Free Downtown WiFi

For those of you who are still skeptical about my contention about free Wifi becoming generally available (winks at Mr. Lion) here is a good story on what Hayward, Ca. is doing to set up theirs.

That means anyone with a relatively new or reconfigured laptop computer and a wireless card now can surf the Net at Newman Park, answer e-mail from a B Street cafe or shop online at the Hayward Library.

On cost

But, with some ingenuity on the part of the city's technology services team and a discount from the Castro Valley-based Bay Air.Net Internet service provider, the project is costing just $2,000 to launch and about$1,200 annually to maintain.

That is for their entire downtown. Heck we spent ten times that just changing the speed limit signs from 70 to 55 and then to 65, come to think of it maybe a hundred times as much.