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San Francisco's Best Hotspot Networks
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Ubiquitous Internet access is the technophile's lifeblood--we need our email, our social networking status(es), and our handy Examiner.com headlines close at hand wherever we roam.
For my money, the most attractive means of tapping the Internet across all the streets of San Francisco is WiFi networking -- all sorts of devices now boast WiFi radios, and most people have access to WiFi Internet at home and work.
When you're not at home or at work, however, you'll have to turn to a hotspot network for your WiFi connectivity. For your San Francisco hotspot network shopping enjoyment, I present you with the City's top five WiFi hotspot networks, sorted by number of locations.
1. T-Mobile -- The wireless carrier maintains a hotspot network with 96 San Francisco locations, 69 of which can be found at friendly neighborhood Starbucks coffee houses. Last February, AT&T announced that they'd be bumping T-Mobile out of Starbucks, but for now, both AT&T and T-Mobile appear to be offering service out of the coffee titan's locations.
An unlimited use subscription on T-Mobile's national hotspot network costs $29.99 per month, with a required 12 month commitment.
There's also a $4.99 per month plan that's accessible to users of a puzzlingly slim list of portable electronic devices, including the Kodak EasyShare-One, the Nikon COOLPIX S50c, Nikon COOLPIX S51c, Nikon COOLPIX S7c, Sony PSP, or Sony mylo.
You didn't hear it from me, but it's my understanding that you can hack your iPhone or iPod Touch to work with this lower-cost service plan.
2. AT&T -- The masters of Pac Bell Park maintain a WiFi network
with 100 "basic" locations in San Francisco (most of which live at Starbucks sites) along with 52 other "premier" locations.
AT&T's Premier WiFi service costs $19.99 per month if you don't subscribe to AT&T broadband services, and $9.99 per month if you do. AT&T's broadband customers get access to the basic network for free.
On a side note, if AT&T opted somehow to bend the wireless access points of its many SF subscribers into service as nodes in a giant citywide hotspot network, they'd cover most of city. The access points that AT&T provides for home users default to a network name of 2WIREXXX -- check it for yourself some time, the things are all over the city.
3. Boingo Wireless -- Boingo strings together various hotspot networks into a mega network with locations all over the world. According to their Web site, there are 10,254 nodes in Moscow.
In San Francisco, there are 190 Boingo hotspots, including many McDonald's restaurants and, yes, a great many Starbucks locations, as well.
Boingo offers an unlimited service plan for $21.95 per month.
4. Meraki -- Meraki, which I've written about a few times already, is out to make its name in the mesh networking hardware business by building a WiFi network in SF, gratis.
Meraki's network is identified by the ESSID "Free the Net," and runs to somewhere around 300 locations. I couldn't find the exact number on Meraki's Web site, so I had to resort to counting the tiny dots on their SF service map.
An annoying aspect of Meraki's network is the requirement that you first load an informational Web page from Meraki before you can use the network. Not a big deal if you're sitting at a cafe somewhere, but a pain in the rear if you're trying to grab your email quickly before your bus passes out of range of one of the Free the Net mesh routers. I briefly pass one on my daily bus route.
5. FON -- FON is an interesting wireless hotspot network in which users, called Foneros, gain access to the network by allowing others to piggyback on their Internet connection through a wireless router provided by FON.
The FON Web site lists 373 sites in San Francisco, although not all of these sites may be active all the time. If you don't share your Internet connection--which, by the way, most likely violates your home broadband terms of service--you're supposed to be able to buy access to the network, but I can't find any mention of how much this costs on the FON Web site.
And the winner is... it depends. WiFi range is extremely limited--it tops out at around 300 feet, and various sorts of obstructions will bring that number down further. The best WiFi network will be the one with coverage in the places you frequent.
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