Jonathan Plesset was looking for a unique way to honor his father, Shadyside Inn owner R. Jeffrey Plesset who passed away in 1999. The late Plesset loved the community, but he would’ve hated a fountain and he didn’t like plaques. But free Wi-Fi on Walnut? Perfect.
“My dad didn’t like to draw attention to himself,” explains Plesset, co-owner of the Inn. “With this wireless network you get a splash screen and a little description that honors him. Maybe he wouldn’t have liked that either, but he would have overlooked it. Plus, I wanted to give people another reason to come to Shadyside.”
Plesset left Boston eight years ago and returned to Pittsburgh to start a tech business that didn’t pan out. Now Wi-Fi has him intrigued. “It’s a wild success,” he admits. With an initial investment of $10,000, he purchased a deck of “nodes” and placed them strategically along the Walnut Street corridor, from S. Aiken to S. Negley.
“What’s nice about a retail district is Wi-Fi signals like to go through windows. So the signal stretches into the stores.” There are some dead spots here and there, but nothing another $50 node can’t fix, he adds.
Nearly 500 users logged-on in the first week to Free Wireless Shadyside before Plesset even told anyone it was available. Plesset plans to keep Walnut Wi-Fi free, and is considering expanding into other neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill.
“Now that I've had a taste of it, there’s nothing stopping me. We could make Pittsburgh the Wi-Fi capital of the world. We should make this a priority, we are a such a tech city.”
Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Jonathan Plesset, Shadyside
Photograph copyright © Jonathan Greene