MetroFi Portland week-in-review
Posted by Russell Senior on 19 January 2008In the Willamette Week piece last week, Lucie Poulicakos (vice president of operations at MetroFi) said that corrections to the map could be expected in a few days. This week we drove back to the 36 locations that the MetroFi map showed were “In service” but that we had found were not. In our recheck we found that there were indeed some incremental improvements, and found evidence that at least 6 of the SkyPilots had been physically touched. Here’s what we found:
(Read on …)
You are welcome, I guess
Posted by Russell Senior on 9 January 2008
In today’s Willamette Week, MetroFi is named Rogue of the Week based largely on our recent survey. In the piece, MetroFi’s vice president of operations Lucie Poulicakos calls our report “useful” and promises that corrections are on their way. We are perplexed by the “useful” characterization, given that the information we provide should be easily within their grasp as a simple matter of operating their network. Largely, what took us 35 hours of driving around should be immediately available to them from their network management software.
We hope the promised corrections are better than the ones we’ve seen so far this week, with SE 8th and Division Place finding itself relocated to rural Clackamas County. As for the network itself, the SkyPilot with the dangling power cord was, as of yesterday afternoon, still dangling and still marked on their map as “In service”.
Slight modifications to MetroFi’s map appear
Posted by Russell Senior on 8 January 2008Sometime on Sunday or Monday (January 6-7, 2008), a few new changes to the MetroFi map appeared:
- The SkyPilot map location at SE 9th and Division is removed and replaced with one at SE 8th and Division, however:
- They still claim it is “In service” and had it been operating during our recent survey (Dec 19-30, 2007) we surely would have noticed it had it moved a single block;
- The latitude/longitude they provide for the new location is out near Estacada, which seems rather unlikely.
- New SkyPilots appear on the map (the SkyPilots themselves were there already) at three locations we had noted in the survey summary we posted recently:
- SE Hawthorne Blvd and 92nd (they repeat a typo of “BL VD” from another entry);
- SE Stark and 76th; and
- SE Stark and 90th.
- The missing status that we had found at the SW 1st and Meade location has been fixed to read “Coming soon”.
It is important to say that Unwire PDX Watch is not out to get MetroFi. All we are out to get is The Truth. As far as we can tell, substantial errors remain uncorrected (and new ones have been introduced) on the MetroFi map.
MetroFi’s Portland network slipping into unmitigated decay?
Posted by Russell Senior on 5 January 2008A couple weeks ago we commented on how, despite earlier assurances, dozens of new access points did not appear to be going live over the last few months. We had based this observation on 
a comparison of roughly weekly snapshots of the MetroFi map. Since October 26, 2007 the map has recorded the following changes:
- between October 31 and November 2, a “Coming soon” access point appeared on the map at 4400 NE Broadway
- between November 9 and 18, that “Coming soon” access point disappeared from 4400 NE Broadway and reappeared at 416 NE Brazee
- between December 1 and December 14, the “Coming soon” access point at 416 NE Brazee was replaced with an “In service” access point at 2432 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. In the same period, a latitude/longitude correction was made, moving the spot on the map intended for SE Division Street and 57th Avenue about 1000 feet from SE Lincoln to SE Division.
When Chuck Haas said that the service area had expanded substantially since October, we were perplexed by the disparity and inquired to MetroFi about just which new access points had gone live since October. We are still waiting for an answer. Their map indicates anemic growth at best. But then we began wondering, just how accurate is that map? There is only one reliable way to find out. Go check. So, between December 19th and Decemeber 30th we spent about 35 hours doing just that. From the locations provided on their map, we endeavored to drive underneath each one of the 677 SkyPilot access points that MetroFi claims exist.
(Read on …)