Free Wi-Fi Service for Affordable Housing in San Francisco

Meraki, a municipal Wi-Fi provider has announced it will "unwire" affordable housing in San Francisco, another milestone in the companyĆ's effort to bring free broadband wi-fi access to the cityĆ's residents. Already Meraki has established free wireless access in Altamont Hotel and Dunleavy Plaza, two of the cityĆ's affordable housing communities that provide single occupancy and family housing to over 100 tenants. Over the coming months, Meraki will extend Free the Net to dozens of similar communities in San Francisco.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sanjit Biswas appeared together at the Altamont Hotel and Valencia Gardens where they spoke about unwiring the city.

"San Francisco is one of the most connected cities in the country and we are excited to support the work of companies such as Meraki in their endeavor to bring wifi access to every neighborhood in the city," said Mayor Gavin Newsom. "It is due to local based companies like Meraki who blend the best technology with the best intentions and an ability to execute which make our city great."

San Francisco residents have transferred more than 25 terabytes of data on the Meraki network and activity on the network has increased 120% since January of this year. In the meantime, Meraki wireless networks continue to proliferate around the country. Thousands of Meraki networks have been established in more than 100 countries across the globe.

MerakiĆ's technology is unlike any other wireless access technology currently available. Every point in the network communicates with each access point and reports information back to a central server which can optimize speed and performance throughout the network.

Meraki is funding the entire cost for establishing the network across the city, including affordable housing communities. No public funds will be used to build the Meraki wireless network in San Francisco.

Meraki said it will initially use Wi-Fi technology to build its network, but plans on updating and improving the technology infrastructure with technology innovations developed by the company or others.

The company expects to have "Free the Net" access points up and running in every neighborhood of the city by the end of this year.

Posted to the site on 11th June 2008