Like many online publications, I got the Meraki press release whose title reads “MERAKI ANNOUNCES FREE PUBLIC WIFI AVAILABLE IN 80% OF SAN FRANCISCO NEIGHBORHOODS”. When you look at the Meraki map of users (below) you will see that Meraki does not cover 80% of San Francisco at all.
Large areas of the Sunset District have no Meraki network (unless of course you consider 14 people all clumped in one location to be meaningful coverage). Other areas with barely any Meraki networks include SOMA (where I am staying), Forest Hill, Downtown, Financial District, St. Francis Wood, Richmond, The Marina, North Beach, Chinatown, The Presidio, Dogpatch, Potrero Hill, North and South of Golden Gate Park, The Haight and Glen Park.
Many publications like CNET simply reprinted the headline claiming that Meraki has covered 80% of San Francisco with free Wi-Fi, which it has not, judging from this map.
While I applaud Meraki’s efforts to bring free Wi-Fi to San Francisco and I’m really keen on seeing someone pick up where EarthLink left off, I have a problem with (wired or wireless) broadband infrastructure companies claiming to have coverage in an area if they have even one user in an area code. In the case of Meraki, all you have to do is click on the map above and look more closely. Most of their users are clumped around the Mission, Dolores Park, and the Castro. The rest of SF is fairly empty.
UPDATE: Meraki’s response (sent to me via email 17 Sept 2008)
“We did not count a neighborhood unless it had at least 5 repeaters installed, which usually means about 15 users. Obviously this isn’t full coverage, but it does mean we didn’t just plug in one repeater and claim the ‘hood. The public map (http://sf.meraki.com/map) only shows repeaters with 100% uptime for the last 24 hours. So if there’s a repeater that didn’t have a signal for 30 minutes or something, it won’t show up on the FTN site but it was still an active node for 23 hours and 30 minutes. In some of the less populated neighborhoods this is going to have an effect until the penetration grows.”
Seems like they’re pretty upfront about where they have and don’t have coverage on the website/map. I don’t think I’ve seen any other muni-deployments show that level of detail.
The press release definitely seems inflated, but one would hope reputable services like CNet would do their homework before publishing a company’s press release.
I read somewhere that 80% of SF suburbs (42 of the 58) have at least 1 Meraki node which is where the figure originated, it’s a bit misleading.
Paid Earthlink or patchy free Meraki in SF without using a cent of tax payers money?Meraki win hands down for me…
Billy
http://www.merakeye.com
Bill,
You are mistaken about EarthLink taking tax money. Their model in SF, Houston and other places is NOT to take public money. On the other hand, cities that have used taxpayer money for their networks, e.g. Minneapolis, where the city is an anchor tenant and is using the network itself, seem to have functioning networks.
The success or failure of a municipal broadband (wired or wireless) network does not depend upon whether public money is used for the network. It depends on a variety of factors, the use of public monies being only one of them.
The US fixation on NOT spending money for critical infrastructure and upgrades — whether roads, bridges or fiber and wireless networks — shows up in the quality of that infrastructure.
I believe that every situation has to be approached with an open mind: does it make sense in a particular case to use public money? If so, how much and what should be the model? The answers to these questions will depend upon what kinds of services should run on the networks and the types of users. Many municipalities also made the mistake of simply adopting the EarthLink model, without thinking what was really the best one for their community. Each community is unique.
Why is it important to even cover 80% of the city?
The best place to provide city wifi in SF is on the Embarcadero from the ballpark to Aquatic park. Why? a lot of foot traffic (all those iPhones and blackberries looking for wifi), and many tourists – free wifi can offer them information about places to go, shops, etc.
Let’s remember that the Earthlink/city of San Francisco attempt of “city wifi” ended in nothing, and while showing 100% coverage is always good press, the service needs to be initially deployed where people will actually use it, and where there is some commercial merit.
Why not link Meraki to other cafes and free wifi spots by the embarcadero to create continuous WiFi all along the Embarcadero? I am sure that the thousands of baseball fans walking to the ball game from the ferry building will use it. Isn’t that the important factor: build something that people will use? ask Steve Jobs.
Arnon Kohavi
co-founder, WeFi