MuniWireless

This is an update to my earlier article in which I reported that the BART Wi-Fi network was in jeopardy because of lack of funding. Glenn Fleishman posted a comment to the article saying that Wi-Fi Rail, the company installing the network for BART, called him to say that the project is still on track and that they have “raised the money they need for the next 12 months.” (Wifinetnews)

Like everything in this space, which has been hyped beyond the…

The Bay Area Rapid Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area may not be installing a Wi-Fi network on its trains after all. The San Francisco Examiner reports that Wi-Fi Rail, the company hired by BART to install the network, does not have sufficient funds. Wi-Fi Rail says however that BART has not yet signed the contract so it’s hard for them to raise money, especially in this environment.

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…

While Naperville, Illinois has said no to free Wi-Fi, San Francisco is forging ahead, this time riding on the coattails of Meraki, a Mountain View based company, whose goal is to cover the city with free Wi-Fi access. Meraki has begun providing free Wi-Fi service to the Altamont Hotel and Dunleavy Plaza, two of the city’s low-income housing projects. They plan to extend coverage to other areas in the city. Already parts of the Mission, Noe Valley and Bernal Heights…

Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive is donating bandwidth (via fiber) to San Francisco housing projects, the first of which to be connected is Valencia Gardens. Residents will get fast, free Internet access. Actually the project is spearheaded by Ralf Muehlen (SFLAN, which is an initiative of the Internet Archive), Tim Pozar (United Layer), Michael McCarthy, Bruce Wolfe, etc. All have been critical about San Francisco’s deal with EarthLink, which is now dead.

For those of you with short memories, recall that San…

Riders on board one of San Francisco’s Muni buses got a taste of free Wi-Fi and informational touch screens this week as the transit authority debuted its  ‘connected bus.’

The bus, which is a green as it is unwired,  had a special guest on board in the form of a Cisco representative to help users with the system. The Wi-Fi connection is routed through a Sprint data network using Cisco equipment.  In addition to providing public service, the system connects to the bus’s operational…