Cities expand Wi-Fi

Edmonton, St. Albert announce deals with Shaw Communications.

For people who need or want to surf the Internet even while visiting parks, pools, recreation centres or other public areas, it has been a good week.

Edmonton and St. Albert are expanding their Wi-Fi access in partnership with Shaw Communications, according to announcements issued 48 hours apart.

“In an increasingly connected and on-the-go world, we are expanding our Wi-Fi services across Western Canada to bring the latest technology to our customers so they won’t miss a thing,” said Shaw president Peter Bissonnette.

In Edmonton, following the approval of city council on Wednesday, Shaw is poised to begin installation of equipment to provide free Wi-Fi service to both customers and noncustomers at 64 city facilities and on 890 street lights around parks and other public gathering spaces.

The company’s Shaw Go Wi-Fi will replace the city’s existing free Wi-Fi access, now available at 22 public sites such as City Hall, libraries, rec centres and the Valley Zoo.

“We put it in the places we could, but it just didn’t make sense to put it in more places,” chief information officer Chris Moore said of the city’s existing Wi-Fi.

“Shaw has infrastructure to a lot of those places that we don’t have.”

The city is spending $540,000 on staff time related to the project, but Shaw is bearing the cost of the five-year project. The Calgary-based telecommunications company is expected to spend $16 million installing equipment over the next two years that would allow non-Shaw customers access to 500 megabytes of data — enough for 500,000 emails, 5,000 web page visits or an hour of streaming video.

“It really ties into the connected city that we want to have,” Moore said, adding the city wanted both Shaw customers and non-customers to have access.

No request for proposals was issued. Shaw approached the city but other carriers are not excluded from proposing partnerships too, Moore said.

Shaw’s investment in free Wi-Fi in Edmonton has a benefit for all parties, said Greg Pultz, the company’s vicepresident of operations. “It’s one of those rare opportunities for a strategic relationship where it’s a win for the City of Edmonton, it’s a win for the citizens of Edmonton and it’s a win for Shaw customers,” Pultz said.

“What’s in it for Shaw is that we get an expanded network. We’re getting into places where people are going to want to take their Shaw broadband experience with them and that’s the win for Shaw.”

The company is also complementing St. Albert’s existing free municipal Wi-Fi at select facilities by providing Shaw Go service to its residential Internet customers at city arenas, parks, outdoor pools and other city sites that currently do not have free wireless access.

“Shaw approached the city and an agreement was signed to allow Shaw to put in their infrastructure, which basically consists of a wireless device and a Shaw modem in most locations, and provide a wireless access point for Shaw customers,” said Luke Pickard, St. Albert manager of technical services.

Under the five-year agreement, Shaw crews are installing hardware at Grosvenor Outdoor Pool; Woodlands Water Play Park and Skate Park; Riel Fields; outdoor sports fields; transit depots at Village Tree Landing, St. Albert Centre and Lions Park; and clubhouses in the neighbourhoods of Akinsdale, Grandin, Lacombe, Willoughby and Mission.