Archive for March 3rd, 2005

The Battle over Municipal WiFi (Or Sir Adam Beck’s Internet)

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, HTML backup article, homepage version) examines the battles over municipal wireless Internet access initiatives. Adam Beck, a provincial cabinet minister from London, Ontario, introduced a bill that created the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. Adopting Power for the People as his slogan, Beck vigorously fought corporate interests who wanted to keep electricity in private hands. He pushed for a public utility that could provide all Ontario cities and towns with affordable electric power generated from Niagara Falls. His vision led to the worlds largest public utility and dramatically changed the lives of rural Ontarians by bringing electricity to thousands of farms and villages.

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March 3, 2005 Comments are Disabled Columns