Meraki - "(may-rah-kee), a Greek word that means doing something with soul, creativity, or love" - was founded only a few years ago as an MIT PhD project similar to - and now funded by - Google. Based on mesh network technology, the idea is simply that if you space an array of wireless broadcasts at semi-regular distances, and tune them correctly (to prevent cancellation), you can effectively blanket any region with dependable - and, generally, free - internet access. Democratizing internet access away from the mega-corps means great things for the poor, the technophobic, cafe patrons, park picknickers, wardrivers* and anyone else wishing to get interweb. Once an initial, and fat, supply of internet is provided at one central location (which would assumedly be subsidized by the state, or paid for by some non-profit), the only costs left are paying for the actual broadcasting device (router) and the electricity it needs to run.


In an effort pull the run out from under EarthLink's tentative contract with the City of San Francisco to provide a similar blanket but in a tiered pay scheme, Meraki have decided recently to start giving away their routers to any willing San Franciscan participants who, in turn, will pay for the routers electrical needs (minimal) and maintain them. Of particular interest is Meraki's most recent product debut, a photo-voltaic array that provides electricity for their (assumedly outdoor) routers, ever lessoning the costs of maintenance, and increasing their products sustainability.

Interestingly, and because of the nature of mesh networkings centralized source, the network can only organically - you have to be able to 'smell' the "Free the Net" broadcast, in order to qualify for a relay / router device, which will in turn expand the network, allowing more users to join - kind of like facebook, or gmail back in the day. (As of this moment, at 04.30h San Francisco time, just under 1 percent of the cities inhabitants are logged on via Meraki technology - realtime capture pictured below.)



In my opinion, San Francisco is testbed for their technology to see how effective widespread and free wifi will work - albeit a biased one. Of course, SF is known for its progressive and tech-savvy residents, so the real measure will happen when their network begins to spread to not-so-net-savvy neighborhoods like traditionally penny-pinching 'hoods of Outer and Lower Sunset, and the outright poor neighborhoods of Hunters Point and Bayview. Also problematic, is the city's relative 3D nature - versus a flat town, Meraki's routers have to additionally deal with a vertical broadcast, as well as horizontal. The analogy operates something like a squashed ball; the more flat it gets, the farther out you can broadcast; increasing broadcast in one direction directly reduces the distance the router can broadcast in any other.

It will be interesting to see how long (if ever) that it takes to completely blanket SF. I suspect that, at some point, Meraki will move beyond SF before this happens, and assumedly over to east and south bay.

*Note: On a trip out of SF, across the bay bridge and out towards Davis and Sacramento, Alex Zeh and i decided to attempt a measure of our beloved cities internet interest. Known as Wardriving, the practice entails driving about, registering networks, and hoping for an open one, at which point the driver parks, and email is achieved. More geek than anything else, it is particularly useful for those who dont have a local internet-ready cafe. Starting at Inner Sunset, we traversed the city (in as straight a line as possible), the tally's predictably rising. By the time we hit the bridge (an obviously wifi-free zone, owing to the lack of proximal housing) we had counted 254 networks, AND, to boot, while at the intersection of Fell and Van Ness, we were passed by somebody sitting on a bus who was ALSO wardiving, and for about 5 seconds we had an ad hoc network! (ie, we could share info, but no net access)

What a GEEK town.