By Tara McCarthy
A new wireless wave is taking shape.
Via Rail launched wireless Internet access aboard trains in its Windsor-Quebec City corridor, while Toronto Hydro Corp. just announced big plans to turn Toronto into a huge wireless hotspot.
Ottawa has some Wi-Fi hotspot coffeehouses and a small wireless zone in place – but is citywide Wi-Fi on the horizon?
“The fact that Wi-Fi has effected technological equipment (laptops, personal digital assistants) means it would be effective to explore ways for it to be used,” says Chris Cope, communications consultant for the City of Ottawa.
Cope says wireless technology has become a necessary and convenient service.
Wi-Fi stands for wireless fidelity, which is the transmission of information into a wave format that can stretch from about 50-500 metres.
These waves enable people to connect to the Internet through a wireless card in a laptop or personal digital assistant.
“I think it’s a major market,” says Jill Murphy as she taps away on the keyboard of her laptop at Bridgehead Coffeehouse on Bank Street. “There’s definitely a demand for it.”
Murphy, a Centretown resident, says she uses free wireless at Bridgehead because she can’t concentrate at home. However, she says a Wi-Fi expansion would allow her to work at and support locally owned cafés, rather than just corporate shops that have the finances to offer free access.
Cope says Ottawa is now fairly well covered by Telecom Ottawa’s pay-as-you-use pilot project in collaboration with BelAir Networks, a local company.
Telecom Ottawa, a subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc., constructed its wireless zone of about 20 transmitters in 2004. Transmitters are located on Elgin Street, Gladstone Avenue and O’Connor Street, Queen Street and Lyon Road and at the Nepean Sportsplex.
With about 100 customers using the service each month, Virginia MacBeth, vice-president of corporate communications at Hydro Ottawa, says it has been a success so far. However, a further expansion is not being discussed at this time.
“The network is still very much in a trial stage,” MacBeth says.
Even with Toronto’s advances, she says Ottawa is much different and Telecom Ottawa will focus on their own market to determine demand.
Currently the city is focused on the Ottawa 20/20 Broadband Plan, which intends to establish a network infrastructure in rural areas. However, Cope says he is researching a Wi-Fi plan to attach wireless transmitters to lampposts throughout the city.
“We need to make sure that whatever we implement is properly engineered,” he says. “Like everything else in technology, it will be subject to evolution. It may prompt a ‘go slow’ approach and we’ll wait and see where it goes.”
Cope says lessons will be learned from Toronto as its plans proceed.
Cities such as San Francisco and Philadelphia are currently using similar widespread networks.
After examining their situations, Cope says he will determine whether a plan for Ottawa should be presented to city council in the late spring.
Although citywide Wi-Fi networks enable Internet access to all citizens, they come with a price tag.
“While it would be great to have the city wired, the fact of the matter is that someone’s got to pay for that. There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” says Neil Knudsen, chair of the Ottawa Wireless Cluster, a volunteer business group focused on wireless development. He says before expanding the service, the City of Ottawa needs to look at what it would do, who would be using it and how it would be funded.
“We need to not look at wireless as just another tool to use for better, stronger access,” he says. “We need to determine the best way to use it.”