The WT Blog

At today’s Government Management Committee meeting, a report will be received updating the committee on three public policy initiatives:

1. Setting up a “Meraki-style” mesh network in one of the priority neighbourhoods.
2. Allowing the Oxford Group to install free-to-use, sponsored public Internet terminals in one of the priority neighbourhoods.
3. Setting up free-to-use public wifi at City Hall and in publicly-accessible areas in other city buildings.

The report is here; it’s quite good, actually:
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/gm/bgrd/backgroundfile-25011.pdf

In addition, the committee invited (through an RFI) “major leaders in the Wireless marketplace” to “present an overview of their Wireless strategic directions and plans.” Each will have 15-20 minutes to present. There’s a bit of info on this here: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/gm/bgrd/backgroundfile-25060.pdf

Item 26.21 is scheduled for 1:30pm, and the meeting is in Committee Room 1; I hope to be there.

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As I mentioned, I think the Staff Report is pretty good — it’s the first City document I’ve seen that shows a realistic approach to public wifi. Some highlights & thoughts:
Read the rest of this entry »

Hey everyone!

The next Wireless Toronto Volunteer Meeting will be on Monday November 9th, from 5:45-8pm at the Centre for Social Innovation (Ste 120), 215 Spadina.

We haven’t met in a while, so it’s a great time to come out if you’ve never been to one of our meetings. We’ll catch everyone up on what we’ve been up to, and talk about some opportunities this spring and summer. Lots of ways to get involved, for designers, techies, writers, community folks, etc.

Generally speaking, we’ll be talking about the following:

• Intros
• Overview of Wireless Toronto and Goals
• Updates from WT Board members
• Update on the In-Site Toronto project and brief intros by the artists
• New business and ideas

Hope to see you there!

Probably not; but it could help us go nuclear free (and save a little money).

You see, that cable modem sitting in the corner is living off base-load power, and base-load power in Ontario is largely supplied by the Nuclear Industry. Eliminate the cable modem, and reduce our other base-loads, and we eliminate one of the excuses used to justify Nuclear. Now that has to be a good thing!

All we each need do is get together with some neighbours and build a little community mesh network! Unplugging 6W cable modems more than compensates for the 2W mesh nodes.

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One source of mesh nodes is http://www.open-mesh.com, I’m sure there are others.

If eliminating 6 watts by unplugging a cable modem doesn’t sound like much, try multiplying it by the approx 1 million internet cable subscribers on Ontario. It works out to the power output of several wind-turbines.

No not the coffee, the wireless. Second Cup has started making its wif-fi available for free. I guess the’ve realised that charging for wi-fi is a loosing cause.

They do expect you to register (and the form thinks you’re willing to provide all your personal detail just short of your first born but other than that its free.

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.

Last weekend a few Wireless Toronto volunteers has a great time at the BIG on Bloor street festival. Despite a rainy start, we managed to set up a mesh network covering  Bloor Street between Ossington and Dovercourt for the duration of the day, and meet some cool people along the way. Imagine if Wi-Fi on Bloor was a permanent thing! See some images from the day below, or at our Flickr group.

Thanks to everyone that helped out.