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"Wireless Minneapolis" - Standish and Ericsson Resident's Experiences November 5, 2007 The purpose of this page is to allow residents an opportunity to read and share experiences with the new “Wireless Minneapolis” Wi-Fi service. "Wireless Minneapolis" is a wireless network (Wi-Fi) which will cover all 59 square miles of Minneapolis, providing residents, businesses and visitors with wireless broadband internet access anywhere in the City. For background information on Wireless Minneapolis click here. All of the Standish neighborhood is currently being serviced by Wi-Fi. Approximately half of the Ericsson neighborhood is being serviced. South of 45th street will be the last part of the city to be built out for Wi-Fi service, so residents in that part of the Ericsson neighborhood will not see service until December at the earliest - initial scheduling was for completion by December, 2007, but much of the implementation has been delayed. You will know that service is ready when you receive a notification in the mail from USI Wireless. Wi-Fi service is intended to compete with other broadband internet services, such as Cable and DSL. Click http://www.usiwireless.com/service/pricing.htm for USI Wireless pricing for each of three levels of maximum download speeds. (You can click here http://speedtest.net/ to see what your download and upload speeds are for your current broadband service.) Wi-Fi service has some limitations. Your proximity to a radio transmitter (they're placed approximately every two blocks on light poles - the closer you are to one, the better your service), structure type (stucco-built homes can interfere with the signal), tree coverage, and sometimes inclement weather can affect your service quality. The following are simply resident's personal experiences. For technical questions, please call USI Wireless at (952) 253-3262. To submit your personal experience with Minneapolis Wi-Fi to this page, please send an email to office@standish-ericsson.org and include your street and avenue (i.e. 40th & 28th Ave) and any information you think would be beneficial to others in the neighborhood. Thanks! 1. 36xx 25^th Ave S - I'd give it a "C-" here in Standish.  Half-a-block from nearest antenna; aluminum siding on my house.  Paying for 1-3 Mb/s. Have only once seen speeds higher than 1500 kb/s (regular speedtest.net testing), this is both with the Ruckus and with laptop's wireless receiver.  Service highly intermittent.  Usually lose connection on average twice an hour.  Have complained to USI Wireless and asked for explanations as to low speeds and service interruptions.  Unsatisfied responses to questions on survey resulted in email from sales asking me to contact them regarding subscription plans.  My sad experience thus far: less dependable than dial up, three times as expensive as dial up, not that much faster than dial up.  I'm crossing my fingers that things improve because I entered into a two year contract in August.  Caveat emptor. Yesterday, on my third call to tech support, I requested, as I always do, some candid information and/or a technical explanation/assessment of what's going on.  This tech, who was extremely understanding and knowledgeable, gave me some honest insights, some discouraging, others encouraging. I explained to the tech how much I appreciated the candor, it's much easier for me to be patient and consider riding out a rough patch (if that's what this is) when I know I'm not being fed a smokescreen of canned responses.  As I become more familiar with the technologies involved and their limitations, I'm beginning to see that a major problem here is terrible management of consumer expectations, combined with borderline false advertising coming out of marketing and sales. All that said, I really want this system to be successful and hope USI Wireless can come through with some fixes or they're going to see some very disappointing subscription rates in the future. 2. Hi there.  I signed up for USIWIRELESS and I live at 39xx Standish Ave.  I bought the modem and everything.  Well, unfortunately the wireless would only work on the south side of my house.  So I would have to use my computer in the kitchen, bathroom or bedroom.  Also, cordless telephones, and stereos interfere with it.  Well, as we know the houses in S. Mpls are small, so your cordless telephone and your stereo make it pretty inconvenient.  Since I need the internet for school, I have cancelled my subscription with them and I am getting a full refund back.  I will check back with them in 6 months to a year to see if it has improved. I will have to say that everyone at USI Wireless was very nice and very helpful.  Also, you are not calling anyone in India, as of yet.  You talk to someone in Minnetonka also.  Someday, I hopefully, will be able to use them and share in the great discount package. Added November 12, 2007: 3. 38xx 22nd Ave S - With the introductory offer (pay for one year, get a second year free), the USI wireless service is significantly cheaper than our cable internet service was. However, it is also much slower and less reliable than cable. We have a stucco house, which may be part of the problem. We usually balance the modem on a window sill, and it typically works for day-to-day internet use. Sending attachments is almost always a problem, and occasionally we don't get any reception at all. Unplugging the modem or rebooting the computer sometimes works to re-establish the connection, but not always. Added January 8, 2008: 4. You can read about WiFi experiences in another neighborhood (Tangletown) at this website: http://members.tcq.net/bruemmer/wireless.html Added April 1, 2008: 5. 37XX 25th av s, corner house, no stucco. I have a laptop and ordered the roaming service so that I could use my service around the city. Not only does the service not work half the time in my house (the USI conductor is right outside my window) but does not work anywhere in the city consistently. I also have had problems with billing and have been disconnected mistakenly. I have called service so many times that I am at wit's end. It was even suggested that my Internet Explorer was the problem so I started using Mozilla, to no avail. Today when I talked to technical service, they could offer no assistance other than to say that I was connected now, so they can't see the problem. I thought that maybe my computer settings were incorrect to work with their service, and they could not help me with that either. The only solution, they said, was for me to get a modem. I also use this service for college, failed an exam, and was told by a technical service agent that it wasn't the end of the world. I really hoped that this service would be good for Minneapolis, but it sounds like I am not the only one who has experienced problems, although USI tried to make me feel as though I were. Added February 19, 2009: The transmitter at 38th St & 28th Ave S is the main WiFi access point we use, in combination with the Ruckus modem we bought from USI Wireless for our house. Over all I now give the service an "A". We are just over 1 block away from the transmitter, live in a stucco house and do not have a direct line-of-site to the transmitter (it is blocked by a 2 story brick building). We moved to the neighborhood in April 2008 and became customers. Initially, the service was spotty and sometimes didn't work at all. We nearly gave up after numerous telephone calls to their customer service line, but instead, made an appointment for a technician to visit and properly scan our house for the best placement of our antenna. Since that visit, our service has been greatly improved. We pay for 3Mb/s service, and more often than not, see benchmark speeds of about 3.5Mb/s up & downstream (I haven't seen a benchmark slower than 1.5Mb/s since the tech visit). We have no trouble streaming multiple feeds of video from Netflix of Hulu.com at the same time. If you're having problems, you should request a technician visit, which I think is now a requirement for new customers (also call them if you're having other issues). Now that the kinks are worked out for us, I feel that the service can't be beat for its price and roaming privileges around the city! [Return to top]