Meraki will expand its San Francisco wireless mesh to neighborhoo...
Meraki will expand its San Francisco wireless mesh to neighborhoods across the city, it said Wednesday. The network, which offers speeds averaging 0.5 to 1 Mbps, is powered by Meraki’s DSL network and Meraki users who volunteer to expand…
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the mesh by plugging signal boosters into electricity outlets. Meraki, which has 2,000 networks around the world, is giving away wireless routers for access to the mesh in San Francisco. In other markets, the company sells indoor routers for $49 and outdoor ones for $99. Meraki has no plans to discontinue the promotion, intended to make the city a flagship market for the company, CEO Sanjit Biswas said in an interview. Showing off the mesh network’s capabilities justifies the routers’ cost to Meraki, he said. The network isn’t ad-based, but Meraki is looking into sponsorships, Biswas said. The mesh isn’t intended to compete with the muni-WiFi network EarthLink and Google are planning to build in San Francisco, he said. Meraki caters to residential users, whereas the Internet companies’ muni- Wifi network is geared to serve public safety, he said. The EarthLink-Google project is in doubt.