Last month I volunteered with to help "Free the Net", sharing a little of my internet bandwidth with neighbors over a free citywide wifi network being built here in San Francisco by internet startup Meraki.

I came home from a bike ride last weekend to discover my Meraki Mini wifi repeater had arrived in the mail and for the last week I've been providing internet access for about a half dozen of my neighbors over the Meraki network.

It's a bit slow compared to my new Airport Extreme wifi network, but that uses the new (and not yet final) 802.11n wireless so I don't have much reason to switch over except to make sure its working right. Meraki also ads a small toolbar when I browse the web over their network, which I thought would be a distraction at first, but its not just annoying ads and mixes local ads (which link to reviews, not just the local shops and restaurants) and news headlines.

If I have a complaint, it's that I seem to see the same few ads over and over. I hope though they are able to cover the cost of keeping the network running and providing free repeaters to volunteers, because I like having this as a backup option if I need to access a wireless hotspot somewhere or my own DSL ever goes down and I need to get online.

You can sign up with Meraki to get a free repeater and either share a bit of your internet or just help boost the signal by putting a repeater in your window, but to just use the network is free. All you have to do is look for the "Free the Net" wifi network with your computer.