“District to Seek Wireless Internet that Aids Poor”
Washington Post,
Arshad Mohammed,
Thursday, March 9, 2006

The D.C. government is preparing to ask companies to bid on building a wireless Internet system through much of the city, including free service for low-income residents.

But unlike other municipalities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco that have commissioned such networks city-wide, the District plans to give its contract to the company that goes furthest in serving low-income residents with free Web access and even free computers and training.

This is a valuable idea that the City of Toronto should be paying more attention to. In all the discussions surrounding the potential impact and applications of Toronto Hydro Telecom’s proposed wireless mesh architecture, there has been far too little conversation about how the new network can be used to reach underserved communities and small businesses.

D.C.’s Mayor Williams describes the rationale for his unique approach to municipal wireless:

“Access to technology is like access to books: it’s an important medium of communication and learning and opportunity,” Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said yesterday in an interview. “Other cities are doing it and I want our city doing it too.”

Williams said he was not worried that some areas might get left out. “I think there is sufficient market incentive to serve the other areas of the city. The problem is there isn’t sufficient market incentive to serve the lowest-income parts of our city, and that’s what I am trying to do here.”

The winning company would get an exclusive, eight-year franchise to attach wireless devices to District-owned street lights and buildings. This of course, is a key difference between DC and Toronto, since Toronto Hydro purchased Toronto’s street light system for $60 million last year, and as an independent operator, doesn’t require City approval to run its network.

The approach taken by D.C.’s mayor underlines the potential of a city-wide mesh. That is, leveraging the lower-cost of wireless networking technology to meet the needs of underserved individuals, communities, and small businesses. The D.C. plan demonstrates foresight, and while not entirely replicable in Toronto, is an admirable example of innovative leadership.

The debate continues to swirl around Toronto Hydro’s Tuesday, March 7 announcement. One of the most prominent and obvious elements of the discussion revolves around how Toronto Hydo Telecom’s plan will change the consumer/enterprise broadband market. In an article by Mark Evans, the telco’s weigh in with their predictable opposition:

Mike Lee, chief strategy officer with Rogers Communications Inc., said he cannot understand why Toronto Hydro, which is owned by the cash-strapped city of Toronto, wants to enter the Internet access business, because it can be expensive to operate and maintain.

We see the other side of the argument in an ITWorldCanada article, where Mark Els emphasizes, “the proposed network poses an obvious and very serious threat to traditional telcos such as Bell, Telus and Rogers because the service will be much more than consumer-grade.”

Moreover, the company is not new to offering secure, enterprise-class Internet connectivity. Among its customers are four of Canada’s biggest banks, who use Toronto Hydro Telecom’s Gigabit Ethernet fibre optic network to transfer data between their Toronto sites.

Lawrence Surtees, vice-president and principal analyst, communications research at IDC Canada Ltd. is also quoted in Els’ article. He is supportive of the Toronto Hydro’s entry into the market, and assesses, “ubiquitous coverage combined with high bandwidth makes Toronto Hydro Telecom’s offering a strong, viable alternative to the cellular carriers.”

Surtees also muses, “It starts to make sense why incumbent phone companies such as Verizon in San Francisco and SBC in Philadelphia have their knickers in a knot about comparable muni-services down there; and why I think Bell, Telus, Rogers are going to be possibly freaking out over this.”

Surtees’ overview of the Toronto Hydro Plan, “Toronto Hydro Lights Up GTA with WiFi Blanket” is also worth checking out. Among other things, it lists Canadian municipalities already offering WiFi access services. They are: Fredericton, Calgary, Whistler/Kamloops, Hamilton, Sault Saint Marie, and Ottawa.

Apologies for regurgitating a press release, not terribly good blog style. But hopefully this will be of interest to some.

Wireless Toronto welcomes news of Toronto Hydro WiFi Plan, hopes for Public Consultation

TORONTO, March 8 – (http://wirelesstoronto.ca/blog/)

Local community group Wireless Toronto has expressed a positive response to yesterday’s Toronto Hydro announcement.

The group sees Toronto Hydro Telecom’s plan to blanket Toronto’s downtown core with WiFi as an ambitious one with far-reaching consequences. Bearing close resemblance to municipal wireless initiatives in Philadelphia and San Francisco, Toronto Hydro’s plan expands the local internet access market. Continue reading →

Here’s a slightly trimmed and webified version of the map for the coverage of the proposed Toronto Hydro WiFi network. The original is available as a PDF.

Toronto Hydro has taken a smart approach to building the network as an independent commercial venture, because it makes it more difficult for Bell/Rogers/Telus to complain about unfair competition. Comparable municipal wireless initiatives in the US have been heavily bogged down by lobbying and lawsuits from incumbent telcos.

But the downside of this approach is that Toronto’s citizen’s needs are much less likely to be addressed, because city council may not have any influence over the project.

Toronto Hydro has made no mention (and maybe never will) of several issues of importance to Torontonians:
– the need of underserved communities and small business
– public consultation process
– a commitment to permanent free access in public spaces
– the timeline and priority for expansion of the network beyond the downtown core

Toronto Hydro today announced that they’re deploying a wifi network. Here’s a summary of the details they’ve released:
– it will launch in 5 stages:
— phase 1: front to queen, church to spadina (end of June)
— phase 2: queen to college, church to spadina (before the end of September)
— phase 3: college to bloor, spadina to yonge
— phase 4: spadina to bathurst, front to queen (by the end of the year)
— phase 5: front to queen, church to parliament (by the end of the year)
— (a map is available on their site)
– it will offer 100% coverage in these zones
– it will be free for the first 6 months (meaning June – December, or six months from launch in each zone?)
– after that the rates will be “competitive” with Bell, Rogers and Telus, with four rate plans to choose from (competitive with their cell-based wireless Internet service rates, or their wired broadband Internet service rates?)
– the access points will be installed on lampposts
– it will offer “seamless” service, so that users don’t need to reassociate with networks as they move around
– Toronto Hydro is owned by the City of Toronto
– it’s being funded entirely by Toronto Hydro
– in the future, it will extend outside the downtown core — their goal is to “blanket” the entire city of Toronto with wifi
– it will be the largest wifi zone in Canada

link to the original article

T.O. to become wireless hotspot
Toronto Star
Mar. 6, 2006.
TYLER HAMILTON

Toronto Hydro Corp. will announce Tuesday that it plans to turn Canada’s largest city into one giant wireless hotspot, directly challenging the country’s major mobile phone carriers for a chunk of the $8 billion a year wireless market.

With the deployment, which sources say could be available in the downtown core as early as this fall, Toronto joins a growing list of North American cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans and San Francisco, that have announced plans to bring low-cost, broadband wireless access to their citizens and businesses.

This announcement came as a surprise today. My first reaction was, “It’s about time!” While cities like Seattle, NYC, and Montreal have used WiFi to provide no-cost public internet access for many years now, Toronto has lagged. Sure, our own grassroots-level efforts have paid off with projects like the St. Lawrence Market, demonstrating what is possible at the local, community-level. However, a large-scale project that targets the entire city is far beyond the resources of an all-volunteer community group such as ours, so I’m excited to see more details about this Toronto Hydro initiative.

So far, this announcement seems positive. Anything that encourages discussion around the need for alternative, affordable broadband access is good. Obviously, this is a complex topic that has already re-ignited myriad debates over the pros and cons of existing telecom and cable structures, broadband-as-utilities, and “the digital divide”.

A lot of people (both in Toronto and elsewhere) will be waiting with bated breath for the full announcement tomorrow.

Some things that I (and many others at WT) will be looking and hoping for in tomorrow’s announcement from Toronto Hydro are:

• a clear strategy for public consultation, and opportunity for
  community stakeholders to participate, from the earliest planning phases onward
• provision for free wireless internet access in public spaces such as parks, community centres, and public squares
• specific and meaningful initiatives that address accessibility, especially in terms of underserved communities and small businesses.

For more on this topic, see today’s Spacing Wire

Wireless Toronto is a community wireless network for Toronto, inspired by the great work that Ile Sans Fil (http://ilesansfil.org) has done in Montreal. (87 hotspots and counting!)

It wasn’t ’til last year that was there a widespread launch of public wifi in Toronto, and it was by companies offering it for premium rates in chain coffee shops.

We feel that the full potential of wifi is realized through community-focused, no-cost access. Cafes, restaurants, libraries and parks around the world offer free wifi, as part of their mandate, or as a value-added service.

Our goal is to assist the availability of no-cost wifi in Toronto in public and publicly-accessible places, while developing the community-enhancing applications that are ultimately the most unique and valuable uses for these networks.

Wireless Toronto now has launched thirteen hotspots, from Oakville to Scarbourough, Woodbridge to St. Lawrence Market. Each one has its own community portal page, facilitating communication between hotspot users, and promoting the culture and community of its immediate neighbourhood.

We’re all volunteers, but have made an important mark on the availability of wifi in Toronto (and we’ll soon be launching the city’s first public wifi node in a park!). We’ve got lots more to do, and if you’re interested, join us! Help us find place that could benefit from wifi, help build the technical infrastructure that powers the network, and help us develop the community applications and content that make this technology really exciting.