Civic Bandwidth — Wireless Nights

The civic-minded nerds and hackers of Wireless Toronto are hosting an evening at their newest hotspot, Lot 16, on Tuesday and invite anybody with an interest in open WiFi everywhere to come by. As we wrote last year, this is more than just getting on the internet for free. It’s providing a basic civic infrastructure — like sidewalks and roads — necessary today for the vast number of information economy workers in this city.

Civic Bandwdth – Talk/Drinks/Beats

Wireless Toronto is hosting an open discussion/meet & greet with some of Canada’s best known community WiFi innovators and researchers at the Lot 16 bar. Featuring brief presentations by Michael Lenczner of Ile Sans Fil and Graham Longford from the community Wireless Infrastructure Research Project; and beats by DJ Qassim.

If you’re curious about WiFi, social media, alternative communications, telecom policy… come join us on Jan 23rd for a fun night.

Lot 16 (1136 Queen St West)
Tuesday Jan 23, 2007 7-11PM No cover, cash bar, free nibbles

7:00 PM — Welcome & Social
8:00 PM — Talks & Discussion
9:30 PM — DJ & Drinks

Wireless Toronto recently welcomed their 5000th user in Toronto, and are up to nearly 30 hotspots around the city — but they need help to spread their unbeatable free economic model before rediculously expensive hotspots are everywhere, so wander by if interested. You can read their blog to see what they’re all about before you go.

Also Bert Archer wrote in yesterday’s Globe & Mail about Wireless Toronto’s newest invention, a portable WiFi backpack called “The Roach Coach”:

“It comes from the nickname for snack trucks,” group founder Gabe Sawhney says. “It came from wanting to offer Wi-Fi for gatherings at Nathan Phillips Square.”

Bell and Rogers both offer a book-size WiMAX-like wireless modem (which you can plug in, anywhere in the city’s coverage area, and hook up seamlessly to the Net). Using that modem, Hack Night hackers have slung together a backpack hot spot, powered by an 18-volt cordless drill battery.
…

“The Metro Convention Centre charges $350 to $500 a day for Wi-Fi for its clients,” Mr. Sawhney says, adding that, “sooner or later, our backpack will end up in the convention centre.”

Full story here (including hysterical comments about how free WiFi will lead to the proliferation of kiddie porn).

EDIT> In writing “Lot 16 is their newest hotspot,” I meant “wireless hotspot” not “cool place.” Lot 16 might be cool, I don’t know. It’s a hotspot though. Definitions are starting to compete for words. The end is nigh.