In the past, a number of cities have tried to roll out free Wi-Fi service to common citizens. San Francisco has now succeeded in a similar venture by offering free Wi-Fi all along the three-miles long main street of the city.
During the last decade, San Francisco worked on installing a city-wide free Wi-Fi. The city planned to offer this by partnering with others such as Earthlink and Google. But Earthlink backed out later and the project could not be implemented.
In view of such past failures, it is good to note that SF authorities haven’t given up yet. The new Wi-Fi is absolutely free and open and anyone can access it on the city’s Market Street. Being the main thoroughfare of the city, Market Street stretches from Castro District to San Francisco Bay. In all, it is nearly three miles long and comprises of multiple lanes. Moreover, it connects to a number of important parts of the city through other roads.
The reasons for choosing Market Street are apparently many. For a start, it is the major transit route for most residents of SF, being connected to nearly all vital parts of the city. Moreover, the city authorities didn’t have to purchase any private property along the route – they have simply installed the wireless routers on traffic signals and other such government-owned property. Even most of the access points and network controllers for the new Wi-Fi have been donated by Ruckus Wireless.
According to SF authorities, the new Wi-Fi will offer download speeds of at least 2Mbps as well as upload speeds of 1 Mbps. It is connected to the city’s fiber optic in turn. The project didn’t exactly cost too much for San Francisco and will be immensely useful for the thousands of people that pass through the Market Street every single day.
Courtesy: PC World
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