Yarmouth Goes Wireless

NS: Downtown Yarmouth increases appeal by going wireless
By Tina Comeau, Transcontinental Media

Source: The Vanguard, September 27, 2010

[YARMOUTH, NS] — The idea had been tossed around for some time, but it’s only been recently that much of downtown Yarmouth has gone wireless.

The downtown and a few other town blocks have been wireless for about a month now. Members of the town’s technology committee, and the town itself, see the introduction of the wireless network much the same as other infrastructure aimed at improving the lives of citizens and businesses.

The boundaries of the wireless network stretch from Water Street to around Brunswick Street, and from the Yarmouth Justice Centre on south Main Street to around where the Wendy’s/Tim Hortons is located further north.

“You won’t be able to download huge musical torrents or movies or stuff that is going to take a huge amount of bandwidth, because it’s meant to be a public network,” explains councillor Neil MacKenzie, chair of the town’s Public Information Technology Advisory Committee.

But if you need access to the Internet you’ll have it he says, and hopefully it will also serve as a tool to keep visitors to the area here longer.

“It will allow people who come here as a destination or who are traveling through to have more access to things that might get them to stay here,” MacKenzie says. “If they want to know how much a hotel room is, they don’t have to get on the phone, they can query it. It they want to look at a bed and breakfast, they could look it up.”


While standing on Main Street, councillor Neil MacKenzie, chairman of the town’s technology committee, logs into the town’s wireless network. — Tina Comeau photo

The wireless network, which is called Fishnet, is a monitored network, meaning people get a 24-hour lease to use it once they’ve logged on. When that time frame expires they go through the logging process again for future access. After clicking into the network a splash page will come up, asking for an email address. Once you enter the email you can gain access.

MacKenzie says they also have the capability to boost the network if needed for use in conjunction with major events happening in the town. As it stands, MacKenzie says it is a good network.

“The speed is about a four-meg download speed, so it’s not a wimpy network,” he says.

The project had initially been budgeted for $20,000, but it cost just under $16,000 to install and implement.

Other small towns are also jumping on the wireless bandwagon, MacKenzie notes.

“It’s a trend,” he says. “It shows that Yarmouth is thinking out of the box a bit because technology and the Internet needs to be on everyone’s mind or we’re just going to get left behind.”