Toronto Hydro Plans City-Wide Wireless Hot Spot

Toronto Hydro has announced that it plans to implement a city-wide system of low-cost, wireless Internet access for Torontonians. It intends to mount Wi-Fi transceivers on hydro towers and poles around Toronto, as part of a plan to implement smart hydro meters. In Canada, Fredericton has had a similar network since 2004, and a number of US cities, Philadelphia and San Francisco among them, are planning to implement wireless networks of their own. Toronto Hydro has faced some criticism of its proposal. Major telecom providers question the appropriateness of a publicly funded company providing this service, which experience has shown can be relatively expensive to maintain. Presumably the advent of such a system could bite into the revenues of the major telecom providers in what is currently an $8 billion-a-year market for wireless services. The proposal has also received criticism as a potential health threat, as it will blanket the city in a specific band of radio waves. Some are concerned that there may be a connection between this type of radiation and cancer. However, there is little or no direct evidence of any such link, and Toronto Hydro has pointed out that the radio band being considered has been in use for many years to enable cell phones, baby monitors, and similar wireless devices. For some related news articles, visit the following sites: http://makeashorterlink.com/?A24B23BCC http://makeashorterlink.com/?I22B14BCC Summary by: James Kosa