In the heart of the nation's Top Digital City, there's hubbub about a hub.

A wireless hub, that is, and a failure to communicate through thin air in downtown Roanoke.

Actually, hubbub might be too strong a word. Phones have not exactly been ringing off hooks with people complaining that the city's Wi-Fi network downtown is about as reliable as a drive-through speaker at a fast-food joint.

Roy Mentkow, director of Roanoke's department of technology, said reliability has been an issue.

"We've had frustrations," Mentkow said. "The system is up, then it's down. That's even worse than it being down all the time."

Ultimately, he said, people struggling to log on to the Internet with laptops or Blackberries will give up and say, "I'll just go over to Mill Mountain," where the coffee shop boasts its own wireless network -- which allows Internet access without a physical connection. And Roanoke, which was a leader in providing free, municipal wireless access, faces becoming one more city wondering whether the dang thing is worth the trouble.

As to service glitches, Mentkow emphasized that the Wi-Fi network is not really the city's baby. Cox Communications has a contract to keep the system up and running, he said.

In turn, Mike Pedelty, a spokesman for Cox, said the contract with the city obligates Cox to provide the level of service available when the contract began last October.

The system will need additional equipment to increase its reliability, he said -- equipment the city and Downtown Roanoke Inc. would have to purchase.

Kathy Kinsey, marketing and business retention manager for DRI, acknowledged Wednesday that the city's highly touted, public access wireless zone has, of late, been completely down in parts of its comparatively limited reach and not entirely reliable elsewhere.

"We have been having regular reports for a couple of weeks that it has been down," she said. "It's not down in every area. But I'm certainly not satisfied that it is working as well as it could be."

DRI and the city split the annual cost, about $4,800, for Internet access provided by Cox Communications. After a competitive bid process, Cox became the provider and steward of the system, Mentkow said.

With the Wi-Fi system in glitch mode, people with digital devices are having trouble sending and receiving information in the downtown zone, via the Internet.

There is no clear answer yet about the cause, or causes, of the disconnect. It might be the Wi-Fi equipment at the "hotspot," or hub, the placement of existing antennas (or a need for more) or a network issue.

On Wednesday, Pedelty said the company's network is working fine. Cox Communications will attend a Sept. 28 meeting, he said, that's designed to identify why the wireless network isn't performing as it should.

For its population size, the city of Roanoke was the nation's Top Digital City in 2006, according to the Center for Digital Government, based in Folsom, Calif. The award honors local governments that provide an array of services for residents via the Internet.

Meanwhile, the city continues efforts to attract to the Roanoke Valley the kind of people likely to appreciate and use a reliable Wi-Fi network downtown -- young professionals.

"Wi-Fi is one of those amenities, among many, that is going to attract young people," said Stuart Mease, a city economic development employee whose focus is attracting and retaining young professionals.

"There's no doubt that Wi-Fi downtown is a good asset," he said. "But I don't think people are going to move here just for the Wi-Fi."

Nationally, many cities, ranging from Dayton, Ohio, to Austin, Texas, as well as counties, including Bland, have set up free, public access Wi-Fi systems.

Some local governments offer wireless access as an economic development strategy, hoping to appear hip and happening to entrepreneurs and young professionals. Others target the lingering "digital divide" that separates those with Internet access from those who might not even own a computer.

Yet, according to recent articles in The Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily, some cities are having second thoughts about providing free or cut-rate wireless access. Costs are high, and demand has been lower than expected.

Much ballyhooed in September 2003, when then-Gov. Mark Warner christened the system, Roanoke's free wireless network hasn't been entirely reliable since start-up, Kinsey said.

"It has never been a perfect animal," she said.

That seems to be true elsewhere, too. The Wall Street Journal reported that the sway of leafy trees in Minneapolis has bedeviled Wi-Fi signals there.