If council follows administration’s recommendation, free wifi will be installed in Jasper’s municipal facilities.
Shaw Communications approached the municipality last September, proposing to install several micro transmitters on municipal infrastructure across town, allowing the company to provide free wifi access to its customers, as well as the general public.
Council then launched a public engagement campaign, surveying 165 residents to determine whether the community was interested in free wifi and where people would like to see it installed.
The response showed that 91 per cent of respondents were in support of free wifi in public facilities. There was also significant support for it in the downtown core, with 86 per cent of respondents in favour.
Other available areas included residential areas and open spaces, like municipal parks and playgrounds.
Administration is recommending that council support the installation of transmitters in municipal facilities, like the fitness centre, Emergency Services Building, Community Outreach Services building and the Jasper Activity Centre.
Currently, when people log into wifi in any of those facilities, they patch into the municipality’s own service, which, according to the town’s chief administrative officer, isn’t ideal.
“It’s preferable that there’s a separate system that the public access—a free, open wifi network, versus patching into our system,” said Mark Fercho.
The reason for that is it will protect the municipality, he said.
Yvonne McNabb, director of culture and recreation, agreed. She said, right now, when there’s a conference or an event taking place in the activity centre, municipal staff will give out the password to the municipality’s own internet service and, on occasion, that has caused some problems.
“In the past there has been movies downloaded and then all of a sudden we’re getting warnings from the companies that we have been downloading movies, and we have no way of tracking it to find out who did it or where it came from.
“So, having a public [connection] would definitely be a benefit to us,” she said.
In the original contract presented by Shaw, it was left open to the company to determine where it would install its micro transmitters. But, following negotiations with Fercho, the contract was altered to give the municipality the last word on locations. The contract is also non-exclusive, so the municipality also has the option to offer the same opportunity to other wifi providers in the future.
If council gives the go-ahead, Shaw customers would be able to log on free of charge, and non-customers would be able to access the network for a specified time by providing an email address.
The Town of Hinton has entered into a similar agreement with Shaw and now offers the service in its municipal facilities.
Shaw Go Wifi will appear before council for a vote May 19.
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
