Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc has announced that they will be undertaking a project to make downtown Toronto a wifi hot spot. The hot spot will be the biggest of its kind in Canada. "This is both an exciting and very important initiative for the city of Toronto," Mayor David Miller said in a release announcing the plan. "It puts us on the leading edge of the telecommunications industry nationwide and globally." The idea of wifi service in the downtown core is not without controversy, however. The service is being provided by a utility company. This is making the private telephone services providers upset. They are questioning why a utility company is getting into an already serviced market, where a telephone provider could have provided this service instead. If the project continues as planned, laptop and other wireless internet users will be able to plug in anywhere downtown by the end of 2006.
