by Leo Suarez

All About Downtown Raleigh FREE Wi-Fi and More


Click to see the full map.

Reading about New York City’s recent expansion of Wi-Fi in city parks made me start to think about what we have in terms of free connectivity to the internets while being outdoors.

As a refresher course for those that don’t know, there is free, public Wi-Fi in certain sections of downtown Raleigh. Take a look at the map above for the covered areas but simply put if you are standing outside and are around:

  • Nash Square and City Government Complex
  • Fayetteville Street
  • Wilmington Street
  • Raleigh Convention Center
  • Moore Square
  • City Market

you should be able to pick up the signal, labeled “Downtown Raleigh FREE WiFi”.

The City of Raleigh provides the Wi-Fi service and you can get more information about it here.

Now having the Wi-Fi is great and all but I’m curious to know how many people actually know about it. Walking the sidewalks of Fayetteville Street, there is no way to know that bandwidth is buzzing around you. I think for some visitors, it would be useful for them to know that they are in an area where there is free, public Wi-Fi.

In a subtle way, maybe it would be helpful to let people know of this service. I put this sign together really quickly to illustrate one possible idea.

The wireless symbols above the 100 indicate that this block has Wi-Fi. Signals on the blue wayfinding signs could also be added. There are lots of ways to go about doing this.

Similar Posts:

Comments

Comments are disabled here. That's because we're all hanging out on the DTRaleigh Community, an online forum for passionate fans of the Oak City.

6 Comments

  1. Ya know, I don’t even think the Downtown Alliance’s page even mentions it. They’ve got maps for R-Line, they should just add a pink shading to the areas with wifi.

  2. People come into Starbucks all the time and ask about free wifi. Unfortunately the one in the Mariott doesn’t have it, but when we mention DTR Wi-fi they are usually surprised.

    Novel idea Leo with the street signs.

  3. Businesses located within the WIFI zone were given a decal to help highlight the coverage area. Of course, it was optional for them to display, but they are visible from the storefronts. Those same businesses also received brochures with information about the WiFi with maps that show the coverage area. More information is available on our website at http://www.godowntownraleigh.com/about/downtown-raleigh-free-wifi. We even have information on our http://www.YouRHere.com homepage so that people can easily find it. Hope this helps.

  4. Cool idea, love the techy signs.

    Leo, how about we bring you into the 21st century and add a Like button to your blog posts? You know you want to.

  5. I barely use Facebook so haven’t thought of that. I’ll see what it takes and if I can put a very small like button, I could get behind it.

    I’ll walk down to Fayetteville Street and add that over the City’s Wi-Fi. :)

Comments are closed.