WiFi provider offers free service in several Silicon Valley cities
Mountain View's MetroFi, which offers wireless Internet connections across multiple Silicon Valley cities -- much like a coffee shop ``hotspot'' -- announced today that it will offer its service at no charge.
The catch? Customers surfing the free network will have to view banner advertising on their browsers. MetroFi's business-model change offers a look at a large-scale wireless Internet -- or WiFi -- system in action at a time when governments across the country are considering bringing the technology to their citizens.
MetroFi now offers WiFi to residents across 25 square miles of Santa Clara, Cupertino and Sunnyvale. Since MetroFi launched its networks about a year ago in Santa Clara and Cupertino, residents could subscribe to the service, which did not include advertising, for $19.95 a month. Customers still have the option of paying for the service to keep it advertising free.
Both paid and advertising-supported services offer the same data transfer speeds of 1 megabit per second downloads and 256 kilobit per second uploads, comparable to DSL speeds, according to MetroFi Chief Executive Chuck Haas.
The company, which is private, began offering free, ad-supported WiFi in certain parts of Sunnyvale last month and found that the business model was effective. More new customers joined the free service in Sunnyvale in just a few weeks' time than joined the fee-based service in the other cities in an about nine-month period, Haas said. The company therefore decided to invest in expanding a free network rather than in marketing the fee-based service.
The catch? Customers surfing the free network will have to view banner advertising on their browsers. MetroFi's business-model change offers a look at a large-scale wireless Internet -- or WiFi -- system in action at a time when governments across the country are considering bringing the technology to their citizens.
MetroFi now offers WiFi to residents across 25 square miles of Santa Clara, Cupertino and Sunnyvale. Since MetroFi launched its networks about a year ago in Santa Clara and Cupertino, residents could subscribe to the service, which did not include advertising, for $19.95 a month. Customers still have the option of paying for the service to keep it advertising free.
Both paid and advertising-supported services offer the same data transfer speeds of 1 megabit per second downloads and 256 kilobit per second uploads, comparable to DSL speeds, according to MetroFi Chief Executive Chuck Haas.
The company, which is private, began offering free, ad-supported WiFi in certain parts of Sunnyvale last month and found that the business model was effective. More new customers joined the free service in Sunnyvale in just a few weeks' time than joined the fee-based service in the other cities in an about nine-month period, Haas said. The company therefore decided to invest in expanding a free network rather than in marketing the fee-based service.
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