In Vancouver, like many other cities, complaining about the weather is the local pasttime. Certainly there *is* a reason we are called 'rain city' and for several months we Vancouverites toil indoors away from the perennial drizzle - i suggest true locals never use umbrellas but i digress ...

But when the days are gleamingly perfect like today, folks look for any reason to get outside to work and/or play - often with laptop (or hacked iphone) in tow.

So on a day like today, when I step outside the office to enjoy a sandwich in the park, loaf on the museum steps, or to hang out in front of the curvy indoor/outdoor library with the on-strike city workers, I look for wi-fi signals.

And oh yes, there are wi-fi signals galore anywhere downtown, which is neat but doesn't necessarily help someone like me who is trying to get some work done - or at least check hockey news from wherever i am.

As communities caught on to wi-fi as a useful business tool, some municipalities launched (or tried to launch) city-run access points (at great risk and expense).

A CNET News article "The citywide Wi-Fi reality check" attempts to separate the reality from the hype:

The idea of municipalities providing broadband service has been catching on nationwide for the last couple of years, despite pushback from local telephone and cable providers who view city-owned broadband networks as a threat to their businesses.

Other websites have attempted to document and list available wifi locations as online warchalking guides while other firms pushed the subscribe-model

The guys from Zhonka (as heard in the Olyblog podcast) partnered up with local coffeeshops and pubs to enable a consortium of no-advertising, no-login hotspots with overwhemlingly positive results for the vendors, the ISP and webusers wanting a surf with their beverage. The community at large benefits too as no one bothers hacking (or borrowing) other connections since there are safe, free alternatives.

Anyhow, all this backstory is to tell you that Vancouver technology consultant Boris Mann (also a Bryght guy) and his rag-tag gang of Internet privateers are kick-starting a similar kinda wireless blanket to keep Gastown geeks all snuggly warm with convenient, decent access.

What this means is: Whereever one roams within the mesh, he/she is in a workspace - parks, streetcorners, coffeeshops, cafes, streetcorners, Workspace, the steamclock, or park benches in quaint back courtyards, etc.

The result: increased collaboration, less hassle, and more time in the sun on days like today. good enough for me.

So, what's the plan? Boris geeks out of the tech bits in detail (and yes you can participate in the conversation) but it will exclaim that the project is underway with a website http://vancouver.freethenet.ca (coming soon) and a box of devices which business can purchase, mount and add to the mix. Pony up your $75~150 for a Meraki device and the karmic rewards will roll right in!

Do you know a Gastown business (bear in mind, this is just the starting point for a bigger quilt) which wants to get hip?

Boris sets out the scenario thusly:

Bryght is going to put an outdoor unit on the roof, Raincity Studios is moving in and will probably stick a unit in the front window. Joe works at Nitobi and already has a unit on the roof. If we can start by covering the first block from Alexander to Abbott, that will be an excellent start: then we can start talking to the Gastown Business Improvement Association and the other local businesses.

From a technical standpoint, certainly having dozens of residents in the same block all sending out wi-fi signals isn't the most efficient design and these multiple signals overlap and confuse with varying levels of security from none at all (like mine in North Van) to 128K encrypted WEP.

When considering the usage patterns (home users at night, business user by day) there is certainly abundant redundant bandwidth available and yet no reliable way to just get online without trying a bunch of SSIDs, risking cleartext password, hacking through a backdoor or other scheme.

Sure companies and individuals alike want to keep their data safe from intruders but that is really a separate issue from sharing a connection. With a little planning and transparency, businesses *should* be able to share out wi-fi "in the wild" just because it is handy and nice.

Raincity is in, how about you?