Six square kilometres of internet airwaves in downtown Toronto will start being switched on by summertime, with Toronto Hydro Telecom promising to activate the financial district in June, and the remainder of the area blanketed by WiFi before the end of 2006. While most of the speculation leading up to this announcement surrounded how much the service would cost, those details will only emerge after a free trial period puts a crimp in scattered efforts to sell WiFi packages in coffee shops. Just over a year ago, Second Cup announced a deal with Rogers to facilitate the services for $9 an hour, plans that expired at the end of the allotted time regardless of how many minutes were used. What a difference 12 months makes, since this plan will apparently leave those telcos in the lurch far as Toronto’s core is concerned, while making a public utility seem hep to the cravings of its customers in a way that mascot costumes never could. With news of the plan leaking out over the weekend, execs from Rogers and Telus were quick to spin Toronto Hydro’s scheme to juice up traffic lights and hydro poles with internet signals – arguing a tendency to underestimate the billing, marketing, maintenance and customer support infrastructure could result in unmitigated disaster. Yet, the wake-up call has been ringing at corporate headquarters for a while, with the likes of McLuhan blogger Mark Federman wondering last summer why at least one of the service providers wasn’t pushing for a municipal alliance. At least the formal unveiling gave Mayor David Miller an opportunity to call the WiFi plan “a historic moment in Toronto’s development as a world-class city”. Sure to follow will be complaints that WiFi is just another civic folly – commenters on Slashdot are also wondering if pronouncements about this initiative lavishing low-income persons with internet access aren’t overrated. But the project oughta reduce the need to evoke The Criminal Code in regard to piggybacking amongst the bourgeoisie.
Toronto’s golden age of wireless internet
March 7, 2006 · 10 Comments
Categories: fouronesix
10 responses so far ↓
Glen // March 7, 2006 at 6:58 pm |
Listening to CBC Radio One’s social worker/news readers say how this will help low income people access the internet in Toronto made me role my eyes. How many low income people have laptops?
Let’s see…………paying the rent or buying a Powerbook. Tough choice.
Do these types of news releases have to mention that whatever is being built/constructed/produced in TO that low income people will benefit to get the media to broadcast it?
Edward // March 8, 2006 at 4:46 pm |
As a computer consultant who happens to live in the centre of the proposed deployment area, as well as a former computer instructor at the post-secondary level, I have been constantly teaching about the day where we will find workers sitting on a park on a sunny day doing their work on a park bench while watching their kids play. This day is soon coming, and I am excited at the news of easy Internet accessibility. Having experienced it in other major cosmopolitan areas (even Fredericton, New Brunswick has wi-fi everywhere) it is about time that people realize that information access should be as fundamental as electricity. To address the person’s previous comments above, there have already been accounts of the sub-500 dollar laptop being available for everyone (I think it was actually around 100.00) so event low income people will be able to access it. If they do not have a laptop, public access terminals should be made available (probably like a vending machine). This is possible. and it will be safe.
Glen // March 8, 2006 at 6:38 pm |
I seem to recall Bell Canada putting high speed internet kiosks in places like bus terminals a few years ago. People were charged a twoonie or so for a couple minutes of surfing. But the bus station near me took the kiosk out last year. No one used it.
I’d like my municipal government to concentrate on basic services like snow removal, garbage collection, public transit, etc and leave wi fi to the private sector.
Elizabeth // March 9, 2006 at 10:50 am |
As a low income retired senior citizen, I am thrilled at the idea of using even my cheap outdated computer to access the internet to keep up with the world and my friends and family! What a wonderful idea. The airwaves belong to everyone, and now we can use them in a very meaningful way. While knowlege is power, communication makes it possible. I don’t have extra money to pay the telephone or cable company for an internet access, so this will truly help.
alanTdot // March 9, 2006 at 11:17 am |
Elizabeth. This service will be free for six months only.
Tom Casar // March 10, 2006 at 6:43 am |
The idea is great, but it somehow amazes me that while everyone seems to be worried about the health aspects (in a world already covered with wireless signals), that the words “security” has not been mentioned even once in all the articles I have seen. Do you want to send your credit card number out with thousands of laptops listening in? I will not be convinced until I see the security policy for this intiative.
Sonny Bonds // March 10, 2006 at 2:47 pm |
To address two concerns I’ve heard:
1. Health worries – If you wardrive anywhere in downtown TO, you’ll see *thousands* of wireless access points. This is simply going to add a few hundres more access points that the public is allowed to use. (Yes, of course you can use many of the existing access points, but some people would argue that if you were not explicitly invited, you’re tresspassing. Whether or not you agree with that is another topic
2. Tom Casar mentioned the security of a WiFi network. Typically open/public access points to not use WPA or WEP encryption (of course, WEP is very crackable and shouldn’t be relied on anyway). BUT, even though you have no encryption on that layer, you can still (and always should, whenever possible) have encryption on the application level. When you buy something on a wired network, you want to ensure that your browser/IM client/etc. is using encryption if you want any sort of security. When you don’t use encryption — wired or wireless — you should assume that anyone and everyone can see what you’re transmitting (because it’s trivial for anyone on the same subnet of your network, the subnet of the network that the machine you’re connecting to, and any router or network in between the two nodes to intercept your message). That’s just an inheirent aspect of the technology .. when you send something across a network, it’s not a direct connection from machine to machine (even on a “peer to peer” network). There are many, many “middlemen” in between.
Not using encryption is like sending a postcard: the mailmen are free to read your message and no one will ever know.
As for the security of your machine (not getting owned), I wouldn’t want to have an unpatched and/or un-firewalled machine on a ANY network. Wireless or not.
-Sonny
craiger // March 10, 2006 at 3:59 pm |
sounds good – but, being in the Bay Area with Google nearby, free wireless access in San Fran and eventually every major urban centre is what is planned sounds worlds away better than a pay for service – but it is a start
Sky Falling // March 10, 2006 at 8:21 pm |
The idiot police say it will be open season on porno downloading.
gggg // March 11, 2006 at 1:05 pm |
Some people are interested in the social & cultural implications of Hydro’s network — check http://wirelesstoronto.ca
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