Free WiFi Service WiFi101 Going Offline In East Palo Alto

WiFi101, a free service connecting underserved communities in East Palo Alto for nearly 24 years, is expected to go offline in the coming months due to aging equipment and declining use.

“We used to have about 8,000 people a month using it,” Stuart Jeffery said. “It’s dropping rather precipitously, and now it’s around 2,000.”

Jeffery is a board member at Computers for Everyone, a Menlo Park-based non-profit that helped found and then later acquired WiFi101.

He said that many of WiFi101’s former users are getting online through Comcast, AT&T or their cellphone service providers.

The cost of repairing and replacing equipment that’s nearly a decade old in many cases is also a factor in the decision to take WiFi101 offline.

“The network runs automatically, and it doesn’t cause any cost except when something breaks and we have to band-aid it back together,” Jeffery said. “It’s been pretty reliable, but it’s getting a little more flaky.”

Their website currently features a prominent warning that WiFi101 planned to go offline Dec. 31, 2014, but for now the service is still live, Jeffery said today. Google has been providing a connection to the world wide web for WiFi101 free of charge for the last seven years, but that connection was piggy-backed to a similar network in Mountain View.

The Mountain View network is currently being decommissioned, and WiFi101 will cease to function when it goes offline, Jeffery said.

Computers for Everyone may refocus its’ efforts on providing computers and computer literacy training for parents of middle school students so they’re comfortable interacting on websites.

“If these parents aren’t computer literate and they don’t have computer equipment, their kids are somewhat disadvantaged,” Stuart said. “We think this is the most valuable thing we can do to supplement what we’re already doing.”

To that end, Computers for Everyone is seeking volunteer instructors with strong Spanish language skills to teach classes on a weekly basis.

--Bay City News

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