Silicon Valley to Receive Free Wi-Fi
199623
Companies, including I.B.M. and Cisco Systems, announced plans for a vast network that will be the largest of a new breed of wireless networks being built across the country.
458398
InfoWorld - An ambitious plan to equip Silicon Valley with wireless public broadband services is proceeding with great hopes but many challenges.
608246
By Miriam Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer  Dec. 18--The grand experiment is about to begin.   Philadelphia's push to become the country's first major city with free, or at least cheap, wireless Internet connections, takes a big step forward this month as EarthLink Inc.
620865
Intel has dropped plans to include integrated Wi-Fi in its 915G/P and 925X chipsets. The chipsets - formerly codenamed Grantsdale - were due to have Wi-Fi access points built in at launch.
737465
SAN JOSE, Calif. - A proposal to blanket 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley with affordable wireless access to the Internet stepped closer to reality Tuesday after a joint task force selected Silicon Valley Metro Connect to build and operate the network.
139174
By Jenni Laidman, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio  May 31--Toledo taxpayers could pay up to $2.16 million over five years if City Council approves a license agreement with a California Wi-Fi company.   Legislation approving the contract is expected to be submitted to City Council by June 12.
559191
A Silicon Valley start-up is  gearing up to embed free, Web-based telephone services on a  variety of popular social networking and blogging services,  including MySpace, Friendster and Blogger.
47120
By Susan Erler, The Times, Munster, Ind.  Mar. 8--MICHIGAN CITY -- The city hopes to lure more business to downtown  by setting up free high-speed Internet access in the Franklin Street corridor.
248623
Wireless networking startup Meraki plans to deliver free wireless Internet access, supported by advertising, across San Francisco by the end of the year, it announced Friday.An earlier&#160;attempt by Google and EarthLink&#160;to offer&#160;free city-wide Wi-Fi access in San Francisco&#160;foundered in August when&#160;EarthLink pulled out. They had planned a two-tier service, with faster, paid access provided by EarthLink and a more limited, advertising-funded service to be offered by Google. The search engine giant is also an investor in Meraki.Meraki will base the service on an existing project covering parts of the city, Free the Net, which has signed up 40,000 users over an area of 5 square kilometers since it began last March.To avoid the need for extensive cabling, Meraki will build the backbone of the network using a mesh network of solar-powered wireless repeaters installed on rooftops. The nodes will use some of their wireless capacity to offer Internet access to those nearby, and the rest to haul traffic back, via adjacent nodes, to the network&#39;s core.The company is looking for city residents willing to put a repeater on their roof. Those hosting a repeater will get free access to the service -- but so will their neighbors -- although for them, the signal may not be as strong. Although devices are shared, Meraki aims to deliver data rates of around 1Mbps&#160; to each user.Meraki will pay the cost of rolling out the service, and no public funds are involved, it said. Investors have offered the company an additional $20 million in venture capital to fund the move, it announced Friday.Ozone in Paris offers a similar wireless Internet service based on a network of wireless repeaters. Its service is only free for those who host repeaters, though: others must pay &#8364;18 ($26) a month.
572230
IT officials from three California cities detailed their experiences Monday with trying to set up municipal wireless networks, efforts that have yielded varying degrees of success.Speaking during the MuniWireless conference in Santa Clara, Calif., IT executives from Anaheim, San Francisco, and Los Angeles noted development plans for these networks, both for public services and to bridge the digital divide between those with Internet access and those without."Really, it?s been the applications that have been the driving force," said Robb McIntosh, information services manager for Anaheim.The city is in the process of building wireless links for public safety, public works, and other services. EDS runs the city's IT, McIntosh said. Meanwhile, Anaheim's citizen Wi-Fi network, intended for resident access to wireless capabilities, is 70 percent developed, McIntosh said.San Francisco's now-stalled efforts to build citywide wireless links were inspired by the digital divide, said Chris Vein, San Francisco CIO."[Bridging this divide] remains the driving force for us today," Vein said.Plans had called for a mesh network to cover all 49 square miles of the city. EarthLink was supposed to provide the system but that plan did not come to fruition. "Now, we're kind of stepping back, taking a big breath and looking at what we have to do next," Vein said.Anaheim's choice for paying for its citizen wireless network involves selling subscriptions. In San Francisco, payment options such as subscriptions or simply using taxpayer funds are still on the table."We're taking a look at everything," said Vein. "We haven't ruled anything out."Los Angeles also cited digital inclusion as its reason for seeking a wireless network, said Mark Wolf, assistant general manager for the city's Information Technology Agency.Wolf stressed the hurdles in having to provide wireless coverage to a city spanning 464 square miles and extending from the ocean to the mountains. Los Angeles has been doing Wi-Fi on a small basis and has been learning from cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco. The plan is at a crossroads, Wolf said."It?s a good thing that it's at a crossroads and not cross hairs, in the sites of a gun," said Wolf.?Aside from the altruistic goal of digital inclusion, Los Angeles also is equipping its police force with sophisticated wireless equipment from Motorola. Video capabilities allow police to see a scene before arriving; other features include license plate-scanning, mobile digital cameras, and facial recognition systems.In other talks during Monday's general session at the conference, Padmarsee Warrior, CTO of Motorola, stressed that multiple wireless standards such as Wi-Fi and the newly approved WiMax standard will continue to coexist. While Wi-Fi is limited to covering hot spots, WiMax is good for covering large areas."The right kind of debate for the industry to have is what combination of these technologies provides true value to public safety, to governments, to municipalities, to consumers, to enterprise, to corporations, etc., as the world becomes mobile. And the world is becoming mobile," Warrior said.Speaker Esme Vos, co-founder of MuniWireless.com, emphasized applications for wireless. These included making wireless capabilities available on public transit so people can get their work done while commuting, traffic management, and energy management. Cities such as Riverside, Calif., Tuscon, Ariz., and Milpitas, Calif., are utilizing wireless to provide city services, she said.With cities doubling in size every five years but without the ability to double the number of municipal employees, cities are looking to leverage wireless, Vos said.
542301
JiWire will offer iPhone and iPod Touch users ad-supported Wi-Fi Internet access for free in select locations.
689589
SBC Communications said Monday that it is now offering its Wi-Fi service for a special rate to its DSL subscribers. The company said subscribers of the SBC Yahoo broadband service can access the FreedomLink
33626
Blog: AT&T DSL subscribers will get free access to the carrier's Wi-Fi hotspots in airports and coffee shops around the country.
505532
(InfoWorld) - San Francisco city officials could bring the city'sÂ proposed Wi-Fi networkÂ closer to reality at two meetings this week as a key leader proposes significant changes to the plan. The network, to be run by EarthLink, has been closely watched because it is one of the biggest of many proposed municipal networks in the U.S. and because it would include a free service offered by Google. The city would sell EarthLink access to some of its streetlight poles and other locations for Wi-Fi access points. Some leaders and activists in the famously liberal city haveÂ slammed the dealÂ on issues including privacy and service and called for a network owned by the city. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will reconsider an April decision by the city's Planning Department to exempt the network from an environmental review. The San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) appealed the April ruling, saying the access points could cause health problems. The board could let the Planning Department's decision stand, strike it down or decide to study the issue further. On Wednesday, the Board's Budget and Finance committee will vote on the full Wi-Fi proposal. Unless the vote Tuesday requires an environmental review, the only remaining hurdle then would be a vote by the full board. The Budget and Finance panel will hear proposals by board President Aaron Peskin that may boost support for the politically troubled plan. Both the mayor's office and EarthLink are aware of the proposals, Peskin said in an e-mail interview. The mayor's office seems to approve of them, but Peskin doesn't know where EarthLink stands. Peskin's ideas affect aspects of the proposed contract that have drawn much of the fire. Key points include: - Increase the speed of the free service from 300Kbps to 500Kbps. (A service priced at about $20 per month would still deliver 1Mbps.) - Provide for user privacy on the free service. - Add an enforceable requirement that the network provide adequate service in all areas of the city. - Shorten the maximum term of the contract from 16 to eight years and let the city buy the network at full market value at that time. As it stands, the contract initially would be for four years and could be renewed three times, an eternity in the world of wireless technology. - Ensure the city is properly compensated for giving EarthLink access to its light poles. The city and EarthLink settled on the terms of a contract in January. It gave EarthLink the right to pull out if the plan wasn't approved by the Board within 180 days. That time has passed, according to EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso, but the company hasn't given up. The plan calls for building a two-square mile test network first before deploying the whole system. Â
517654
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has set a goal of providing free wireless Internet activity in his city that sees itself as a vanguard of the Internet revolution.
275760
It might cost you $25 to pick up a wireless access point at Circuit City, but if you want to fool around with some enterprise-level WiFi you normally gotta shell out the big bucks for some commercial-grade ceiling-mounted gear.
583742
Chip maker wants you to know about the benefits of a wireless network.