In a bold move by Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc., Toronto will join cities like San Francisco and Philadelphia, in a new era of wireless internet connectivity. Toronto Hydro Telecom plans to utilize its 450KM of underused fiber-optic cables and recently acquired telephone poles (they purchased 18,000 of them from the city for $60 mil.) to provide Toronto with Internet; available for use in coffee shops, parks, offices, or at home. They will place transmitters on the poles and link them up to their already established fiber-optic network.
The network is currently in construction, and service should be available in the financial district by June. The area from Spadina Avenue east to Jarvis Street and from Front Street north to Bloor Street should be covered by the end of the year. The network will reportedly cost the company anywhere between 10 to 100 million, and will cost users absolutely nothing for the first six months of use. Pricing plans haven’t been finalized, and all we know is that it will be affordable, but won’t undercut currently available service. So don’t expect to get service for, lets say $9/month, it just won’t happen.
David Dobbin, the man in charge of the project, is quoted as saying: “I think this is going to be a completely different model that anyone’s ever rolled out,” he said. “This is bigger, better and faster. This is a WiFi zone backed up with fibre optic everywhere.” And, this could give Rogers, Telus and Bell something to worry about. If users can subscribe to Toronto Hydro Telecom’s city-wide WiFi for a fee that will likely be competitive, they might move from their current ISP.
The network is meant to mainly target the business community, although consumers can use it as well, this just means it won’t be marketed as a residential service. They could go down that route, but it would require them to beef up customer support and marketing. Toronto Hydro Telecom also plans to link the wireless service to its “smart meter” plan, which will monitor electricity usage in homes and businesses.
I’m extremely pleased with this news, as is anyone who has a WiFi enabled device. The convenience of being able to connect to the internet wherever you are is great. Sure you can do that now by using your cell-phone’s data plan, but thats costly and slow. This will also help make UMPC’s (Microsoft’s Origami devices), more attractive to mainstream users. Once the service is rolled out…I’ll be first in line! 
