San Francisco starts offering free WiFi, but only on Market Street

San Francisco promised city-scale free WiFi nearly seven years ago, and today it's finally acting on that promise -- if not quite with the same ambition it had in 2007. The city is now offering up to 50Mbps of gratis wireless internet, but only along a 3-mile stretch of Market Street between the Embarcadero and Castro Street. This is effectively a test run for the future park WiFi project, CIO Marc Touitou tells AllThingsD; any wider coverage will depend on how well this initial experiment works out. Despite the limited coverage, this could still be a boon to poorer residents and tourists who would otherwise stay offline.