Canadian City Offers Broadband without Borders
January 31, 2005
By G. Patrick Pawling, News@Cisco
How do you turn a city in eastern Canada into a true hot spot through even the coldest winter?
Blanket it with Wi-Fi.
Fredericton, a city of 80,000 and the capital of Canada's eastern province of New Brunswick, is quickly and inexpensively turning itself into a world-leading "connectivity" municipality. It started when the city formed a not-for-profit co-op telecommunications company to bring in cheaper broadband, and continues with a Wi-Fi network that will soon cover almost the entire city.
The project grew out of two needs. First, the city wanted to empower its 650 employees to work more efficiently. Then officials realized it would be relatively easy to offer free wireless broadband - Wi-Fi - throughout its borders, bolstering business and the quality of life.
"From an economic development standpoint we recognized we needed affordable broadband access throughout the community so our firms could grow and prosper," said Don Fitzgerald, executive director of Team Fredericton, the city's economic development department.
Introducing Fred-eZone
The project, call Fred-eZone, includes 110 Cisco 802.11g Wi-Fi stations now covering about half of all potential computer users. Phase two of the project, now under way, will bring coverage to about 95 percent.
"Cisco did a good job of offering a solution instead of pieces of equipment," said Maurice Gallant, Manger of the city's Information & Communications Technology Division and President of the co-op, e-Novations ComNet, Inc. "We feel we have gotten a lot of bang for our buck. There is more to it than just buying hardware and chucking it out there. We had confidence in Cisco on the technical side but we also had confidence in their level of commitment. We knew they would see it through."
The Wi-Fi network has been running for a little more than a year. Every day more businesses, residents and visitors open their laptops to the rush of free broadband in public places. A minister works on his sermon from his back yard. The mayor checks city e-mail from his boat on the St. John River. A coffee shop at the mall pipes in music from around the world, via the Internet. Visitors in hotel rooms snap open their laptops to find out what's happening around town. Students at the two local universities find a signal no matter where they want to study, work or play. City workers share information more easily.
Perhaps most significantly, knowledge workers across the city tap into both the free Wi-Fi network and reduced-price broadband from the non-profit telecommunications co-op. Broadband prices are down by a factor of five since 2000, when the project began. Jobs have been saved, and new jobs created.
"Fredericton is striving to be the smartest city in North America," said Gallant. "People all over are starting to realize some leading-edge things are happening here."
History of Excellence
The city's Fred-eZone initiative was recently awarded the 2004 Canadian Information Productivity Award of Excellence for Innovation. This may not be so surprising, considering that Fredericton is one of the few cities fully ISO 9001:2000 certified.
As Fitzgerald and Gallant note, none of this would have happened without the leadership and backing of the City Council. But at the same time the project cannot be called a hardship. It came together too inexpensively and smoothly for that.
"Infrastructure needs continue to become more sophisticated," said Fitzgerald. "A hundred years ago it was sidewalks and street lights. Now that most of our firms are knowledge-based, they need a different kind of infrastructure. Intellectual infrastructure will be the differentiator of the future."
Ongoing costs for the Wi-Fi network are low. Occasionally equipment is damaged by lightning and needs to be replaced. The broadband that feeds the Wi-Fi network comes from unused overflow bandwidth from the city's co-op ISP.
Leading into the Future
The city is rolling out PDAs to make its employees even more efficient. They'll be used, for example, by building inspectors to update plans; by parking meter readers to update records; and by fire inspectors as well, also for record keeping. There are also plans to loan PDAs to tourists for multimedia tours of the city. The city is also planning to network-enable its transit buses, which, in conjunction with GPS, will help with routing. And while police vehicles are currently on a commercial network that system may also be moved to the Wi-Fi network.
"A 'g' network is not going to lead forever," noted Gallant. "So maybe we upgrade at some point - or maybe connectively won't be the next thing. Maybe there is some leading-edge application or technology that we invest in."
That's the kind of thinking that's leaving Fredericton's businesses, residents and visitors with a very warm feeling - no matter what the season.
Pat Pawling is a freelance writer based out of southern New Jersey
