US Internet’s (USI) municipal wireless pilot project (Belair equipment) is on my block with three access points — one in front of my house and one on each corner. This is the south pilot; Earthlink is running the north pilot (check my posts here and here).

The closest access point, which I can almost see through the foliage from the second-floor window on my left) seems to be down. It doesn’t show up on my Mac and even when I wandered outside and stood below it, I got only a weak signal which I think was coming from one of the corner nodes.

I walked over to the corner node, sat on the curb under the antenna, and jacked into the USI network. Smokin’! Using Speakeasy, I tested download speeds up to 4Mbps and upload speeds even faster.

I walked down to the other corner and my connection switched seamlessly to another node. Coverage (line of sight) seems pretty good on my block.

In the course of wandering my block, I came across at least twenty-five Wi-Fi access points. Most were secure but not all of them.

Watch the Wireless Minneapolis site for information on accessing the network during the pilot.