Meraki, the San Francisco company that is providing free Wi-Fi to San Franciscans, is teaming up with the city to bring free Internet access to low-income housing projects as part of its plan to unwire every neighborhood in San Francisco.
On Tuesday, Meraki held a press conference with the city’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, to kick off its latest initiative, which will add wireless coverage to 12 low-income housing projects in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. Meraki also plans to provide Wi-Fi Internet access to low-income housing owned by the city in other neighborhoods as well as provide free Wi-Fi to senior centers throughout the city by the end of the year.
About 150,000 of San Francisco’s 860,000 residents are using the Meraki network, Newsom said. “We’re a few years from having this city covered” with free Wi-Fi access, he added.
To date, Meraki has provided its Wi-Fi gear and free access to the Internet to residents in 80 percent of San Francisco’s major neighborhoods. The company plans to continue building the “Free the Net” network in 2009, deepening coverage in each neighborhood. Currently, the network spans roughly 10 to 13 square miles, a far cry from the city’s proposed plan with EarthLink to blanket 49 square miles. But the Meraki network, which does not use city-owned assets to mount its gear, has grown tremendously. Six months ago only 2.5 to 3 square miles were covered with Meraki Wi-Fi.
Sanjit Biswas, CEO of the company, said that usage on the network is growing, despite the fact that San Francisco has one of the highest penetrations of broadband access in the country. Much of the usage is being driven by Apple’s new iPhone. Biswas said that over the last couple of months since the iPhone 3G was announced, Meraki has seen more than 20 percent of its new users coming from the iPhone. Read more…