Meraki in the News
Public Offering “A grass-roots wireless network is flourishing in San Francisco. How was it built? Citywide public Wi-Fi networks have had a rocky history.” 7/08
Mesh Network Creates Low-Cost Muni Wi-Fi for Kentucky Town “Prestonsburg, Ky., was hardly the first city to turn to municipal Wi-Fi in hope of spurring economic growth. Like counterparts throughout the country, local leaders figured that free wireless Internet access could help them attract new businesses.” 7/17/08
Two cities bet on wireless future “Two Downriver cities are investing in wireless Internet networks for their business districts, betting that technology will help attract young and mobile consumers to their downtowns.” 7/4/08
Meraki brings free WiFi to 100,000 San Franciscans “Months after Earthlink gave up on providing municipal wireless service in San Francisco, a company called Meraki is quietly moving forward with its plans to blanket the entire city…” 6/3/08
A Tale of Two City Wi-Fi’s “Different approaches to wireless Internet access in San Francisco and neighboring Silicon Valley are producing very different results, with one project springing up around the city and the other inching through regulatory procedures.” 6/3/08
Different sort of free Wi-Fi starts to thrive “San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that citywide wireless Internet access is slowly becoming a reality despite political infighting - and that 144,000 residents will be surfing the Web for free by the end of the year …” 6/12/08
Meraki Unwires SF’s Neediest “Even if San Francisco’s high-profile, city-wide Wi-Fi network with EarthLink and Google was a fundamental flop, residents of the city that need it the most could still get some free wireless broadband.” 6/11/08
Free Public Wi-Fi in Harvard Square “The Harvard Square Business Association (HSBA) has been working in collaboration with the City of Cambridge, Harvard University, and Harvard Square Business Association members to deploy a mesh network to provide Free, Outdoor Wifi Access to the public.” 6/5/08 - Watch the video recap on Network World TV.
Meraki is offering free Wi-Fi to San Francisco. Why? “Meraki is not in the business of just blasting money out the door, which it appears to be doing in San Francisco, and there is a method to this program.” 5/15/08
The Hot Zone “Park bench or Barcalounger? For a while, it seemed as if that would soon be the biggest question for urban dwellers wanting a little Wi-Fi. Just a year ago, dozens of cities across the country” 3/21/08
Meraki Aims to Link Up a City “Meraki Inc. plans to offer free high-speed wireless Internet access throughout San Francisco this year, betting that low-cost technology and help from users will bring success where other municipal Wi-Fi projects have failed.” 1/4/08
A low-cost route to the Web “California start-up Meraki powers several thousand wireless networks across 70 countries, bringing the Internet to those who otherwise could never afford it.” 12/12/07
Meraki Mini Wins Popular Science Grand Award for Computing “With a simple $50 box, Meraki Networks hopes to spark a worldwide Wi-Fi revolution. The wireless router lets a city block, or even an entire village, share the same Internet connection.” 10/13/07
Community Wi-Fi Comes to San Francisco “This is really just a showcase to prove that grassroots groups can provide free Wi-Fi, And it’s an approach that gets a network up in a weekend rather than waiting months.” 8/14/07
Grassroots Wi-Fi Movement Spreads Around San Francisco “A grassroots movement is taking hold in San Francisco to do what the city hasn’t been able to do - provide free Wi-Fi internet connections to entire neighborhoods.” 8/15/07
MIT Technology Review A Free Mesh Network for San Francisco “Their mission is a good fit with the mission of our team: to promote competition in the Internet access space,” says Minnie Ingersoll, a product manager at Google’s Alternative Access Team. “It’s about getting more people online, giving them more choices.” 8/16/07
San Fran Finally Gets Free WiFi—But Not the Kind You’re Thinking “You can think of mesh networks as the next step after WiFi. Today, there are tens of thousands of WiFi hotspots around the world. But each one extends broadband Internet access no more than a few hundred feet. A mesh network ties these WiFi routers to each other to create a bigger network that can cover a neighborhood or even an entire city.” 06/2007
Meraki raises $5M to “connect the next billion people” “Want a dirt cheap Internet connection for everyone in your apartment building? Meraki Networks offers a way.” 2/4/07
Wireless Internet for All, Without the Towers “An intriguingly inexpensive alternative has appeared: a Wi-Fi network that is not top-down but rather ground-level, peer-to-peer. It relies not on $3,500 radio transmitters perched on street lamps by professional installers but instead on $50 boxes that serve, depending upon population density, more than one household and can be installed by anyone with the ease of plugging in a toaster.” 2/4/07
