While other cities are building public wifi networks and San Francisco wrestles over touchy but important issue of building it's own or contracting it out, there's a startup has gone ahead and started building one in San Francisco.

Yesterday, the paper had a story about Meraki which is building a free wireless mesh network from the ground up. While the company is private, the network is built block by block with the help of volunteers who place a small repeater in their window (or the roof or wherever) and if willing, share a bit of their DSL or cable line's bandwidth to the network.

They'll make their money it seems from selling additional equipment and letting volunteers charge for access (like coffee shops and cafes often do) with and 80/20 revenue split. Most of what I've read has been positive and if the company does not survive, I haven't had to spend anything and just keep using my own wifi.

In order to build the network, they are giving out free mini repeaters to volunteers who sign up. I told Nick and we both signed up and offered to give some of our bandwidth to see how well this works out. Check out the coverage map and if you've tried it, let me know how well it's worked for you.