Welcome to FREENET-LONG BEACH, a grassroots effort to bring FREE public wifi access to Long Beach.

7.27.08 - 1:12 PM
I think that your idea is wonderful, and I will help the news spread via word and even thru bulletins on myspace. - Aldo

The wifi wizard contributed $650 toward use anywhere in the network.

Watch here for realtime updates of changes in the network.

Between Alamitos and Lime Avenues

Ask NOT what your public WIFI can do for you, ask what you can do for your public WIFI

Get Involved

First of all, this is about building community. It's about taking initiative to make life better in Long Beach. It also places our city among national leaders – San Francisco, Prestonburg, KY, New York's China Town, and Harvard Square Business Association – as places where PEOPLE came together, worked together, and created a viable public wifi solution that didn't break the bank and didn't have to be scrapped because it was unsupportable.

The Meraki Mesh®-style network Freenet uses is inexpensive, durable, rock solid technically, and turns the traditional economic model on its ear. We have no interest in charging for this service. The hope is that advertising by local businesses will sustain the network. But that revenue source remains just over the next hill. To get advertisers, we need users, and in order to get users, we need to build a network so they will come.

There's really three ways to get involved in helping grow FREENET:

Spread the word. Do you know residents or landowners along Lime or First Streets, or Ocean and Bonito Streets? Would they be interested in hosting a repeater?

Host a repeater yourself. For as little as $2 a YEAR, you can help provide wifi access to several hundred people, including yourself.

Buy or contribute to the cost of hardware. Each Meraki outdoor repeater, cable, hi-gain antenna and mounting costs about $250. AT LEAST one repeater is needed per city block. You can contribute any amount via paypal toward the purchase of a repeater. Your name and contribution will be announced on the site when the repeater goes online. You can also choose to make your contribution anonymously.

Every dollar received for support of the network goes into the network. There are no salaries, no bonuses, no spiffs, no company lunches, nothing. We are volunteers working on bringing the future to Long Beach today. Records of contributions and hardware expenditures are maintained in realtime elsewhere on this site.