Toronto Hydro Launches Free Wi-Fi Network 155
k. writes to let us know about the launch Wednesday of Toronto Hydro's city-wide Wi-Fi network, at 6 square kilometers said to be the largest in North America by the time rollout is complete in December. The service will be free for 6 months and then will cost $29 (Canadian) per month, $10 for a day, or $5 for an hour. Toronto Hydro gets around fears of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse by requiring use of one's cell-phone number as the user ID.
Oh to hack.. (Score:3, Funny)
Oh to hack that database... It would probably be better just to submit your SSN in plaintext.
Re:Oh to hack.. (Score:5, Funny)
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</propaganda>
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Everyone in the world already has an SSN, they just haven't all been notified yet.
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It'll take twenty years just for Democrats and Republicans to agree on the new number format. Then they'll have to approve a shinier--I mean harder to forge--card, adding another several years.
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This is true. They have to make do with SINs.
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Whoo. (Score:4, Interesting)
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ANyway, look at the coverage maps. It's hardly an 8km diameter around County Hall. County Hall to UEA is probably 4km at most, and the covera
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You must have missed that North America part...
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Once tested and debugged it will be deployed over about 600km^2.
Disposable cell phones... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Disposable cell phones...useless to reply to AC (Score:3, Informative)
perhaps you followed the vodaphone scandal in greece this spring, whereby telephone network software was hacked in order to route communication to one of a number of 'disposable' phones? you can buy them at tag sales; do you really think that they're g
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Shhhh..... Don't say that too loud. What they need (and using cell phone number provides) is the appearance of preventing the four horsemen from being able to use the service for their goals. It's a nice, big loophole for those who actually want privacy and freedom to slip through.
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Here you go, http://toronto.craigslist.org/ele/203441664.html [craigslist.org]. Don't even need to go near a store, and, possibly, have a security camera pointed at you.
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Walk in, ask for prepaid phone, give false info (no ID checked), pay with cash, walk out. I have sold phones to people I am relativly sure were ussing them for illicit goals, however I can't simply not sell them the phone as that is illegal
On top of that msot prepaid phones can have their phone numbers changed with little or no hastle!
If that isn't disposable, I don't know what is.
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By most state laws in the US, any retailer can refuse service to any customer for any reason whatsoever. The only person you have to answer to for refusing a customer service is your manager, however, I would think that the customer providing fraudulent credentials is certainly a valid reason in any manager's eyes.
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Well, you can walk into many a Canadian store, and walk out with a Virgin Mobile handset for $50CDN, paid for with cash. Activation is done on the internet with no information needed.
Disposable? Dunno. Anonymous? Definatly.
Yes there are! (Score:1, Informative)
Way to expensive! (Score:1)
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Why, it's conceivable - when the area of coverage expands (not sure how big it'll get) that you could ditch your cell phone and use the wifi connection with a PDA instead..
That said, I live in the suburbs.. so this won't help me at all once they start charging for it..
I have a land line, you insensitive clod! (Score:3, Insightful)
So for people who rely on a land-line telephone, it isn't 30 CAD per month; it's 60, including the cost of a cell phone. (Or am I completely off about what cell phone contracts cost in Canada?)
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No physical possession of phone, no password. (Score:2)
Because then somebody else would receive the SMS containing the password to the network, not you. But for one thing, this invite system (also used by Gmail) doesn't discourage nigga stole my phone [ytmnsfw.com]. For another, the question remains: Why can't land-line phones receive SMS?
Re:I have a land line, you insensitive clod! (Score:4, Funny)
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I doubt people who just have a landline phone would need wireless internet in downtown toronto. Theres not many old people with laptops crusing the CBD are there?
If you haven't lived in toronto, the area they are talking about covering is pretty much all commerical. There are very few residential buildings in that area. The ones that are residential, start in the rent range of $2000+ per month. I doubt someone who rented a 2000 dollar condo would not have a c
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If you put $100 on the phone, it is good for a year, which works out to $8.30/month. Possible the least expensive cell in Canada
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15c/min for the rest of the day, and Long distance is another story.
Of course, it's nice that it's free for call display, voice messaging, receiving text messages.
Still, I have a Virgin Mobile phone, but I'd never use it for a full conversation.
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Your account expires if not topped up (Score:2)
At least in the United States, a prepaid account can no longer place or receive calls if it has not been "topped up" in the last x days. Then, assuming we're still in Canadian dollars, it's $70 + $45/mo including monthly top-up cards. Or are network operators forbidden to expire accounts this way in Canada?
Four horsemen??? (Score:1)
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The large-scale, international money-laundering operations that exist do so to fund organized crime. Much work in the financial sector deals with trying to detect these money-laundering transactions through the international financial grid. That's why money laundering is one of the four-horsemen. It's not re
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Where I live, some bankers (Peirano, Rohm, and others, in uruguayan banks Comercial, Montevideo, and more), stole some hundred million dollars, and became one of the cause why the country entered a several year financial crisis, halting development, and effectively harming infrastructure. That has a social effect, and physically harms people, and can even kill them, like in the cases where "white collar criminals" steal from humanitarian help.
Just becaus
Quick note about cell number ussage (Score:4, Informative)
Account activation details (Score:2)
To gain access to One Zone WiFi follow the easy steps below.
Open your WiFi enabled device Use the network connections manager on your WiFi enabled device to view available wireless networks. Select the SSID One Zone_High Speed Internet Open your web browser and visit the new user page. Enter your mobile phone number in the space provided. You will instantly receive a text message containing your username and password. Enter your username and password. Start surfing. Your username and password will
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Yes, I imagine that is the case. These guys would be ridiculous not to have something like that set up. This is how I have my hotspots configured.
What I am wondering is what is the protection mechanism against running a script that sends mad txt messages out to random phones (by trying to sign up new accounts repeatedly). I wonder if Toronto Hydro would be getting a large bill for 10,000 txt messages sent out every 30 minute
What is their target market going to really be? (Score:1)
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However, a lot of people in this area are pretty active and tend to wander around the downtown core a lot so really it'll let these people take their laptop and goto the local coffee shop and surf they're lives away..
But they are already having issues with users in office buildings, more specifically offices with reflective glass. There's even
Secured at all? (Score:2)
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Ummmm.
If you need an encrypted connection, use an encrypted protocol; don't rely on the media to be secure. Doesn't everything know how to do TLS SMTP, IMAP, and POP3 these days? And https has been around for almost as long as http.
Or if you really need wire security, here's a thought: buy a service that provides wire security. Don't expect it from city-wide wireless, just as you shouldn't expect that sort of security from any radio communications.
Free? (Score:5, Funny)
As if things weren't complicated enough, now we have free-as-in-speech, free-as-in-beer, and free-as-in-$5/hour..
Incidentally, if a digitalnetizengeezerologism like "The Four Horsemen" has caught on so poorly that you need to link to some netidinoWiredsaur's email from 1995, it's probably not worth hanging on to.
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Almost as good as Comcast's "unlimited" usage.
$10 a day, what a deal (Score:2)
Doing the Math (Score:2)
$29 per month = $29 for one month
$10 for a day = approx $300 per month
$5 an hour = approx $3600 per month
Agreed, $10 and $5 both sound steep!
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If you're going to check the internet for an hour every other day over the course of a week, the $5 a day is acceptable.
However I suspect that most people will go for the safe $29 option. So if they only use it for 4 hours over their visit duration, the company has made an extra $9. If the per hour and per day fees were set at a reasonable level, then more people would go for them, thus possibly reducing the income to the company. $3/hr
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The per-hour price seems a bit high though. Isn't Internet cafe prices about $2-3 pre hour? And that includes the use of their computer (albeit, a computer that's potentially full of spyware and key loggers).
I think $2 is more appropriate for an hourly rate. However, if you look at what the cell companies are charging for data access, $5 an hour isn't overly "inflated".
Just to clarify... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just to clarify... (Score:4, Funny)
Electricity, water, whatever. Just as long as we are clear that the internet is, in fact, a series of pipes.
Sure, here we have wi-fi for part of the way, but after that it's pipes galore.
Something for the 3rd world to emulate... (Score:2)
What I am saying is that poor nations of the world, with old school telephone lines that are non existent or so bad, could use their electricity lines to provide internet access. The number of electricity users in these countries is always greater than landline users.
These folks can count on "friendly" Canada and Toronto Hydro for lessons in setup.
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I seem to recall Hydro having a very extensive fibre network.
They plan to roll out smart meters using (you guessed it fibre)
and piggybacking wired access to homes down the road soon too.
Anyone know the details?
Four horsemen? (Score:2)
So is it free or not? (Score:2)
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Free for limited time (Score:3, Interesting)
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Wow! Nice trolling. Apples and oranges.
<sarcasm>
I am sure that if you could rent a DSL by the hour, you'd pay more in a day than in a month of Hydro Wi-Fi. Damn them DSL provider, them trying to rip you off!
</sarcasm>
Another proof that stoopid moderators exist.
Free? I call BS.... (Score:1)
Anyway still pretty cool though, good for Hydro and TO. Wee!
Marketing Buttwipes (Score:1)
In Toronto, 6 sq. km is a small fraction of the city.
This is NOT "city-wide".
Fscking Liars.
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PDX mo betta (Score:2)
Much better sounding project than America's hat is trying for.
3 days of service = 1 month? (Score:2)
I've tried the service (Score:1)
"largest" in north america? (Score:2, Informative)
Google brought up a Business Week article with the top 10 city networks. Some are over 100 sq miles in size:
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/muni_wifi/ index_01.htm [businessweek.com]
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Toronto Hydro is deploying the network so they can use it for meter reading. The fact that other municipal services and retail uses are available is a bonus.
Who Writes These Titles? (Score:2)
I'd hardly call that free.
Fred e-zone is still Free (Score:2)
Misleading headine: This network isn't free. (Score:2)
Saying this network is free is like saying that Crest toothpaste is free because Procter and Gamble mailed you a free sample--or saying that cars are free because the salesperson offers you a free test drive.
Why would I have cell phone (Score:1)
Problem connecting (Score:2)
Everytime I get "There was an error joining the AirPort network "One Zone_High Speed Internet"" (I am using MacBook Pro, by the way).
Has anyone been able to establish a connection today?
Largest in NVA? WTF? (Score:2)
I find that hard to believe... the tiny city where I live [wikipedia.org] has a WiFi network at least 5 times that size [fred-ezone.com].
Look at the coverage area, then look at the Wikipedia entry - 131 square km in the city. The WiFi covers at least 25% of the city, or 33 square KM.
The only way this Toronto network could be called the "largest" would be if it was by population livig in the blanketed area. Not much of an achievement IMO.
Ugh. Another reason not to live in the Big Smoke. (Score:2)
So now it's a matter of simply consolidating your position. You can live in denial and go along as though nothing is wrong (and mod posters like me into dust to make the bad thinkings go away), or accept the fact that our governments and corporations very deliberately work to make us stupid and easily controlled, and then react to that knowledge in an appropriate manner.
I'm glad I mo
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MrJynx
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(Many years ago when I was in school, I went to Europe, and the dollar was nearly on par with the pound, and you got 7 French francs or 3 deutschmarks to the dollar. I even remember 250 Yen to the dollar)
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They have Motorola Canopy radios stuck on the CN tower facing the waterfront. At the watrfront, I don't know whether they sell you Subscriber Units for access, or whether they have one set up, and then plug that into a wireless router to provide access for the marina. I know the marina had wireless access at one point though...
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I do agree that they should be repaying their debt, and hopefully they will when classy business folk from out of town show up and are willing to pay whatever it takes to have WiFi a
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And once you're hooked, that $29 per month fee will seem