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Wireless Toronto, a volunteer group devoted to providing location-specific Internet content across the city through a series of free Wi-Fi hot spots, has been meeting every month for two years to plan new spots and strategies.
But recently they decided they would like to have more fun in 2007, so starting this month, they're getting together for something called Hack Nights.
Their first project, which they will be field-testing today, is a spanner in the growing Wi-Fi service-industry works, an ambulatory Internet system they call "the Roach Coach."
"It comes from the nickname for snack trucks," group founder Gabe Sawhney says. "It came from wanting to offer Wi-Fi for gatherings at Nathan Phillips Square."
Bell and Rogers both offer a book-size WiMAX-like wireless modem (which you can plug in, anywhere in the city's coverage area, and hook up seamlessly to the Net). Using that modem, Hack Night hackers have slung together a backpack hot spot, powered by an 18-volt cordless drill battery.
True to their activist roots, the folks at Wireless Toronto -- who operate 29 free Wi-Fi zones across the city, including Dundas Square and the St. Lawrence Market -- want to be able to offer reliable Wi-Fi in a world that is becoming increasingly privatized.
Mr. Sawhney mentions the recent case of the Boston Logan airport, which, like many airports, offers its own for-pay Wi-Fi service.
The airport authority running Boston Logan decided to forbid its clients from offering competing Wi-Fi, including airline lounges. The airlines complained, and on Nov. 1, the Federal Communications Commission sided with them.
It turns out Wi-Fi runs on a part of the signal spectrum -- 2.4 gigahertz -- that is public domain. This has not, however, stopped operations like Bell and Rogers-affiliated hot spots from trying to make a profit off it by charging for Wi-Fi connections at cafés around the city.
"The Metro Convention Centre charges $350 to $500 a day for Wi-Fi for its clients," Mr. Sawhney says, adding that, "sooner or later, our backpack will end up in the convention centre."
And Mr. Sawhney says Wireless Toronto, though it's loosely organized, is up for a challenge like the Boston Logan fight.
Another member of the group, Jason Roks, has taken the principle and modified it for personal use. Where the main Hack Night project is about offering Wi-Fi and content -- say, specific MP3 playlists for specific locations or events -- Mr. Roks's version is for personal use.
"I've already taken it wandering down the street," Mr. Roks says of his shoulder-bag version of the Roach Coach.
"Skype will go off and on, but I'm getting strong three to four bars out of five, no matter where I go," he adds, referring to the Internet phone service Skype and the standard bar-unit of signal strength measurement.
A side effect of Mr. Roks's shoulder bag, which he is now modifying to be powered by a solar backpack (which he picked up at Grassroots for about $150), is that wherever he sets up becomes an instant public hot spot, to within a range of about 150 metres.
Mr. Roks is an emerging-technology consultant who has been fiddling with Wi-Fi since Lucent introduced it a dozen years ago. He says that if you know how to set up a Wi-Fi router at home, you can make your own shoulder-bag hot spot. The total cost for parts is about $400, which Mr. Roks figures is worth it. "It's just for fun," he says, "just to see what you can do with this stuff."
Next month's Hack Night will tackle what they're calling Mediashop, which involves the installation of network-connected, computer-less hard drives that can store and broadcast masses of site-specific material. Harbourfront Centre, with its huge audio and video archive of events going back three decades, has already expressed interest.
To learn more or make suggestions, visit wirelesstoronto.ca.
