Driving through town earlier today I noticed a new box on one of the traffic lights near my house. The box, mounted on above the road, had three antennae coming out of it. As I continued to drive I noticed these boxes on several traffic lights in the city as well as one on a telephone pole near the intersection of South Clinton and Westfall Roads.
After a bit of research I confirmed my suspicions that these boxes are, in fact, WiFi transceivers. Evidently (though the information is difficult to find), Frontier Telephone, in connection with Monroe County and the City of Rochester has rolled out an urban WiFi network. Information is surprisingly spotty, but according to these maps (all PDFs) [Rochester], [Greece], [Pittsford]) found on News 10 NBC‘s site, the network covers most of downtown and the “trendy” areas of the city (Park/East/Monroe, South Wedge), a chunk of Greece around Long Pond Road roughly stretching from Elmgrove to Mt. Read and from Ridge Road to Latta Road, and in the Monroe/Clover/French Road section of Pittsford as well as the village.
Free access is available downtown, at Pittsford Plaza, The Mall at Greece Ridge, and Ridgemont Plaza, and in much of the Village of Pittsford according to the maps. In other areas users can purchase prepaid access “cards” online for time in 1 hour, 1 day, 7 day, or 30 day blocks of continuous access time for as little as $1 a day. Existing Frontier High-Speed Internet customers can add the Wireless service to their existing service for about $10/month.
Despite the potential impact this project could have, prior to the research I did to write this post I have seen nothing about it other than speculation and long-term guesstimates. Although the news item on the county’s website fails to include a date, the original announcement appears to have been made on February 12th. At that time Channel 10 reported that the system was already functional in Pittsford and Greece and that the Rochester system should be available “within days.” Frontier apparently sunk $3 million into the project so far, and Maggie hopes to continue working with Frontier and the local municipalities to expand the service to include all Monroe County residents. As of this post the Frontier Citywide Wireless Internet site lists the airport as the only access point in New York state.
I’m curious about the service now. How’s the speed and security? If anyone has used it, let me know.