The WT Blog » Wireless Toronto News

St. Lawrence Market and Dufferin Grove Park are offline

gabe — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:19:40 +0000

Wifi at St. Lawrence Market has been offline for a while now: our wireless backhaul has become too unreliable, and we need to address the issue of interference on the main floor. (When the network was installed six years ago, ours was the only wifi signal in the space — now we’re competing with *dozens* of private networks.) The folks at the Market are working on a new backhaul solution, which we’re hoping will be in place in a few weeks.

The wifi at Dufferin Grove Park went offline at midnight last night, because Rogers has discontinued their Portable Internet service, which was the backhaul for the service at the park. It’s a disappointing move by Rogers — the Portable Internet service filled an important gap between wired/DSL and cellular-network-based service. It wasn’t cheap or fast, but it was unmetered, which perhaps contributed to Rogers’ decision to discontinue it. It’s particularly disappointing for users in many rural areas, where it was the only viable high-speed option. In Toronto we have more options: we’ll be switching to an cellular/AWS service, but it’ll be a few weeks ’til it’s back online.

New hotspot: St Louis Bar & Grill on Yonge Street

gabe — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:30:25 +0000

The St. Louis Bar & Grill chain has expanded a lot over the past few years, and Wireless Toronto has set up free wifi at the ones at Atrium on Bay and at Fairview Mall. This week they opened at 528 Yonge Street (at Breadalbane, one block south of Wellesley), and that location’s now also a Wireless Toronto hotspot. Link: http://www.stlouiswings.com/locations/toronto/central/yonge-street/

New hotspot: Wychwood Open Door

gabe — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:27:57 +0000

Wychwood Open Door is a day-time drop-in centre that has served homeless and socially isolated people in Toronto’s midtown St. Clair West community since 1986. We’re really happy to be working with them to make wifi available in their space, including to two donated desktop computers which are now available for use. More info: http://www.wychwoodopendoor.org/

WT at Better Ballots townhall, Council Chambers

gabe — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:33:41 +0000

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?

WT at Dufferin Grove Park for Jane’s Walk, May 1st

gabe — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:26:44 +0000

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

In-Site Toronto

gabe — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:20:39 +0000

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:

New hotspot: St. Louis Bar & Grill at Fairview Mall

gabe — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:06:22 +0000

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.

Now Magazine: Hotspot we’re not?

gabe — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:34:42 +0000

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…

New hotspot: Fox and Fiddle on Wellesley

gabe — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:52:56 +0000

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.

New hotspot: East Side Mario’s on Front

gabe — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:11:04 +0000

The East Side Mario’s on Front Street West is now a Wireless Toronto hotspot!