Green line indicates free wifi coverage along Market Street
Green line indicates free wifi coverage along Market Street
In a deal with AT&T that San Francisco made last fall, the SF Department of Technology and Information Services (DTIS) is working with the telecom to survey lamposts, street signs, and other surfaces in order to setup a free wifi network along Market Street. Municipal wifi has long been a wish of many San Francisco residents and politicians with stunted results at its implementation in the past. Though this current project is not truly city-wide wifi, the network, once activated, will run from the Castro all the way down to the Ferry Building.
Some people may have already seen a wifi network with the name "attwifi" around the city. That network name (or SSID) will be the name used or the free wifi locations once the system is setup. Installation and maintenance of the wifi network will all be handled by AT&T with no apparent impacts on taxpayers. According to SF Examiner, the terms of the deal also stipulate that users will not have ads injected into their browsing experience. Though it's nice to think that this will truly be free (and yes, maybe it will be) it's hard to believe there will be no strings attached. We've emailed Supervisor Scott Wiener's office to find out if he has any comment on the project.
AT&T has not given a date for when the project will be completed, but once it is, the free access will be available for 5 years.
Commenters over at the Examiner have cried out "not fair" that their neighborhoods would not be receiving free wifi. "Sunset Resident" said, "It's not fair!!! Why is always market street and castron area have free wifi? They should build some free wifi for the Sunset District!!! Are all citizens equal?" Another commenter, "anonymous aka 2e2" said, "Thanks to Marc and San Francisco for enabling drug dealers on Market street to be more efficient in their trade... Also for enabling AT&T to monopolies San Francisco. When you get corporate at$t gread nothing is free!!!! If AT&T is spending money to install wifi stuff it is look to benefit from the investment..."
The free wifi, from what reports indicate, seems to be more geared towards smartphone and tablet toting tourists and pedestrians than Netflix/Hulu streaming home users. We sent Ron Vinson, SF DTIS Director of Media and project contact, a few tweets (couldn't find his email) asking for details on the network's range (how far coverage will extend from the street), speed, and bandwidth caps (the ability to limit access based on accumulated usage). We'll update you on details when we have them.
(via SF Examiner)
