SF Muni Wireless Goes to Earthlink and Google

For $20.00 a month in San Francisco you will get a megabit of wireless access from EarthLink and Google. For free you get 300 kilobite.

That means this to me. First EvDO and UMTS for those who never leave the city is unnecessary. For a third of the price you can get coverage that is at least twice if not three times as fast. If you don't need speed and can live with 300 k (and most people could) you just use the free service. Personally, I'd love to see the cities add a $2.00 a day visitor's pass or something like $10.00 a week for those who don't live there but visit.

My other guess is that at some point the various muni-setups work out a roaming relationship so you can be a resident of Philadelphia and visit another city and have access.

These two ideas alone could change the way we all acces the Internet and how much (or how little) we end up paying...

Comments

[Steve Stewart]

If you are a hotelier in SanFran - getting $10 - $20 per day for Broadband access from say 75% of your business guests - I bet you hate, HATE ! Free Muni WiFi!