(Photo courtesy of © Can Stock Photo Inc. / DzhafarovEduard)(Photo courtesy of © Can Stock Photo Inc. / DzhafarovEduard)
Sarnia

Free Downtown WIFI Still In The Air

Sarnia Council is calling on industry professionals to help outline the process and cost of bringing free public WiFi to the downtown and Centennial Park.

Council has directed staff to work with Bluewater Regional Networks on a detailed project plan for indoor and outdoor WiFi implementation.

Councillor Cindy Scholten really likes the idea of providing the service to residents.

"It would be really amazing to provide free WiFi in places, like our arenas, so they're spending money on going to a local game or supporting the Legionnaires and they get to sit down and enjoy WiFi," says Scholten.

Councillor Mike Kelch thinks its time has past and couldn't support the motion.

"When we were down south, it became pretty clear that one of the trends that I noticed was that public WiFi, particularly in open spaces, used to be the darling of governments but it is waning in popularity," says Kelch. "The reason why, is because it is out performed largely by pretty much every cell phone company that exists."

He says public WiFi was really popular when there were no other options.

"There was a time, maybe ten years ago, this might have made sense and governments may have thought this was a bold new vision, but there are cities that are taking their WiFi down and they're taking it down because it's too expensive to maintain and they can't compete with the private sector."

In its report to council, staff said providing free WiFi would require an initial capital investment of as much as $168,000 for a single city block.

The city would also be responsible for monitoring and response to illegal activities on the network.

Spending of up to $15,000 from the Computer Equipment Reserve has been approved to produce the project plan.

Read More Local Stories