Dear Pearl & SoWa: Kiss off

That seems to be the message from MetroFi and the city of Portland, which flipped the switch Tuesday on their fancy dancy wi-fi network.

While huge chunks of inner Northeast and Southeast (from the river to almost 30th, and from north of Broadway to South of Hawthorne) are covered, the same can't be said of the Pearl District or the new South Waterfront District.

The downtown chunk of Wi-Fi coverage stops at Burnside on the north end (except for a couple of slivers that run up Northwest 10th and 13th) and leaves even Portland State University in the wireless wilderness by stopping cold at Market Street on the south side.

That's not to say the Pearl and SoWa couldn't be covered by expansion down the road, but I find it surprising that the two "up-and-coming" areas of downtown are not covered by the free wireless network