Meraki To Provide Free Ad-Supported Wi-Fi in San Francisco
Although Earthlink pulled out of San Francisco and Google’s plan to provide free citywide Wi-Fi access, Mountain View, CA company Meraki wants to take up the slack and test out its plan for low-cost ad-supported Wi-Fi in the the city.
Advertisers can hook into Meraki’s messaging and advertising platorm to have a look at the possibilities. They will offer an opening splash page when users startup the web that advertisers can access, along with a toolbar at the top of the browser.
Meraki will use a mesh network of hundreds of solar-powered distribution points combined with thousands of free repeaters that users throughout the city will volunteer to install in their homes. It will not be necessary to own one of the repeaters to use the free service, but you need to be within a couple hundred feet of one for it to work.
Meraki has been testing its mesh system in San Francisco’s Mission, Lower Haight and Alamo Square neighborhoods since spring, with about 40,000 users accessing around 500 repeaters.
With a string of failed citywide Wi-Fi clouds across the nation, Meraki is taking the low-cost approach in an attempt to make an impact. The total cost to the city is estimated to be around $5 million. Earthlink estimated their cost in the $14 million to $17 million range.
Meraki is planning on testing this type of network in over 70 countries, but obviously hopes to see it take off in one of the most tech-savvy cities in the world.
Technorati Tags: earthlink, google, internet marketing, meraki, san francisco, wi-fi
