Facebook Working On High-Speed Wi-Fi Network For Downtown San Jose
SAN JOSE (KCBS) – Facebook is teaming up with the city of San Jose to deliver super-fast WiFi to the downtown area in the near future.
The social networking giant is calling its next-gen Wi-Fi network "Terragraph," pronounced similar to telegraph. It involves installing metal boxes about the size of a shoe-box on light poles here in the downtown area. Those boxes will beam Giga-bit data speeds to residents and visitors.
Jay Parikh, Facebook's Vice President of Engineering, announced the partnership at the company's developers' conference.
"We're actually going live with Terragraph later this year in Downtown San Jose," Parikh said. "So it's really exciting that we'll be able to see this thing in the wild, in Downtown San Jose, and to be able to use it and test it. From there, we'll be expanding out to more cities around the world."
The Wi-Fi will be free, with minimal installation costs to the city. Facebook has promised not to collect data on users, at least during the trial period. If it's successful, the company may expand Terragraph to undeserved areas like East San Jose.