Trashy WiFi Connection
Apparently all those trash/recycling bins with ads on them will do more than sit there and be ugly and eat your garbage. The owner of the bins, OMG, is in talks with "a major Canadian telecommunications company" to have the bins broadcast WiFI.
The geek in me is screaming out in joy. It will start in a small section of the city and if successful expand from there. My only question is if it will be public for all or will we have to pay for it?
Comments (11)
I really don't like those bins: the advertisements, they get full to fast and spill onto a pile of garbage at the foot of the bins... not my favourite things. But hey, if they start giving me WiFi access they'll be my new best friends.
Too bad it won't be a free service:
"...where subscribers to the telecommunications company would be able to access to Internet easily."
Too good to be true, EH. They'll pollute our sightline, take up our public sidewalks, violate our mindspace and then try and make us pay for "services" too. Ridiculous.
Oh imagine all these people employed in the advertising and marketing industries who are doing all these things to pollute our mind.. and we would now ban these bad influences, they would be all out of work and we would be paying them in other ways, such as unemployment insurance
What Toronto really needs is blanket wi-max coverage provided by the city.
It can be argued that internet access is getting closer and closer to becoming a "necessary service" and with the bandwidth and reach wi-max provides, the brunt of Toronto's core could be covered for a relatively modest sum.
We've got the CN tower and the big ol' windmill on the waterfront - if we really want to show the world have forward looking we are, we should follow the lead of several trend setting cities. I know that I'd be more than willing to pay a little more tax if it meant I didn't have to deal with those rat bastards Bell & Rogers.
I hear those things are going to need to be very tall in order to take up the same footprint as the current bins, but not be overflowing like the current bins always are.
Should make for good reception.
Are you sure that Wi-Fi can be pay-to-use??? As far as I know all such projects (eg: Gdynia, Gdańsk here in Poland) are free to all...
Yeah, Wi-Fi can be turned into a pay-per-use thing. The server will deny you access to anything beyond the server itself unless you pay. Payments are done usually through credit cards, at least that's what I've seen in airports.
I think the height of the trash cans has more to do with ad space than concerns over a small footprint, though the latter was probably a selling point.
This'll never get very far... as all the companies who've tried it have discovered, there's no money in offering for-pay wifi to the general public.
Some of us are working on an alternative, and I encourage anyone who's interested to join us: www.wirelesstoronto.ca
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