Downtown Denver Partnership Free WiFi Zone

The Downtown Denver Partnership announced yesterday that it has created a free WiFi (as in wireless 802.11 network) zone that stretches along the 16th Street pedestrian mall from the "top" (Civic Center Station) to LoDo (Union Station), including Skyline Park at 16th and Arapahoe (which happens to be next Green Fine Salad Company, one of my favorite restaurants!). Interestingly enough, I had a very hard time finding any further information on it (including no mention whatsoever on the Partnership's web site) until I stumbled across an article in the Denver Post (from which most of this information came).

The free WiFi is limited to two hours out of each 24, and according to a report in the Denver Post, the coverage and signal strength is excellent--one person reported a very strong signal while using it inside of Starbucks at 16th and Court Place.

The network, which was designed, implemented and will be maintained by Kiva Networks out of Broomfield, CO, is being provided free to the city. Kiva will reportedly earn some ad revenue from a Web page that displays when users first log on (and they are quite obviously getting some serious free PR out of the deal too!).

The network is based out of the Downtown Denver Partnership's HQ at 16th St and Glenarm Place, where Kiva has located a central server and a wireless antenna. Antennas are located atop 16 light poles along the mall, along with a solar powered access point at the Denver Pavilions mall.

This is a great way to make the city much more traveller-friendly, IMHO--instead of paying $10-$20/day for wireless access at places such as Starbucks, people can get access for free (even while still buying Starbucks coffee!). The only losers in the equation are the WISPs (Wireless Internet Access Providers) that stand to lose out on the revenue they would otherwise be getting from those users.

I applaud the move, which follows on the heels of a similar move made by Boulder's Downtown Business Improvement District, which provides free (entirely solar powered--it's Boulder, after all!) WiFi access along the Pearl Street Mall.

For what it's worth, the network name (SSID) of the Boulder network is 'PEARL', and I will post the 16th Street network information when I get it. Curiously, the Kiva Networks Web site has to be one of the most content free that I've run into--seems they're keeping themselves busy putting in free networks or something. :-)

Update (4/19/06): I tried to connect to the free Denver network today from the Starbucks at 16th and Blake; nothing showed up on my network list other than the Starbucks T-Mobile network--and this was sitting by a window right on the mall. Hmm....seems they might need a few more APs, as the coverage is clearly not seamless from one end of the mall to the other.