As part of the city's efforts to embrace technology as a democratizing (rather than polarizing) force, Mayor Ed Lee announced today the first step in a long-awaited municipal Wi-Fi service. Starting today, you'll see "_San_Francisco_Free_WiFi" among your available networks when strolling down Market Street.

The Wi-Fi network only covers Market Street for now, but stretches from the big rainbow flag in the Castro to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. Mayor Lee, always the optimist, said today: "A quarter of a million people traverse Market Street every day, from all walks of life ... Now they can access information, find out when their next bus is coming, or peruse local job listings, all for free. This is a significant first step in my vision of connectivity for our city." (Caveat: "for free" sort of ignores the cost of entry of, you know, buying a smartphone or laptop.) Thanks to the city's staunch defense of porn accessibility, we assume this new service will render the Crazy Horse strip club at Sixth and Market obsolete as well.

Unlike the Google-sponsored Wi-Fi coming to city parks between April and July of next year, the three-mile-long Market Street hotspot was built with $500,000 worth of technology donations and a 1 gigabit Internet connection from Silicon Valley companies Ruckus Wireless and Layer42 Networks, respectively. [Note: The Examiner disputes the speed, but says it will reach a minimum 1 megabit upload and a 2 megabit download speed.]

According to the city's Chief Information Officer Marc Touitou, it was easier and faster to have the city handle the setup and his group will be responsible for maintaining the system moving forward. Having not tried it ourselves yet, we can't say if connection speeds will hold up under load or if, like our municipal transit system, it will just break down and take forever to do anything.

More information available at http://www.sfgov.org/sanfranciscowifi.

Previously: Google To Give Free WiFi For 31 S.F. Parks
[Chron]
[SFEx]