[1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Plaza Free WiFi

[Richard Lowenberg]

Free Wi-Fi available on Santa Fe's Plaza

By Teya Vitu    tvitu at sfnewmexican.com   Jan 23, 2020

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/free-wi-fi-available-on-santa-fe-s-plaza/article_25b1835a-3d40-11ea-85b3-1febccff8d79.html

The city of Santa Fe has quietly gone live with free Wi-Fi service on 
the Plaza.

The project, part of a wider effort by the Santa Fe Chamber of 
Commerce’s broadband working group to improve internet access across 
Santa Fe County, can be found at “SF Plaza Free WiFi.” Neither the city 
nor the chamber has publicly announced the service, but the system has 
been tested, with 7,704 unique users since April.

Local internet service provider Cyber Mesa contracted with the city to 
install and manage the system, which is fed by fiber-optic internet 
service and includes four wireless access points — point-to-point 
internet backhaul radios on the roofs of the Market Station building at 
the Railyard, where some city offices are located, and another downtown 
building.

The system provides 1 gigabyte of internet service with a speed of 10 
megabytes per second and a capacity of 1,000 users at once, said Stephen 
Resnick, who chairs the chamber’s broadband working group and is the 
owner of Capitol Computer & Network Solutions.

“If you can get 5 megabytes when you are out and about, that’s great to 
find restaurants, galleries, take a video and upload it to the cloud,” 
Resnick said. “Really, 5 [megabytes] is a good minimum.”

The working group for the past year or two has been trying to find ways 
to improve internet service across the county through free Wi-Fi, 
improved broadband and, in some rural areas, new broadband internet 
service.

The free Plaza Wi-Fi service is the group’s first completed project, 
funded with $18,859 from Tourism Santa Fe, the city’s convention and 
visitors bureau. The cost to maintain the service is about $800 per 
month, said Randy Randall, Tourism Santa Fe’s executive director.

“We wanted the Plaza to be a proof of concept,” Resnick said.

The broadband working group is composed of representatives from the city 
and Santa Fe County economic development departments, Santa Fe Public 
Schools and the Regional Economic Development Initiative Network, better 
known as REDI Net. The Northern New Mexico network is governed by three 
counties, one city, four pueblos and the North Central New Mexico 
Economic Development District.

“We do plan to expand [free Wi-Fi] from the Plaza,” said Chris Hyer, the 
county’s economic development manager and a working group member.

Justin Greene, founder of Dashing Delivery and the Tesuque Pueblo 
representative at REDI Net, said the group could easily expand service 
to the Santa Fe Farmers Market Pavilion and Railyard Park from the 
Market Station building.

In coming weeks, he said, window stickers will be made available to 
downtown businesses to bring awareness about the Plaza Wi-Fi service.

Free Wi-Fi also could come to Santa Fe neighborhoods through the school 
district, which so far has installed fiber-optic cable at 25 locations 
where wireless access points could be installed.

“It’s possible we can get a few [wireless access points] up by the end 
of the year, ” said Patricia Nordby, director of technology at Santa Fe 
Public Schools.

Free wireless internet access emerged in the 2000s, and service provided 
by local governments has since become commonplace across the country and 
around the world.

The city of Albuquerque has been offering free Wi-Fi at various 
facilities since 2006. Las Cruces just launched free Wi-Fi on Sept. 12, 
and the Los Alamos Network internet service provider has provided free 
Wi-Fi at various downtown locations for about three years.

“Where there is good internet service available, you can do free Wi-Fi,” 
Resnick said.

Santa Fe County wants to establish a network of point-to-point internet 
connections across the county, but broadband service must be improved or 
established in rural areas before that can happen, Hyer said.

The key is finding funding sources for these projects, such as Tourism 
Santa Fe for the Plaza Wi-Fi project.

The broadband working group sees potential for collaboration.

“We want to interconnect city, county and school fiber optic systems and 
provide redundancies and extend the reach of broadband access across the 
county,” Greene said.



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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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