Downtown Raleigh Testing Free Wifi Access?

Coming Soon to DTR

October, 01, 2009 , by Jedidiah

We mentioned back in March that downtown Raleigh was set to add Free Wifi access in the core area of downtown, between Morgan, Person, South and West Streets. Seven months later, it looks like Raleigh is starting to test this service.

I could be completely wrong, but in the past few weeks, a new wireless network has started popping up in this core area. The network is called ‘raltest’ and it seems to have variable strength within downtown, depending on your location. You cannot connect to the network, clicking on it does nothing for your computer/wireless device except spin and then release. These two facts lead me to believe that the city is starting to install routers around the area and testing their strength in various zones of downtown. The signal isn’t very strong in most locations yet (as displayed in the above image that was taken while on the Busy Bee Cafe’s upper outdoor courtyard).

It shouldn’t be long now before we start seeing some of this implemented. The project was supposed to be “completed this fall”. Could it happen or will it likely be early 2010? Considering that September is the peak of online traffic, they may want to wait a bit longer.