September 16, 2008
Free Wi-Fi Network Reaches 80% of San Francisco?
At a press conference today, Meraki, the company spearheading efforts to make free wireless connection a "presence in every San Francisco neighborhood by end of the year," and Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that free Meraki Wi-Fi has spread to 80% of SF.
How it works, according to Meraki's site, is like this:
With the help of volunteers like you, we are building a network with thousands of indoor and outdoor repeaters! Each of these little boxes spreads the network a little further, bringing free Internet access to you and your neighbors. Depending on where you live, you might be able to help us out. And if you can put a repeater outdoors at your place, even better!
Oh, and it looks like the repeater comes with a nifty, electric-blue solar panel to boot. Nice. this thing at teh right instead. "The solar hasn’t actually launched yet," Meraki spokesperson Evan Solomon tells SFist. (But it's soooo pretty, we whined back.)
Also, Meraki plans to install wireless networks and offer wireless connection to 12 affordable housing complexes in the TL by next Monday -- done without the use of public funding! -- including such glamor-free living spaces as the Alexander Residence, the Franciscan, Antonia Manor, the Dalt Hotel, and the Ambassador.
Outside our 7x7-mile compound, Meraki networks "have been established in more than 125 countries worldwide. Go here to get your free Wi-Fi.
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Um, what?
This is not 80%. It's just shy of 20%. Where did that figure come from, anyway?
Oh, found it.
(Emphasis mine)
So basically, all it's saying is that 80% of SF neighborhoods have at least 1 Meraki access point. Conversely, 20% have zero.
In other words, FAIL. (Them, not you. The original statistic is clearly intended to mislead.)
i was gonna say, 80% of what part of the city? i still can not see the signal in the north mission near zeitgeist nor near 16th + bryant.
Even when you get the network it is s l o w e r than dial up in Wasilla.
It's interesting that they would attempt to impress us via deceptive infographics.
With all these little to big green blobs on a small map, conceptually the average person reads it as each of those blobs demarcates range of coverage. However, instead the green blobs appear larger *only* in relation to how many people have connected to that wireless device. So even if you have a big green blob that says '10+' covering what appears to be a 3-4 block radius, the device still only has an effective range of a cordless telephone. And those 10+ people could be in a single building.
Change the way that map is drawn so that each of those green blobs accurately reflects the extent of signal range coverage and they all turn into a minute pinpoints. Meaning that there's probably less than 1% coverage of the whole city at this time.
I give their efforts 4 out of 5 FAIL Whales.
@travin: The coverage map page also has a "total users" chart at the top, which is what I used to get the 20%. (Assuming it's even accurate, of course.) But you're right, it's probably worse area-wise.
I wouldn't say the map's deceptive, it's exactly what it says it is -- a map of Meraki hotspot users (with a histogram in the upper corner).
As for that 80% figure -- whatever, Gavin. Maybe 80% of hipster SF?
I do wish Meraki would do something about the annoying EULA screen that seems to come up every time you switch hotspots.
It makes it impossible to use Meraki when you're on the move with your iPhone and the AT&T network is the usual suckfest. Damn hipsters clogging the tubes.
Yeah, I get the logical intention of the map. I'm just observing that the majority of folks will intuitively read the green blobs (green for on...green for go...green for good) as coverage range. The map covered in green blobs means it's covered because, well, it looks covered. Only it's not.
"Yeah, I saw a google map on this website showing how much of the city is covered by free wifi. They're everywhere all over the map. This is great!"
Only they're not and it's not. Might get them some more investors though. Ra ra ra
Here's a good example.
Website screen shot
http://tinyurl.com/5dzmqt
Zoomed in map
http://tinyurl.com/5wef96
80% my ass. Inner Sunset is a major neighborhood. there is one at 2nd and irving I think. That's it. Nada at 9th/irving, 7th/irving, etc. I still can't use it.
Reminds me of my college statistics professor, who once said, "Statistics are like bikinis. It reveals a lot but hides the most important stuff."
What this comes down to is they are simply using the wrong map.
When I got one of their routers a year ago and few people were using Free the Net, that map was probably mostly those using it were probably like me and checking on their own repeaters use or curious about that level of usage detail.
Now that it's being more widely used as a coverage map, they should follow Travin's advice.
They don't publicize it anymore, but they do have a message board, forums.meraki.com, where they read and respond to postings.
I'm with Theo about the splash page, it makes the network worthless and I've trained my iPhone to ignore it entirely.
Inner Sunset is a major neighborhood
I guess not.
Gee, now that Meraki has granted us with such great Wi-Fi service in the City, I'm sure glad that Chris Daly torpedoed the Google/Earthlink free Wi-Fi.
In a related story, Comcast has begun canvassing neighborhoods with hotspots and shutting them down for violation of the TOS.
Robin give us the goods. link? =p
ohmygolly: clearly the Mission is the city.
Robin: find a real ISP.
I read somewhere that 80% of SF suburbs have at least 1 Meraki node, I guess that where the figure comes from?
Paid Earthlink or free Meraki in SF without using a cent of tax payers money?Meraki win hands down, it's a no brainer....well done for supporting an affordable housing area.
Billy
www.merakeye.com
RobinSF: That can't have anything to do with these repeaters. They don't have anything to do with your existing internet connection.
A lot of the Meraki base stations, I don't know how many of the ones shown on their map, are hung off Joe Random's DSL or Comcast service. I don't know how many. Joe Random does this in the interest of public service, of course, technically it's TOS violation. It would be easy to drive around and find and identify the customer.
I thought they worked by talking to the other repeaters to go all they way back through Meraki's internet connection somewhere, not by hooking straight in to bunch of random existing internet connections.
It works both ways.
A repeater which doesn't have it's own internet connection will look around to find a buddy in range which does and then works to relay data between you and the closest repeater with a connection.
Meraki is providing DSL to some key locations, which then gets relayed to nearby repeaters, but the repeaters themselves aren't that picky and will share an internet connection if you plug them into one.
dubious. looks like i've got a hotspot right next door, but it's not showing up IRL.
wsanders: it's a ToS violation only if you've got an ISP and not Comcast or some other web browser provider.
It doesn't reach 80% of course. As to the Mission if you check their site it says that they started in the Mission. I recall seeing signs there last year or so trying to get people to take repeaters. Almost completely forgot about it until now. Considering that it's a repeater based system it will need to slowly grow from a central area with a few nodes providing signal and a lot of repeaters spreading that. Give it some time, this isn't going to go up overnight.