Slowly but surely, the Free WiFi Project here in Edmonton is growing. We’ve added a number of new locations over the last week, including Boston Pizza on Jasper Avenue and 106th Street, Boston Pizza in Mayfield Common, and Transcend Coffee on the south side which just went live today. And despite being down for much of the week, our nodes at the Fringe are back up and should remain that way. We’ve learned quite a lot with that particular setup!
We need to expand the network to make it more useful and to fulfil our vision of free, accessible wireless Internet access for all Edmontonians. We’re actively working on that, checking out potential locations and getting some marketing information together. Still, I figure a little informal market research can’t hurt! So I’m asking you – where would you like to have free wireless Internet access in Edmonton?
I’m curious to know where you want to use it. We think cafes, restaurants, and similar locations are the most obvious, but maybe we’re missing something? We have received a few suggestions already, such as the Legislature grounds and more mobile setups like the Fringe.
Leave a comment here with your suggested locations, or use our contact form! Thanks!
MasterMaq's Blog 
Malls. Definitely malls. And public parks so I can work with my laptop in a nice park instead of stuck at home. 🙂
Chapters and Starbucks on Whyte Ave. Right now they want $7/hour, but have such good coffee.
Good news for you Forrest…we already have that location! Any other suggestions?
Free wireless in the Mall would be great.
Some parks would be nice – the trouble is getting them to be secure / weather-proof. But if you could jump over that, I think Hawrelak Park would be a great one to go for (even if it was just around the main building – I think covering an entire park is pretty much impossible!) Leg grounds would be good as well.
(I’m not a mall rat, so it doesn’t qualify as a need for me – but I can see the benifits to some people. ^^)
Other than that, between projects that already exist (like the EPL offering wifi in their branches) and this one (mostly covering cafes), we’re starting to get some quite awesome coverage!
Just getting more cafes would be really nice (especially up in the city centre area – and on the southside. And if you wanted to expand out to Beaumont, well, that would be awesome. ^_~)
One more thought – it would be a really awesome feature if, on the Free Wifi website, you showed _all_ free access points in Edmonton (e.g. EPL, Three Bananas, Cargo and James, etc.) Maybe show them in purple or something so people don’t get confused, but make it so that we have one really good place to go and see where they all are. The map you are using blows all of the other lists I’ve seen out of the water. ^^
Totally unrealistic answer: Everywhere!
More reasonable answer: public parks would be great, and essentially any coffee shop. Most independent shops already offer free WiFi, but Second Cup and Starbucks currently both charge ridiculous rates (with the notable exception of the Second Cup in the Western Bank building), so those would be the ideal places to target.
Of course, convincing the 2 main coffee giants that free WiFi is a better business model than pay-for-use WiFi could be a bit of a challenge.
Definitely in a mall or two! What an awesome project!
I guess “everywhere” would be too broad an answer. 😉 I stumbled across a Free WiFi node one day this week. That is too say, my iPhone found it. I didn’t know such a project is underway in Edmonton. Keep up the great work.
How about at the Court House downtown, especially in the library.
Also: LRT stations and major bus terminals.
We’d like to be in those places, but it’s tricky because we’d need to have support from the City.
Maybe at the Citadel?
I’d open up my home wireless network but I’m afraid of what people would use it for, and that it would be my responsibility if they did “bad things” with it.
Shaw conference centre for one, ETS bus communting centers (those mega stations such as the one in WEM), Canada Place, high schools (teenagers will love you!)and hospitals. Bank branches would not be a bad idea also…
west ed mall
churchhill square or canada place
Free wifi isn’t the problem now that it’s 2015 (this was posted 2008). The problem is I avoid and delete all the free wifi locations saved on my phone because they’re utterly useless because they’re too slow or they don’t connect properly. Most of the time, an Android device (what I use) can’t pull up the log in page for the network, making it useless. Free wifi is even worse overseas or traveling to busy places in New York. Annoys me so much I buy a SIM card and a data plan to avoid playing with and searching for wifi connections.