• Saving hundreds of dollars annually for the hundreds of thousands of households that currently subscribe to high-speed Internet.

  • Providing mobile Internet users with better wireless service than the the city’s existing patchwork of commercial “hotspots.”

  • Improving emergency response communications and the efficiency of other city services.

  • Attracting investors, skilled workers, small businesses, and tourists to the city.Let’s return to THT’s proposed for-profit service. From a technical and business case perspective, the model has a lot going for it. The network will use free, licence-exempt wireless spectrum, with bandwidth supplied by THT’s existing fibre-optic network. Wireless antennae are being mounted onto city streetlights (which, incidentally, THT was planning to do anyway, to comply with a provincially mandated electricity “smart meter” program). By piggybacking its network onto existing public infrastructure, THT minimizes the capital costs of the project. THT estimates it will recover the cost of building the network within a year of its being fully operational. But if the business case for THT’s WiFi service is so ironclad, doesn’t this imply that the essence of its plan is to milk subscribers for a service that it could offer Torontonians at nominal cost, possibly even for free? CEO David Dobbin defends commercialization on the grounds that THT’s mandate is to maximize revenue for its parent company, Toronto Hydro. It will pass surpluses earned on WiFi subscription fees to Toronto Hydro and ultimately to the city. But if that’s the case, THT’s model amounts to little more than covert taxation, which puts the interests of Toronto Hydro and city creditors ahead of the social and economic benefits that could be reaped from a cheap or free network. All of which raises some important questions. How much does the city expect to earn off this commercial subscriber model? Should a municipally owned corporation earn a profit on something that has become, in the 21st century, an essential service, particularly if that service rides upon layers of public infrastructure (streets, fibre networks, lighting poles, and public spectrum) that have already been bought and paid for through taxes and utility rates? What is truly more innovative: operating Toronto’s WiFi network like any other commercial Internet service, or leveraging additional social and economic benefits for the entire city by offering it to residents, businesses and visitors at cost, or for free, as cities like Fredericton have done? THT’s municipal WiFi plan warrants a more vigourous public debate. It contains many of the necessary ingredients for the kind of ubiquitous, affordable and universally accessible network that Torontonians need. But its for-profit business model jeopardizes much of the public benefit the city stands to reap from municipal WiFi.

    Graham Longford is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, and a co-investigator with the Community Wireless Infrastructure Research Project (CWIRP). Andrew Clement is a professor in the Faculty of Information Studies, U of T, and a co-investigator with CWIRP.