Like thousands of other Torontonians, Charles-Antonie Rouyer likes to take his laptop to a coffee shop and use the free wireless Internet access. But soon he will be able to surf anywhere he wants in downtown Toronto.
Toronto Hydro Telecom, an arm of the city-controlled utility, unveiled yesterday an ambitious "municipal Wireless-Fidelity" (WiFi for short) service that will be in the financial district in June and will stretch from Spadina Avenue east to Jarvis Street and from Front Street north to Bloor Street by next year.
By blanketing the city with radio signals, reaching as high as 40 storeys, transmitting and receiving units on utility poles will carry data to and from Toronto Hydro headquarters via fibre-optic lines already laid beneath city streets.
"WiFi technology is the new benchmark for urban living," said Toronto Hydro Telecom president David Dobbin. "And it's high time we bring Toronto on to the world stage to join the ranks of . . . cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia and London, England."
The network will be free for the first six months. Then customers will pay to get onto the network. "I can't speculate about how much our price will be, but I can assure you that it will be affordable," Mr. Dobbin said.
But that's where users such as Mr. Rouyer may draw the line. "Why would I pay for something that should be free?" he asked.
Toronto Hydro Telecom said early estimates of the cost to get the network running range between $10-million and $100-million.
Mr. Dobbin told reporters Toronto Hydro plans to link the wireless service to its "smart meter" plan, which will monitor electricity usage in homes and businesses.
"Now they'll be able to bill you for one service and see how much to bill you for the other," said Lawrence Surtees, vice-president and principal analyst of communications for IDC Ltd.
