Wireless Toronto supplied free wifi in City Hall council chambers last night, for the downtown Better Ballots town hall. It was a great event, and a treat for us to set up a free wifi node in the council chambers — wouldn’t it be great if free wifi was available there all the time?
This Saturday, May 1st, WT will have a table at Dufferin Grove Park for Jane’s Walk. We’ll be chatting with folks about what we do, the service in the park, etc. One of the routers in the park is down, so this seems like the perfect time to fix that, too. There are official walks from 11-1 and 4-6, but if it’s a nice day there’ll probably be people around all day.
DGP is one of my favourite places in the city to spend the day; plan to come by and hang out!
More info:
http://janeswalk.net/walks/view/dufferin_grove_park_and_its_friends/
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115459481805754
Today marks the launch of In-Site Toronto, a series of newly-commissioned artworks which will be presented on the portal pages at several Wireless Toronto hotspots. Artists Dave Dyment, Swintak, Jeremy Bailey, Fedora Romita, Willy Le Maitre and Brian Joseph Davis have created works that are automatically displayed when users log in to their Wireless Toronto user account at designated hotspots. The project is by media arts organization Year Zero One, is curated by Michelle Kasprzak, and was produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
The launch of the project will take place on March 31, 2010, at the El Mocambo (464 Spadina Ave, Toronto), in association with Spacing’s spring 2010 issue release party. Wednesday, March 31, 8pm-12am. Admission is $10 (gets you a new mag), or $5 for Spacing subscribers.
Hope to see you there!
For more info, see http://year01.com/insitetoronto/.
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Updates:
The St. Louis Bar & Grill at Atrium on Bay has been a Wireless Toronto hotspot since it opened, just over two years ago. A new location has just opened this week, at Fairview Mall, and it’s now a WT hotspot too. Nice people, lots of TVs, and it looks like they’ll have a great patio in the spring.
Tip: you can’t actually get to it directly through the mall, you have to go outside. It’s on the southwest side, near Sears.
There’s a piece in today’s NOW Magazine about wifi in Toronto:
“Hotspot we’re not”
Joshua Errett mentions Wireless Toronto, the 21,000 users we serve, and quotes me pointing towards new models for free wifi.
I don’t know why this happened, but the article takes an awfully negative approach — making it seem like LinuxCaffe and Dark Horse are two of the few places in the city that offer free wifi. I posted a comment to the story, mentioning a few of my favourite places for free wifi…
Another new hotspot this week: the new Fox and Fiddle on Wellesley, almost right across from the entrance to the Wellesley subway station. It’s a huge place with three floors, and a great patio. Their grand opening is tonight, July 16th, from 6pm to close.
The East Side Mario’s on Front Street West is now a Wireless Toronto hotspot!
The newest addition to the Wireless Toronto network is Grapefruit Moon. It’s not in the photo, but they have a great patio, too.
As the recent flurry of activity on this blog may suggest, we’ve been up to quite a bit at Wireless Toronto over the past few weeks. This month we find ourselves at our fourth anniversary and passing another significant milestone, the 20,000th registered user of Toronto’s free community wireless network.
After four years we remain passionate about the opportunities that free Wi-Fi in Toronto’s public spaces can present for community and continue to do our best to encourage its development, implementation and use.
For those of you who don’t already know, we’ve been using Twitter and our Facebook page in an attempt to communicate more effectively with interested people and users of the network – so make sure to follow us there if that’s your thing.
Below is the official press release that was sent out to mark the occasion:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wireless Toronto Celebrates 4 Years of Community Wi-Fi with 20,000th User.
TORONTO, ON June 9, 2009 – Wireless Toronto has been quietly and creatively championing free wifi in the city’s cafes, parks, and public spaces since 2005. This month, the all-volunteer group also celebrated signing up its 20,000th user to its network of over 30 hotspots across the GTA, including the newly-upgraded Dufferin Grove Park, Yonge-Dundas Square, St. Lawrence Market, and Harbourfront Centre.
Wireless Toronto employs a community-centred model for deploying free wifi. Internet connections and wireless equipment are paid for by the hotspot venues, or sponsors. There’s no cost to users who want to use the network, and there are no ads on Wireless Toronto community portal pages. Users are simply asked to login each time they use a hotspot. The community wifi model has been championed in Canada by Montreal’s Ile Sans Fil, and has been successful in several cities in Quebec, Edmonton and Vancouver.
In addition to enabling users to work, learn, and communicate, Wireless Toronto hotspots offer a unique interface linking to location-specific content, which can be an opportunity to connect with people and events in the surrounding neighbourhood.
Or, as co-founder Gabe Sawhney says, “as much as Wireless Toronto is about wi-fi and technology, it’s also about community and public space”.
For more information and updates about Wireless Toronto:
Website: http://wirelesstoronto.ca
Blog: http://wirelesstoronto.ca/blog/
Hotspot map: http://auth.wirelesstoronto.ca/hotspots_map.php
Twitter: http://twitter.com/WirelessToronto
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Toronto-ON/Wireless-Toronto/13780966710
Media contact:
Hilary Krupa, hilary@wirelesstoronto.ca, 647-258-1686
Dufferin Grove Park is already the largest free outdoor hotspot in Toronto, however, this weekend it got even better. A small group of Wireless Toronto volunteers spent the day digging holes, climbing ladders and installing a new mesh network in the park. The park is our first official attempt at deploying a mesh network using the open-mesh system and the result is greatly improved coverage and signal strength throughout the park.
Although we are still tweaking it a little, you can now connect to the network from almost any corner if the park, from the far north-east tip of the playing field to the southern cob structure and playground (where park staff regularly serve up great food) right down to the tree-covered Garrison Creek Hollow.
There’s always great things happening at Dufferin Grove, so make sure to get out this summer and check it out. I plan on making the park my office for the next sunny day.
You can see some pictures of the day in the gallery below. In true Wireless Toronto fashion there was climbing ladders, minor excavations, organic hotdogs, conduit piping, tiny hacksaws, good coffee, miles of ethernet cable, multiple laptops and of course, beer. A great day.
