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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