🚀 go-pugleaf

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/12/free_wi_fi_san_francisco/>

   While municipal Wi-Fi systems are being switched off from
   Philadelphia to Cupertino, San Francisco is planning to have the
   whole city connected wirelessly by the end of the year.

   Haight-Ashbury and the Mission District are already covered by the
   "Free The Net" project, a mesh network run by Meraki and paid for as
   a research project by the company, which is backed by Google amongst
   others. But yesterday Mayor Gavin Newsom said the project will be
   available to all San Francisco residents by the end of the year.

   This follows on from the last attempts to wireless-up the city, in a
   joint venture with Google and Earthlink. That project foundered on
   privacy concerns and funding problems, having someone else to pay for
   it might help this time around. Additionally this time Google is one
   step removed, which might distract those with privacy concerns.

   Certainly municipal Wi-Fi isn't having a lot of success around the
   US. Earthlink is pulling out of its Philadelphia deployment after
   offering to hand over the infrastructure to anyone who wanted it and
   failing to find a buyer. Meanwhile MetroFi is to shut down its
   networks in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino and San Jose on June
   20th, and is mostly concerned with avoiding the cost of ripping out
   the infrastructure they've got installed in lamp-posts around the
   area.

   Residents of Geneva and St. Charles, Kane County are still waiting
   for MeshLinx Wireless to start installing municipal Wi-Fi, which
   could find itself stillborn if WiMAX deployments go ahead as
   expected.

   Around the world the idea of cities providing a low-bandwidth Wi-Fi
   service to their residents for free has been considered, promoted,
   deployed and bankrupted time and time again, but that's not stopping
   San Franciso -- the city that still wants everyone to wear flowers in
   its hair, and with a mayor convinced that municipal Wi-Fi should be
   his legacy.

-- 
Best regards,   FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas      FAQ for Wi-Fi:  <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
           Wi-Fi How To:  <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems:  <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>