Manhattan’s Bryant Park Selects Meraki to Provide Free Public WiFi
SAN FRANCISCO – July 19, 2011 – Meraki, the leader in Cloud Networking, today announced the deployment of Meraki’s wireless LAN solution throughout Bryant Park in Manhattan. Bryant Park Corporation’s network provider, Sky-Packets, deployed Meraki to provide free WiFi throughout the 9.6-acre park for all visitors.
The award-winning Bryant Park, located on 6th Avenue between 40th and 42nd, includes the longest expanse of grass in Manhattan south of Central Park and is a prime New York City destination for locals and tourists alike. Daily attendance counts often exceed 800 people per acre, making it the most densely occupied urban park in the world.
Bryant Park has offered free WiFi since 2002. But the explosion of demand for wireless Internet access caused by the proliferation of tablets, smartphones, and laptops necessitated an upgrade. Bryant Park Corporation selected Meraki for a more robust solution that would support heavy usage and provide better management and reporting.
“Bryant Park was one of the first to offer free WiFi in the city,” explained Henry Quintin, CEO of Sky-Packets. “Their 2002 network set a standard for WiFi at the time, and many people took advantage of the free service. As new WiFi devices became popular and the demand for the network escalated, it was clear that the existing infrastructure needed a change. By implementing a Meraki wireless mesh solution, we have been able to increase coverage, capacity, and throughput throughout the Park. Bryant Park has once again set the standard for free public Wi-Fi access.”
George Townley, Director of Information Systems for Bryant Park Corporation, confirmed that new mobile devices are having a huge impact.
“We used to see a lot of laptops in the park, but now it has shifted to smart phones and iPads,” he said. “Usage is going up astronomically.”
Since the Meraki deployment, the Bryant Park network averages over 20,000 distinct clients per month. Monday night movie nights are particularly crowded, with nearly 2000 users on the network. During such busy periods, Townley utilizes Meraki’s built-in layer seven application traffic shaping to maintain quality of service for everyone.
“The very fact that we have that level of control with Meraki is great,” Townley said.
DNA Info recently named Bryant Park one of the best hotspots in the city, and Townley says users are delighted with the new network.
“We follow the Twitter feeds, and in the past we would only see comments if the WiFi was down or slow,” he said. “But since we put in Meraki, all the feedback seems to be positive.”
About Meraki
Meraki is the leader in Cloud Networking. 100% cloud-based from day one, Meraki’s architecture delivers out-of-the-box security, scalability, and management to enterprise networks. Meraki has been deployed in over 18,000 customer networks worldwide, including Stanford University, British Telecom, Burger King, Starbucks, and M.I.T. Meraki was named a visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Wireless LAN, and won Techworld’s Wireless and Mobility Product of the Year. Meraki is located in San Francisco, California, and is funded in part by Sequoia Capital and Google. For more information, visit www.meraki.com.
About Sky-Packets
Sky-Packets is a forward thinking company whose mission is to provide Wi-Fi mesh technology to Property Managers, Developers, Municipalities, Commercial and Business Districts. With Wi-Fi Mesh, Sky-Packets offers a lower-cost, higher service level alternative to accessing high-speed internet service. Sky-Packets, a division of Corporate Biznis, Inc, is based in Nassau County, New York and is a privately held company.
About Bryant Park Corporation
Bryant Park Corporation (BPC) is a not-for-profit, private management company and a cooperating business improvement district of neighboring property owners. It was established by Daniel A. Biederman and Andrew Heiskell, with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. BPC was formed to restore historic Bryant Park, which had suffered a severe decline in conditions in the 1970s. It is the largest effort in the nation to apply private management backed by private funding to a public park, and it has been a success with the public, press, and nearby institutions.
