[Deliverance]

Hello everyone,
   I arranged a meeting and visited with Adam Giambroni. Giambroni is the Toronto Councilor in charge of the TTC. The interview was regarding open wireless being made available throughout public transit. Mr. Giambroni was very open throughout the discussion though he was not informed about wireless technologies. Our discussion touched upon providing open and neutral net access to Toronto citizens.

   Brief Summary:
      The city of Toronto has received staff members for purposes of researching the possibility of wireless at subway platforms.
      Giambroni is holding a RFP during the fall of this year or spring of next year and expects offers from both Bell and Rogers.
      Their offer must include supporting the competitors wireless technology (CDMA vs GSM). No support of 802.11b/g/n/i/s is expected.
       No mention of public or neutral wireless technologies has reached him previously.
       He has no objections to open wireless and claims to be a supporter of network neutrality.

    Personal opinion:
     Giambroni's estimates that installing wireless in the TTC were grossly overestimated ($30 million).
     That the public deserves a "free" (as in both speech and beer) wireless service on their public transport network.
      That the Internet infrastructure is either already in place or could be cheaply assembled to support 802.11 deployment.
      That the pirate party could offer a bid to do the installation (provided we could find construction crews to run wiring).
      That the bid process should demand that wire be run for a wireless network deployment alongside proprietary technologies.
      That Fiber would be preferable but that CAT-6 or even VDSL compliant RJ-11 cable would be sufficient.

    Synopsis:
       Giambroni has no objection to an open wireless standard being available to the public. However it would not be expedient to install the technologies separately and there will be little political will to install open access once paid access is in place. Clearly the cost of installing them concurrently will be less than installing them separately. Finally the city of Toronto has taken a clear stance in support of network neutrality through the ONE-Zone-wireless initiative started by Ontario Hydro and a stance that is in danger of falling by the wayside with this latest push into proprietary Internet service. Thus the presence of public use wireless on the subways serves as a key tipping point in the battle against closed networks and ultimately network bias.

     Please attend future Toronto meetings at the Linux cafe to discuss raising political awareness surrounding this issue.

    Sincerely Deliverance, a future cabinet candidate for the PPoC.

[Concerned Citizen]

The problem with 802.11 technologies is that they do not handle movement very well. Your typical router, etc... will not handle moving from one spot to another on a mobile piece of equipment gracefully.

Cell Phone networks work because they switch you from one tower to another when you  move out of range and follow your signal. I believe the specs for the protocols GSM/CDMA have this built in otherwise cell phones would be useless when in a moving vehicle.

[Mikkel Paulson]

Giambroni's estimates that installing wireless in the TTC were grossly overestimated ($30 million).

What are you basing this on?

That the public deserves a "free" (as in both speech and beer) wireless service on their public transport network.

No such thing. It's either paid for by network users, transit users through increased fares, or taxpayers. Considering the small number of people who would actually use such a service, the funding should come from them.

In Edmonton, the only city in which I'm comfortable enough to take the bus without paying attention to my surroundings, I don't usually spend more than 10 minutes on any given bus, even if my trip may require several transfers. There's not enough time for it to be worthwhile to get my computer out at all. In some areas of Toronto, I'm afraid to show my phone on public transit, let alone my computer.

That the pirate party could offer a bid to do the installation (provided we could find construction crews to run wiring).

1. We're a political party, not a technology firm.
2. Why should we care?

Please attend future Toronto meetings at the Linux cafe to discuss raising political awareness surrounding this issue.

This is your issue, not ours.

Sincerely Deliverance, a future cabinet candidate for the PPoC.

We don't have a cabinet. Do you mean MP candidate? Director?

The official acronym of the Pirate Party of Canada is PPCA.

[Blyss+]

I dig the exposure part of what's being suggested.  Even just having a photo-op-ish hand in making free wifi available would be huge.

Most folks I talk to outside my age group are still unaware of the fact that the PPCA even exists, much less what the party stands for.

[Thomas]

What is someone going to think when they hear that a pirate wants free internet?

[Jay Frank]

Quote from: Deliverance on Yesterday at 03:42:52 PM
Giambroni's estimates that installing wireless in the TTC were grossly overestimated ($30 million).

What are you basing this on?

I think 30m to cover all of TTC routes would be highly underestimated.
I suspect that's how much they would want to pay Cogeco as a flat fee and own no infrastructure and no maintenance costs.

Quote from: Deliverance on Yesterday at 03:42:52 PM
That the public deserves a "free" (as in both speech and beer) wireless service on their public transport network.

No such thing. It's either paid for by network users, transit users through increased fares, or taxpayers. Considering the small number of people who would actually use such a service, the funding should come from them

I agree Mik.  Money has to come from somewhere though they seem quite reasonable.
http://www.onezone.ca/pricing.html

Quote from: Deliverance on Yesterday at 03:42:52 PM
That the pirate party could offer a bid to do the installation (provided we could find construction crews to run wiring).

1. We're a political party, not a technology firm.
2. Why should we care?

1. We are a technology based political party.
2. We should care because we have the minds,technology and political will to make it happen.

I think this is the best idea on these board yet that has a possibility of actually working without printing billions of fiat-currency.
I'll definitely be having a conversation with Jake and Ayes to see what they think of this.
Do we have anyone on Metro Toronto who could give this this ISP a try?

J

[Mikkel Paulson]

1. We are a technology based political party.
2. We should care because we have the minds,technology and political will to make it happen.

[emphasis mine]

Right, I forgot about that time the NDP got a contract to build a new auto plant, and the Greens have sure been working overtime retrofitting cars to run on WVO. We are a political party. We cannot and should not be tendering contracts.

[Jay Frank]

I'm not suggesting we do it "for profit".
Sure would make for an interesting high school computers class project.

"Roll out a free city-wide broadband over power line network."

J

[Mikkel Paulson]

Profit or no, we can't and shouldn't do it. We can support a particular political position (which I don't), but we cannot get actively involved in the bargaining process.

[Concerned Citizen]

I'm not suggesting we do it "for profit".
Sure would make for an interesting high school computers class project.

"Roll out a free city-wide broadband over power line network."

J

Sounds great except for the part where you have high school kids dealing with 120VAC/240VAC/600+ Volts AC equipment and comparable levels of amperage with little or no training. No dealing with powerline networks is something best left to electricians and electrical engineers who know the dangers of putting signals on high voltage power lines.

[Deliverance]

I'm a bit concerned about the state of the party from the discussion taking place here. There is idle banter, I propose a Slashdot style moderation system, soon, if we hope to have a concise and clear platform. As well, I don't mince words, please read carefully.


MP/ JF:
RE: $30 Mln > real costs.
What are you basing this on? I think 30m to cover all of TTC routes would be highly underestimated.
I'm not suggesting we do it "for profit".

Deliverance: “possibility of wireless at subway platforms.”
The infrastructure involves running wires, I suspect that the TV systems installed in subways have available space in the tubes encasing their (possibly TCP/IP) based connections. At risk of oversimplifying, the Internet is wires. In this case going to $20-80 boxes. Further we are trying to get the wiring in place, we don't need to deploy the boxes immediately.
There are several options open to us surrounding this, the first is to make sure that the request for proposals contains support for an open standard. The RFP is already going to demand support for both GSM and CDMA, we campaign to add a standard TCP/IP connection (at least from the platform to the network room),


MP/JF/CC:

Interesting high school computers class project. Roll out a free city-wide broadband over power line network.
Why should we care? / This is your issue, not ours.
ut we cannot get actively involved in the bargaining process.

The meat of the issue is that if the government begins offering any Internet service they may become slightly pliant to the idea of a public service (like water and electricity). Some countries are working to make broadband a right, we may not have to go that direction but it could be a possibility if Rogers/Bell use threats to protect their $Xbillion profit margins.
By getting the government to provide Internet access to the broader public we assure their commitment to anonymous Internet access, produce a mechanism for feedback on net neutrality and initialize a second crown corporation based ISP. Having crown corporations as ISPs means that feedback on issues surrounding net neutrality gets filed with government agencies and when future debates surrounding net neutrality surface we will have a government agency knowledgeable about the issue.

CC:Kids dealing with 120VAC/240VAC/600+ Volts AC
The problem with 802.11 technologies is that they do not handle movement very well. Your typical router, etc... will not handle moving from one spot to another on a mobile piece of equipment gracefully.

Behold the future Grasshopper:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns394/ns348/ns767/white_paper_c11-492743_v1.pdf



BLYS: I dig the exposure part of what's being suggested.  Even just having a photo-op-ish hand in making free wifi available would be huge.

Most folks I talk to outside my age group are still unaware of the fact that the PPCA even exists, much less what the party stands for.

I think the photo op angle offers us amazing exposure. Wi-fi can offer significantly greater speeds than “xG” technologies making this popular with people regardless of their telecommunication platform. This also makes obvious to the public that Internet access can be provided at low cost, a fraction of what the corporations have been charging. By doing so we tie into the mentality we need if we hope to engage with the copyright lobby, community and sharing.

The next federal election is in 2012, currently the party is experiencing difficulty finding candidates willing to front the $1000 deposit needed to run. This is in part because it is unlikely to be returned due to low PPCA support. Further since we don't have proportional representation we are unlikely to have ANY seats.
What my proposal does it cement our goals as being short term, easy, in the public and state's best interest. Opposition by ISPs reveals; that they want to limit people's access, maintain high prices, stifle anonymity, create artificial scarcity, eliminate net neutrality and slow infrastructure improvements.

This is an issue we can move on despite our size. I am somewhat disappointed in party leadership trying to consolidate their power when; we have such a young party, a party divided socialist/libertarian and one headed towards zero seats. My proposal may seem like a roundabout way of accomplishing our goals. By keeping our long term objective in mind, we can lobby for something that unites the party, and gives us political currency.

   - Deliverance

[Nuitari]

I'm a bit concerned about the state of the party from the discussion taking place here. There is idle banter, I propose a Slashdot style moderation system, soon, if we hope to have a concise and clear platform. As well, I don't mince words, please read carefully.

People are free to vote posts up or down.

The next federal election is in 2012, currently the party is experiencing difficulty finding candidates willing to front the $1000 deposit needed to run. This is in part because it is unlikely to be returned due to low PPCA support.

The 1000$ is returned upon completing the paperwork with EC, not by the amount of support a candidate gets.

This is an issue we can move on despite our size. I am somewhat disappointed in party leadership trying to consolidate their power when; we have such a young party, a party divided socialist/libertarian and one headed towards zero seats. My proposal may seem like a roundabout way of accomplishing our goals. By keeping our long term objective in mind, we can lobby for something that unites the party, and gives us political currency.

*Shrugs*
I'm all for having the interim directors write the platform, but then there are always people bitching about it. The elected directors will have as a task of writing the platform then present it to a Yes/No vote. Doing it via the forum has time and time again proven to be an exercise in futility as people just yell at each other. You are free to join the election of directors, in fact we do need new people, and help lead the party.

[Yehoshua]

It's a great topic on which to publish a Press Release distributed through major media, possibly garnering a "Pirate Party attacks for-profit internet on TTC" headline or similar.

No, we can't tender contracts - and we definitely can't have high school students tinkering with the wiring of the largest mass-transit in the country. We can gain media exposure, and put pressure on the TTC to go with a superior, free (beer/speech) product making wireless available.

[Mikkel Paulson]

I don't think the current plan is offered on a for-profit basis, except insofar as the wireless companies are slightly better off being able to deliver and thus charge for phone service in subway stations. I am the only one who has suggested a user-pays system, which I think is a perfectly reasonable funding source rather than from transit users (90% of whom will never use the service) or municipal taxpayers (95% of whom will never use the service).

Again, I don't think it's reasonable to become involved in a municipal matter, especially one that is frankly an impractical idea.

[Deliverance]

Well I think we probably could have done it with a wide letter writing campaign. Perhaps he'll look for something to make him popular after the recent Sun cover and story.

Next up Bill C-32, we going to do something about this one?

 - Deliverance