MetroFi

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MetroFi is a provider of municipal wireless network service in several cities in the western United States. In most of its service areas it provides an unencrypted, advertising-supported "free" service as well as a WPA-encrypted, ad-free "premium" service for approximately $20/month. As of 2006, it bandwidth was restricted to 1 Mbit/s down and 256 kbit/s up. Coverage and performance of the premium and free service are otherwise identical. MetroFi also provides fixed-wireless service.

[edit] Rollout

MetroFi started offering conventional WiFi wireless Internet access to municipalities in 2005.^[1]^[2] It began offering free, advertising-supported, unencrypted, low-bandwidth wireless Internet access in late 2005^[3]. A test^[4] of the ability to get a connection in outdoor areas within 500 feet of an access point in the Portland proof-of-concept network in the early spring of 2007 showed about a 58% probability using a standard 30 mW, low-gain client device. The report concluded that the probability the network was providing a connection to those devices in 90% of outdoor areas, as called for, was 2 in a billion. The Portland network is less than 30% complete, and as of October 2007 further deployment has been halted. The contract^[5] with Portland requires MetroFi to complete the network by August 2009. A group monitoring the Portland network estimates that the network is providing a 90% probability of getting a connection outdoors in about 4% of the city's footprint^[6].