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What's happening with WiFi

by Angela Hey

A visitor from Beijing, trying to understand metropolitan wireless networks, was puzzled how a free WiFi network from Google could cover the city of Mountain View. After I told him where Google was headquartered, he immediately understood when I said "Rich company, small town."

How, in a highly competitive market for WiFi services and equipment, can Meraki Networks, a Mountain View startup (meraki.com), attract seed investment from Google and venture funding from primo investor Sequoia Capital?

First, its founders hail from MIT, where the brilliant Robert Morris, famous for unleashing an early Internet worm while his father advised the government on computer security, supervised them. Secondly, they are creating an open software platform to make wireless networks more scalable and less congested. Third, they have a vision for empowering people to put up their own community WiFi networks. Although the routing technology between the wireless access points is innovative, the business model is more fascinating.

Community wireless Internet access is a challenge. Who takes responsibility for the various service functions — installing equipment, providing Internet connectivity and billing users? In a condo complex, who is responsible for setting up and managing a wireless network: the homeowner's association, the residents, a local WiFi hotspot provider, the cable company or the telco?

Meraki can help individuals set up a WiFi service for a residential building complex, neighborhood, school, trade show, rock festival or sports event.

To get started, a user buys wireless access points from Meraki's Web site. They come in indoor or outdoor versions and, for powerless places, a solar-powered version is available. The access points (which are also repeaters) can be purchased in bulk — for example, 20 indoor access points and 20 outdoor access points, suitable for a 60-condo complex, would cost about $3,000.

The indoor access points may be deployed in living rooms or corridors and the outdoor ones near windows or on balconies. A telco or cable line can connect the mesh network of access points to the Internet which provides connection to Meraki's service. You want to read the fine print carefully, because you may not be allowed to sell service off your consumer Internet connection and may require a business line.

Meraki's service, currently hosted locally, offers a management screen to enable users to set up billing profiles and see how well the network is operating. It allows you to become your own service administrator, throttling down users so that they don't hog bandwidth and defining security policies. If you bill the users, then Meraki handles the payments and provides you with a check. Conveniently, you can monitor your WiFi installation from any Web site.

Sanjit Biswas, CEO and co-founder, told me that his main aim was to get as many access points established as possible. Interest is picking up rapidly overseas too, as many countries have higher speed Internet connections than the U.S. And now that Earthlink has pulled out of its bid to establish a WiFi network in San Francisco, residents there are picking up the challenge of wiring the city. See sf.meraki.net for a map of where you can find Meraki wireless services there.

Another company to watch is Fon (fon.com) — which not only has Google as an investor, but also Skype. You can buy a Fon wireless access point and, if you offer service, then when you are traveling and find another Fon site you can access it for free. (If you are not a "Fonero," as Fon customers are called, you have to pay.) One of Fon's key motivators is to bypass the phone company and put billing in the hands of consumers.

Meraki is joining the trend to engage users in spreading wireless services both locally and globally. There's room for both the outside-in approach of Google's Mountain View network, where the access points are on lampposts, and the inside-out approach of Meraki, where the network starts in buildings and propagates out into the streets.

Angela Hey can be reached at amhey@techviser.com.