WILL WI-FI FLY?: Mebane, Graham Consider Offering Free Internet Access
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By Isaac Groves, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.  Jun. 24--Shawn Jackson is close to getting an online degree in health care management, so he uses the Internet a lot.   There is a chance he could one day get online sitting outside in his city's downtown.
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Blog: AT&T DSL subscribers will get free access to the carrier's Wi-Fi hotspots in airports and coffee shops around the country.
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Networking consortium submits proposal for faster Wi-Fi, as battle lines are drawn between rival groups.
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WIRELESS Internet service is not only the wave of the future, but the wave of the present. Wi-Fi hot spots are everywhere, and mobile Internet devices are so numerous, it's impossible to keep track of them.
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By Jeffrey Kelley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.  Jun. 8--You can get high-speed Internet and phone service in the Richmond metropolitan area in a new way: from thin air.   Clearwire Corp.
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For all the buzz about municipal Wi-Fi networks, getting a system off the ground can be an arduous process mired in a tangle of politics and conflicting needs and laws, experts say.
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Tired of new wireless technologies? Then stop reading. Because here's a story about a new wireless system that could someday eclipse the Wi-Fi service you've just begun to understand.
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Meraki Networks&#39; plan to cover San Francisco with free Wi-Fi, with residents&#39; help, could be a way around the political and business barriers some municipal wireless projects have run into.The startup, partly funded by Google, believes it will succeed&#160;where EarthLink and Google did not: Building Wi-Fi access throughout San Francisco at no cost to the city. It expects to finish by year&#39;s end, filling the whole city with 1Mbps coverage.The catch is that Meraki is footing the whole bill on this project so that&#160;it can learn how to roll out such networks for profit elsewhere. The good news, if the plan works, is that it could do so for less than $5 million, lower than the cost many other municipal wireless projects have run into. That&#39;s partly because of intelligence in access points and software, making the network more robust with fewer nodes, according to Meraki spokeswoman Erika Shaffer.Meraki will build the backbone of its network with solar-powered rooftop access points and fill out its coverage with smaller repeaters to sit in windows or on balconies. Both will be designed and built by Meraki and provided free to residents and businesses that agree to house the gear on their property in return for better coverage. All the nodes will be meshed, so Meraki won&#39;t have to get wired broadband links everywhere its access points go.The idea has potential in developing countries with little broadband, where Meraki sees its biggest market, but also in highly wired cities such as San Francisco, analysts said.A key advantage is that by asking users instead of the city for mounting rights for its gear, Meraki will bypass the rancorous political fights over contract terms like the one that slowed down EarthLink&#39;s initiative last year. But seeking volunteers also makes sure that however fully Meraki has actually covered the city by the end of the year, it is pretty sure to have coverage where people actually want it.&quot;You know exactly where your coverage needs to be, because someone just asked you for a repeater,&quot; said IDC analyst Godfrey Chua.Meraki believes it won&#39;t have any trouble getting people to host repeaters in their homes, based on its existing test networks in parts of San Francisco, Shaffer said. There are about 500 repeaters today, and about 40,000 people have used the network, she said.Another problem that would seem to solve itself, assuming the network and distribution system run smoothly, is the difficult issue of indoor coverage, said Craig Settles, an independent municipal network analyst at Successful.com. EarthLink&#39;s network was to be built largely on streetlights and electricity poles, which are well suited to mobile outdoor coverage, but not so good for providing home broadband to residents who can&#39;t afford wired alternatives, Settles said. Meraki&#39;s small repeaters are designed for indoor coverage in the home where they&#39;re located as well as to flesh out the whole network.On the San Francisco network, which Meraki will treat as a research and development cost, the company will test advertising as a possible revenue source for future deployments. When it approaches service providers that want to charge for access, it will also offer a billing system. Meraki has trials going on today with carriers in developing countries, Shaffer said.In places where most people don&#39;t yet have broadband, Meraki&#39;s approach could be an attractive low-cost alternative, analysts said. However, WiMax, which requires far fewer base stations than Wi-Fi because it has a longer range, also has relatively low costs and is already a competitor in those markets, Chua said.&quot;I doubt that Wi-Fi would be the dominant access medium in emerging markets,&quot; Chua said.
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Wireless networking startup Meraki plans to deliver free wireless Internet access, supported by advertising, across San Francisco by the end of the year, it announced Friday.
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Meraki, a Silicon Valley startup, pledges to "free the net" and it will expand free Wi-Fi coverage beyond two San Francisco neighborhoods to an additional six communities within the city. With funding from Google and Sequoia Capital, and a lot of community volunteers, it might work.
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A plan to blanket San Francisco with Wi-Fi fell apart last year, but now a startup named Meraki says it plans to deliver free, ad-supported Wi-Fi access in in the city.
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Backers of a Philadelphia Wi-Fi project are worried that a bill going through the state legislature would spike a plan to blanket the city with free or inexpensive wireless access. [Broadband Blog]
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Company launches free test version of service that fosters popular Internet activity.
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A Silicon Valley startup is promising to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet service, reviving a crusade that crumbled last year after two much larger companies, EarthLink Inc. and Google Inc., scrapped their plans to build a high-speed network for Web surfing.
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Long-range wireless networking technology draws market interest as low-cost service.
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The FCC says it's inclined to let Web surfers go wireless on airplanes. Yippee! But they might allow in-flight cell phone use, too. Oh.
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Letters And cheap tinsel worries wifi fans