractor for a WiFi upgrade project at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.</p><p>At a special meeting Thursday, the authority gave the project consultant Synergistic Networks the go ahead to work with Turn-key Technologies Inc. of Sayerville, New Jersey on putting together a package to design and install the wireless network infrastructure in the arena. The price is still to be determined.</p><p>Synergistic Networks of Wilkes-Barre, hired in June by the authority at a cost of $13,485, prepared the Request for Proposals, reviewed the bids and set up a matrix to score vendors. Kris Wingard, director of technical services for Synergistic, said the review was done in conjunction with the director of (Information Technology) for the arena&#8217;s management company ASM Global and Turn-key was the top choice.</p><p>The project involves a full-scale replacement of the network infrastructure in the arena for point-of-sale access, to meet the needs of ASM, provide free WiFi to the public free and take care of future needs, Synergistic officials said.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s important that we have an infrastructure upgrade to handle that,&#8221; said Jason Davis, senior network engineer with Synergistic. &#8220;The infrastructure here is not capable of that.&#8221;</p><p>Authority members asked about the bids in order to compare them, but were informed the numbers wouldn&#8217;t be disclosed.</p><p>&#8220;We really can&#8217;t discuss price while this is an ongoing process and (the vendors) did say that their numbers were proprietary,&#8221; said Donna Cupinski, vice chairwoman of the 11-member authority. &#8220;So we&#8217;re not prepared to discuss that right now.&#8221;</p><p>The cost will be discussed later when Turn-key&#8217;s package comes up for a vote, added Authority chairman Gary Zingaretti. The purpose of the Thursday&#8217;s meeting was to give Synergistic authority to go back and work with Turn-key on the final design and pricing, he said.</p><p>&#8220;So the board will get another opportunity to review this before it goes forward,&#8221; said Zingaretti.</p><p>The timeline for the project also was unknown at this point.</p><p>Wingard said initially it was estimated that the project would take three months to complete. But the timeline depends upon the availability of products, how quickly Turn-key&#8217;s people can get here and access to the building, he explained. The first home game of the 2019-2020 season for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins hockey team is Oct. 12 and the arena has shows and events booked for months. In addition, the job comes with its own challenges.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a very complicated, highly technical design and install, so it will need time,&#8221; Wingard said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza is seen in Wilkes-Barre Township. The Luzerne County Convention Center Authority on Thursday moved closer to approving a contractor for a WiFi upgrade project at the arena. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_Arena.cmyk_-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza is seen in Wilkes-Barre Township. The Luzerne County Convention Center Authority on Thursday moved closer to approving a contractor for a WiFi upgrade project at the arena. </caption0><photoCredit0>Times Leader file photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Arena WiFi project still a work in progress