Reprinted from the Pottsville Republican
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A Silicon Valley startup is promising to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet service, reviving a crusade that crumbled last year after two much larger companies, EarthLink Inc. and Google Inc., scrapped their plans to build a high-speed network for Web surfing.
Meraki Networks Inc., whose financial backers include Google, hopes to complete the ambitious project within the next year by persuading thousands of San Francisco residents to set up free radio repeaters on their rooftops and in their homes. The 21-month-old company is to announce its plans Friday.
The system envisioned by EarthLink and Google would have required installing transmitters on street poles and other public property, a more expensive strategy that also involved more bureaucratic red tape and political haggling.
Since starting its tests about six months ago, Meraki has given away about 500 repeaters - enough to provide high-speed wireless, or Wi-Fi, access to about 40,000 people in San Francisco neighborhoods covering a roughly 2-square-mile area.
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