{"id":1555,"date":"2006-03-07T13:57:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-07T13:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2017-01-25T23:57:48","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T04:57:48","slug":"competing-outside-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1555","title":{"rendered":"Competing outside the box"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/uploaded_images\/tht\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/uploaded_images\/tht_85_58-763080.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>The Toronto Tourism and Economic Development folks must be happy today. Toronto Hydro Telecom announced that it plans to build a WiFi umbrella over the downtown core of Toronto. Toronto joins an elite club of major world cities, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, London, Ottawa and Whistler.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of questions that can be asked about this project:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Should the city be competing against the private sector?<\/span> <span style=\"color: #666666;\">Since Bell and Rogers pay municipal taxes and both have lots of employees in Toronto paying taxes, do you really want to have the city own a company that will compete against these corporate citizens?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Who are the beneficiaries of this service?<\/span> <span style=\"color: #666666;\">This service isn&#8217;t targetting the Toronto Housing Projects or disenfranchised youths at Jane and Finch; it is blanketing the downtown core, including the bank towers. Is this trying to help make it easier for already rich to make those new car payments?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">What about advanced services?<\/span> <span style=\"color: #666666;\">Like competitive Voice over WiFi IP to compete against high cellular rates? Things like smart meter reading? Is there going to be an announcement from the electricity side of Toronto Hydro that they have a plan to leverage this new capability to allow time of day incentives for energy conservation?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But there are some very important answers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The high speed market isn&#8217;t competitive enough.<\/span> <span style=\"color: #666666;\">Both Rogers and Bell have recently announced price increases. Toronto Hydro may help to discipline the pricing from the current duopoly.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Other cities are building these networks.<\/span> <span style=\"color: #666666;\">That isn&#8217;t a good enough reason on its own (just like your mother used to say &#8220;and if your friends were jumping off a bridge would you do that too?&#8221;). But, the market is pretty fierce for convention recruiting, high tech jobs and other drivers of municipal economic development. A city WiFi network is the kind of &#8216;amenity&#8217; that people will come to expect. It doesn&#8217;t hurt for Toronto to be a leader, not a follower, in offering this kind of service. Premium soap and shampoo used to be amenities reserved for upgraded rooms in superior hotels. Now we have come to expect hair dryers, plush bathrobes and ironing boards in anything above Red Roof Inns. If WiFi helps land one giant convention per year, it will pay for itself many times over.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Industry Canada has <a href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1559\">said<\/a>, consolidation has left the Canadian Telecom industry feeling a little too comfortable. It may take some municipal activity like Toronto Hydro Telecom&#8217;s WiFi Zone to shake things up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Tourism and Economic Development folks must be happy today. Toronto Hydro Telecom announced that it plans to build a WiFi umbrella over the downtown core of Toronto. Toronto joins an elite club of major world cities, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, London, Ottawa and Whistler. There are lots of questions that can be asked &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1555\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Competing outside the box<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Competing outside the box &#8226; Telecom Trends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Toronto Tourism and Economic Development folks must be happy today. Toronto Hydro Telecom announced that it plans to build a WiFi umbrella over the &#8226; March 7, 2006\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1555\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Competing outside the box &#8226; Telecom Trends\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Toronto Tourism and Economic Development folks must be happy today. Toronto Hydro Telecom announced that it plans to build a WiFi umbrella over the &#8226; March 7, 2006\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=1555\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Telecom Trends\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-03-07T13:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-26T04:57:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/uploaded_images\/tht_85_58-763080.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Goldberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@mark_goldberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@mark_goldberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Goldberg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mark Goldberg\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3fb9ac7e53dc710f23be648a3b1ab4d7\"},\"headline\":\"Competing outside the box\",\"datePublished\":\"2006-03-07T13:57:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-26T04:57:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555\"},\"wordCount\":416,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/uploaded_images\\\/tht_85_58-763080.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555\",\"name\":\"Competing outside the box &#8226; Telecom Trends\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/?p=1555#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.mhgoldberg.com\\\/blog\\\/uploaded_images\\\/tht_85_58-763080.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2006-03-07T13:57:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-26T04:57:48+00:00\",\"description\":\"The Toronto Tourism and Economic Development folks must be happy today. 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