Richmond Free Wireless (RFW) is a new community-based project with a goal of bringing free wireless Internet access to Richmond Free Wirelessthe Richmond area and, eventually, the state. That’s right: free access. The project encourages volunteers (aka heroes) to share a gateway connection from their home or business using a fairly inexpensive and easy to set-up piece of technology called a Meraki repeater. RFW was recently given some virtual ink on Richmond.com:

Explaining how to create a city-wide network can become mind-boggling, but here’s the gist. First, get a few people living on the same city block interested in sharing an common Internet connection. Each person then goes online and purchases a “Meraki repeater node” – a piece of technology that lets the Internet signal “bounce” between other nodes on the community network.

Each person then goes to their home or office, plugs in their node, and registers the node’s unique ID number and their street address on [the] RFW website, richmondfreewifi.org.

With enough participants, the nodes overlap and provide the city with more or less blanket wifi coverage.
It is good to see this exciting project getting some attention, especially this early on in the project. Getting the word out the the larger Richmond community will be an important part of making this project a success. While the wifi acees will be a free public commodity–part of the Richmond commons–it does require a handful of citizens to step up and be willing to support their little piece of the network by buying a repeater and sharing some broadband bandwidth.

The educational implications of this project are especially exciting. Free wireless, especially in and around poorer communities, is yet another way to provide lower-income students with much needed access the Internet.

If you are interested in hosting a repeater, fill out the contact form on the RFW site.