Ottawa’s free Wifi network, ogWifi

By Heri Jan 7th 2008 in Design

Technaute has a nice story about ogWifi (for Ottawa Gatineau Wifi), an organisation which supplies free Wifi for customers going to bars, coffee shops and local businesses on both sides of the Ottawa river.

As Scott Annan writes in StartupOttawa, the city’s coverage in wifi is in an order of magnitude much less more than Montreal’s, which has more than 100 hotspots.

montreal wifi
Map of wifi coverage in Montreal

montreal wifi
Map of wifi coverage in Ottawa

This is where initiatives like ogWifi come. Now, you ask me, what does it have to with Montréal? Well, ogWifi came up when a member of Ile-Sans-Fil, Montréal’s non-profit wireless community network, visited Ottawa and asked why they couldn’t replicate the Ile-Sans-Fil model to Ottawa.

Ile-Sans-Fil offers support for businesses wanting to offer wifi for their customers, within a model that makes it viable for everyone. The business owner doesn’t have to deal with technical problems, for instance setting up a router and security; customers gets free, city-wide Wifi. Ile-Sans-Fil has been expanding now for several years, at the point they are now negotiating with the city to provide wifi in parks and other public spaces in Montréal.

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Comments

daniel January 07, 2008

Thanks for the coverage of Ile sans fil (ISF) Heri. In addition to OGWiFi, your readers might also be interested in these other community wireless organisations: ZAP Québec, ZAP Sherbrooke, Montérégie sans-fil, Centre du Québe sans-fil and Wireless Toronto. While many of these groups were initially inspired by what ISF was doing, most have adapted the formula to suit their local needs and are now innovating in different areas.

As far as ISF goes, 2008 is shaping up to be a banner year. To kick it off right, we’re throwing a little Happy Hour get together for volunteers and users this Wednesday, 19:00 at Les Pas Sages (details here: http://ilesansfil.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=76). Come let us know what we are doing right, wrong or should be doing. All are welcome.

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Zelaurent January 07, 2008

Je ne peux dire mieux que Daniel, sinon que les derniers chiffres indique plus de 55.000 utilisateurs et 150 hotspots pour ISF.

Hope to see you on Wednesday ;)

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Montreal Tech Watch » Montreal’s future wifi network threatened by City August 26, 2008

[...] 75.000 users, accessing the highest number of hotspots than any other Canadian city, and which also inspired many other organizations such as, ogWifi, ZAP Québec, ZAP Sherbrooke, Montérégie sans-fil, Centre du Québe sans-fil and [...]

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Handyverträge January 24, 2011

After I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any method you possibly can remove me from that service? Thanks!

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