Looks like the Chron picked up a couple of memos on Meraki, San Francisco's seemingly last bastion of hope for free public WiFi. The WiFi fairy has been making its rounds around the city over the past months— Bernal Heights, the Castro, and Noe are already wired. It's a simple plan, really: residents volunteer to host so-called repeater antennas that essentially "talk" to one another, spreading the love around. Screw you, Comcast and AT&T. Gavin loves it— our indefatigable mayor was recently spotted traipsing about the rooftop of a Mission SRO hotel, marveling at the technology (which looks like an over-sized computer mouse— yes, those things still exist). Public housing projects are now receiving priority WiFi treatment, as most have no Internet service. An estimated 15,000 antennas will be needed to cover the whole city. Sign up, people. In other, completely contradictory news, other WiFi startups around the Bay Area are tanking straight to hell, with many outlying places (Cupertino, San Jose, Santa Clara) losing hope by the moment.
· Different sort of free Wi-Fi starts to thrive [Chron]
· Cities have to bid bye-bye to free Wi-Fi [Chron]
· Free Net for the Nabes [Curbed SF]
· Free the Net For Bernal Heights [Curbed SF]
· Noe Next Up for Free WiFi [Curbed SF]
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