In the wake of EarthLink’s retreat from the market and a general absence of vendor partners willing to foot the bill to build out free city-wide networks, it seems that more and more cities are finding Meraki Networks’ community-based approach attractive. The latest is Ypsilanti, Michigan, which will use the Meraki model to provide free wireles Internet access to residents and tourists downtown.
The downtown service, announced this week, is a result of the efforts of Wireless Ypsi and the largesse of the downtown business owners what will sponsor the service.
Wireless Ypsi hopes that the project will demonstrate how wireless broadband can support economic development by attracting new companies to the city and that it will make the Internet more accessible to tourists and local residents. No news there. Those are the motives behind most muni Wi-Fi launches. What I find so interesting about this deployment is its use of Meraki’s technology to build out the mesh from the central downtown area. According to Wireless Ypsi’s press release “with enough community involvement, they hope to spread it throughout the neighborhoods” using a community-based business model.
This essentially is the plan in San Francisco where Meraki itself announced plans to build out a Wi-Fi cloud after a proposed city partnership with EarthLink collapsed.
Click here to read the press release.
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