{"id":4556,"date":"2014-04-30T23:52:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T06:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=4556"},"modified":"2015-03-11T23:35:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T06:35:04","slug":"vancouver-parks-official-pushes-for-public-wifi-zones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=4556","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver parks official pushes for public WiFi zones"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARK HUME<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0VANCOUVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Globe and Mail \u00a0\u00a0Published\u00a0

\n

Whenever the rains stop in Vancouver, people flood into the city\u2019s public spaces.<\/p>\n

They sit on the Art Gallery steps facing Robson Square, walk the Seawall and gather on the beaches along English Bay.<\/p>\n

It is those crowds that Vancouver park board commissioner Trevor Loke will be thinking about Monday night when he introduces a motion calling for free WiFi in the city\u2019s public places.<\/p>\n

The proposal could be the start of something big \u2013 a whole city that one day is covered by a WiFi zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that would be a goal that\u2019s much more long term, but certainly I think if \u2026 our public [place] WiFi is supported by residents that\u2019s a goal we could certainly move to,\u201d Mr. Loke said.<\/p>\n

He is starting small, however, by trying to get WiFi coverage in a few parks first.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think places that make sense to me are perhaps English Bay, or Nelson Park in the West End; central locations that have high visitation \u2026 perhaps Kits Beach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people bring their Kindles to the beach to do some reading. Others are saying there\u2019s no reason I shouldn\u2019t be able to go to a park with my work colleagues for a coffee and be on our phones,\u201d said Mr. Loke. \u201cThere\u2019s also, from a tourist perspective, a lot of people who want to visit parks and spaces and share online the photos they are taking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Loke, who became Vancouver\u2019s youngest-ever elected official when he won a seat in 2011 at the age of 22, says he hopes the first WiFi park isn\u2019t far off.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we can,\u201d he said when asked how quickly the park board might move on the project.<\/p>\n

While Mr. Loke hopes to see all the city\u2019s parks and community centres wired for WiFi, he\u2019s advocating a step-by-step plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly when you are dealing with technology you have to account for the fact technology doesn\u2019t always roll out the way it\u2019s anticipated. You do a little bit of testing and see how the network works. \u2026 You expand a little bit and build from there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think a phased approach is good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Loke said if his motion is endorsed, which it almost certainly will be, staff will be asked to come up with a budget and a timeline.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s confident of board support, because WiFi in parks and other public places is called for in the larger digital strategy the city endorsed last year. Under that plan Vancouver is broadly upgrading digital platforms as it tries to catch up to the world\u2019s leading cities in digital technology.<\/p>\n

When Vancouver was drafting its digital strategy, it consulted industry insiders, startup founders and interested citizens. One of the strong messages the city got was that it needed to get moving because it was lagging Boston, Chicago, London, New York and Seattle.<\/p>\n

There was also concern that the city\u2019s bureaucratic structure was an impediment to system modernization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fast pace of digital \u2013 the slow pace of government,\u201d was a phrase that emerged from the consultation process to express the concern that the city was falling behind. Council adopted the digital strategy last April, making Vancouver the first city in Canada to have such a plan. A short time later Jessie Adcock was hired as the chief digital officer.<\/p>\n

So that gave the city a plan and a director to get it moving. And the city is trying to speed up. Initially a five- to seven-year strategy was envisioned to upgrade Vancouver\u2019s digital infrastructure, and broaden the reach of public WiFi. But in the formally adopted plan, the city has given itself four years \u201cto move the dial on digital maturity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal is to have a fully connected Vancouver where citizens can easily interact with city hall through digital channels (getting everything from dog tags to building permits online ) and where an atmosphere exists that helps the digital business sector thrive. In the big picture, free WiFi in a park might not seem like much. But it\u2019s an important step toward the city of the future.<\/p>\n

source :<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/british-columbia\/vancouver-parks-official-pushes-for-public-wifi-zones\/article17952799\/<\/a><\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.vancouversun.com\/travel\/Park+board+hear+motion+free+WiFi+Vancouver+parks+beaches\/9718494\/story.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MARK HUME\u00a0\u00a0VANCOUVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Globe and Mail \u00a0\u00a0Published\u00a0Sunday, Apr. 13 2014, 7:39 PM EDT \u00a0Last updated\u00a0Sunday, Apr. 13 2014, 9:38 PM EDT Whenever the rains stop in Vancouver, people flood into the city\u2019s public spaces. They sit on the Art Gallery steps facing Robson Square, walk the Seawall and gather on the beaches along English Bay. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,252,123,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc","category-hotspots","category-vander-zalm","category-wifi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4559,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions\/4559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}