Finally, some good news from the muni-Fi market: MetroFi says its Portland, Ore., says 11,200 unique users employed its growing network in The City of Roses. This is 40 percent more than the previous month, the company says. They've registered nearly 20,000 people over six months. May's users spent an average of 94 minutes online in each session for a total of 131,000 hours. The company says usage represents 11.5 percent of the population of their current coverage area.
MetroFi can rack up these numbers because they promote ad-supported free Wi-Fi, in which the only pain is registering, rather than paying a fee. MetroFi didn't disclose how many (if any) subscribers are paying $20 a month to avoid advertisements.
On the negative side, the Associated Press found performance slow and spotty: An AP reporter wandered through the coverage area, and only had good results from the top of a Ferris Wheel. She tested other Wi-Fi networks using the same computer from the same location, and had no difficulties.
It should be noted, that the MetroFi network does not really require "registration." Users must click through a brief form the first time a specific device connects (it requested a fair amount of demographic info when they first deployed, but now it's one or two fields).
Their "registration" system appears to work based on MAC address, and as such, the registered user numbers are very unlikely to be representative of the number of individuals using the network, as each device would count as a registration (I, personally, account for at least 5 registrations).
Presumably, since many people may own more than one computer, or may have upgraded their machine (or wireless card) since first using the system, the number of individuals using MetroFi is lower than the number of registered devices.
On the flipside, some devices are probably shared between multiple individuals, so a single registered device may represent an entire household, though given the dismal indoor signal availability that his been widely reported, it's unlikely many family PC's are connected to the network.
It would be interesting to know what the 8800 "registered users" who did not use the system in May are doing. Are they devices that were connected at one point but are no longer in use? Were they people who became frustrated and ceased using the system?
One thing is clear, MetroFi is very skilled at pumping out usage figures that suggest a growing, successful network. Whether that network actually exists, is another question. I have yet to meet an enthusiastic user.