Citywide Broadband/Wifi

A real digital strategy for Canada would include plans for citywide wifi. If Governments invest in this type of infrastructure, it will ensure a broad diffusion of Internet access. Credits could be provided to those with lower incomes to ensure that there is wide spread access to the digital economy.

Comments

yohid — 2010–05–10 10:53:40 EDT wrote

let's catch up to the rest of the civilized world with broadband BROADLY available to ALL.

Jaheckelsafar — 2010–05–10 16:06:23 EDT wrote

Make this free but limit the speed to somewhere around 1 Mbps down and 256 Kbps up. Institute limit where individual users can consume maybe 100 Megabytes a day, after which the speed will decrease to dial up speeds, but do not cut people off. We should not cut off ISPs at the knees.

Do this and you've got my vote.

falkenbe — 2010–05–10 17:23:21 EDT wrote

This would be a terrible misuse of public funds. This only benefits those with the financial ability to afford high end phones and laptops. More importantly it puts the government into direct competition with (often small) private companies trying to sell the same service. There is no capping or limiting mechanism that won't completely destroy the market for these private companies. A much better idea would be to provide backbone infrastructure to small cities and rural areas in a similar concept to the Alberta Supernet

darylhobbs — 2010–05–10 17:30:28 EDT wrote

With over 1000 CAP Sites across Canada I believe setting up a national wireless network is a normal next step. Keeping in line with the free frequency allowed by CRTC and the eCommerce opportunities, Training opportunities as well promoting ideas and communicating is good for Canada.

Ron Van Holst — 2010–05–12 10:38:27 EDT wrote

It might be worthwhile looking at the history behind municipal fibre networks. These were high speed infrastructure networks that were built alongside municipal utilities, using the economies of a common right of way, and "we might as well lay some fibre while we have the ground open". This would not need to compete with private companies, but augment their abilities. Just as Bell Canada was required to provide "equal access" to Internet providers to the phone wires they installed and maintained, municipally owned infrastructure could be leased to any service provider providing at competitive rates. This would provide a revenue stream for public infrastructure, and bring the economics of shared infrastructure and scale to service providers whether they be established enterprises or new entrepreneurs, thus leveling the playing field.

Ron Van Holst — 2010–05–12 10:45:58 EDT wrote

With regards to the comments on speed, I'm not sure why the access speed should be asymmetrical. That was the thinking when broadband was first deployed, and the Internet was merely a new type of broadcast medium, but the Canada 3.0 vision is more of a fully connected and participatory network, thus the goal should be for symmetrical access, equal upstream and downstream speeds. Perhaps in the short time speeds and max data should be capped so that the networks are not overloaded, but the "moon shot" goal should not be for "unlimited" speeds and usage. By unlimited speed, I mean that the access medium is not the limiting factor to interactivity, but is balanced with ability of the other end to stream the data.

copywryter — 2010–05–12 20:31:16 EDT wrote

Toronto's Hydro One broadband wifi experiment was a disaster. Spotty access, dead zones, poor bandwidth when connected.

The costs of building, maintaining and policing this across Canadian cities is enormous. You'd need a staff in each city. Do you throttle? Who polices what's being downloaded? Big ISPs will fight it tooth an nail.

This is a good idea in theory, but it hasn't not been successful in many of the American cities that experimented with it.

A much better idea is to allow competition into the marketplace… allow small companies access to that fibre and let the market determine the price.

And really, if you're going to make bandwidth availble, do so by giving free Wi–Max in rural communities. That's where the need is.

MarcusC — 2010–05–13 09:28:59 EDT wrote

A good concept, but the reality of the situation is that in practice it doesn't work that well. The WIFI spectrum is crowded and has limited bandwidth, it is pretty much a line of sight technology. works OK in home or small office applications with very limited power, but doesn't scale well. As others have stated you also need a suitable receiver with the right capabilities for the encryption used. Open WiFi is a security nightmare otherwise.

saneconsulting — 2010–05–19 02:44:04 EDT wrote

I agree with the Citywide broadband part… but the wifi suggestion can be problematic as a robust fibre infrastructure is a prerequisite to a good wireless network. Wireless and wifi can be a helpful supplements to a robust fibre networks. But wifi and wireless technologies in general, are not an adequate replacement for fibre when applied in the context of a critical city wide network infrastructure.

Ron Van Holst's comments are very good suggestions and I would strongly agree with these basics:

• Fibre infrastructure is most important
• Symmetrical access is very important
• Municipalities and community fibre projects have a critical role to play in helping solve the infrastructure deficit and lack of competition problems.

fotari — 2010–05–19 13:35:14 EDT wrote

At this time, an access to internet is an essential matter on all aspects, (find a job, work on line, telework) personal (check Email, be connected, acessing information). For that reason the federal government has to set up a strategy and fascilitae that access to internet should be easier for Canadians: This may be achieved through the following:

1. Setting a regulation to specify a maximum fee to access the internet, this way the existing companies cannot exceed the set fees.
2. Opening up the market for competition should bring the access fees down, which will enable more Canadians to access the internet.

adamarthurryan — 2010–06–07 13:48:55 EDT wrote

I don't believe this is a good idea. Internet and digital technology is moving too fast. A large–scale public works project like this would be out–dated before it even got started.

Zoom–Out — 2010–06–07 17:00:43 EDT wrote

If we take a step back and look with a wider view on things. Is city wide wifi going to be dead in the near future? What makes wifi on this scale cheaper to implement than the cell phone network? cell phone coverage already exists. Would it be in the public's interest to regulate the price of data? From what I have read, the 3 monopolies have not acted fairly to the public up to this point, their shareholders may be happy. If city–wide wifi goes through, this really means free phone calls for everyone and the cell companies will die. They "should" be very motivated to lower prices so it no longer makes sense for society to render them redundant. So go ahead with the cost of city–wifi to put pressure on the cell companies, or just go direct and regulate the prices.

Observer — 2010–06–08 08:19:20 EDT wrote

re: let's catch up to the rest of the civilized world with broadband BROADLY available to ALL.

Just out of curiosity, where in the civilized world is internet service provided for FREE to ALL??? And who pays for this FREE service?? Anyone with maturity knows FREE always has a cost. Why should I pay for a system where someone can download FREE music and FREE movies and spend all day contacting "social networking" sites. If the readers want cheaper service then use less. Just because technology exists does not mean the users are entitled to unlimited access at no cost.

vbernier — 2010–06–12 15:44:34 EDT wrote

I am personally sympathetic to the idea of a city–wide wifi access. A community of residents in Montreal are currently experimenting with this. The difficulty from a competitive standpoint is that free city–wide wifi access limits the business opportunities of internet providers. Limiting profits essentially boils down to less jobs and less government revenue as people shift away from private service providers to freeload the public network.

I think a community of persons coming together to create such an endeavor is a private matter not a public one in the sense of government being the arbiter. In other words, it is outside the realm of government philosophically but more importantly outside government competencies practically to devise and implement a strategy for wifi access. Faith is oneself must surely be higher than faith in the government to "command economy".

It seems that what we would want to limit are the possible abuses of some to siphon all the bandwidth capacity by downloading ridiculous amounts of data. A city–wide free wifi service as organized by the community (notice no government) could simply have an administrative limit as to the amount of data downloaded from "public" capacity.

But how is this wifi service created in the first place? Free wifi's are created when internet subscribers decide not to protect or limit access via WLAN or WAN or whatever other cryptic system. That is, anyone who keeps his/her internet connection open allows others who do not pay for the service to have access to this connection for their own benefit. In essence, if a service provider does not obligate subscribers to protect their connection or service, the company finds itself robbed or at a loss given others than the intended recipient benefit from the service. This is known as an externality. Limiting these are key to any accommodations between stakeholders i.e. internet subscribers, internet providers, and the general public.

atomnet — 2010–07–08 09:55:58 EDT wrote

Don't agree. Citywide WiFi is an idea whose time has come and gone. 3G, LTE, and WiMAX networks provide better coverage and a more consistent service. Attention would be better focused on how to make these services more affordable and available.

kverner — 2010–07–13 16:30:17 EDT wrote

I agree with darylhobbs: "With over 1000 CAP Sites across Canada I believe setting up a national wireless network is a normal next step."

I would go one step further and recommend working with the existing CAP human infrastructure to identify and implement suitable hotspots within communities. The precise infrastructure is TBD and may need to be addressed on a community–by–community basis, underpinned by national standards for service levels.