The map below shows with red dots the locations of the WiFi 101 basestations within the city of East Palo Alto. Each of these base stations transmitts a WiFi signal on 2.4 GHz to the user. Pictures of selected WiFi 101 basestations are shown here.
Each of our WiFi 101 basestations must be connected to the internet. This is accomplished by another radio link operating on 5 GHz and is shown in the figure as a dotted line. Each basestation connects either to the 4 Seasons Hotel or to 525 University. The 4 Seasons Hotel is connected to the GooglePlex near Shoreline in Mountain View via a 5 GHz connection, shown as a green line on the map.
The 5 GHz link is connected to the Internet backbone though a fiber connection provided by Google.
This means that when a user connects to the Internet using WiFi101, the signal first connects to a nearby WiFi101 base station on 2.4 GHz, then the data flows over a 5 GHz link either directly to the roof of the 4 Seasons and from the 4 Seasons over another 5 GHz link to Google, were the data connects via fiber to the Internet. This means the user is really connecting over three radio links to Google and then to the Internet.
The operation of the network is possible through the contributions of many supporters. Various schools, churches, community centers, etc have made their roof available for mounting antennas. The 4 Seasons Hotel has made their roof available for the very critical function of concentrating the connections to the individual basestations scattered throughout the city. The radio link from the 4 Seasons to the GooglePlex uses equipment that was donated by Alvarion. At the GooglePlex we are interconnected to a very high speed Internet connection provided by Google.
updated Nov 10, 2010