COMMUNITY ACCESS PROJECT

For the Service Learning assignment in this course, I was assigned to work with CAP or Community Access Project. After reading the description on the assignment page, I thought that this would be a good assignment for me. Setting up free WiFi Internet in a neighborhood lacking access to it, would definitely help me understand the phenomenon of the digital divide.

First meeting:

On the first day, I was asked to come in to 504B Parliament Street. I had not been to that side of town a lot, and was excited to be there. My first impression of the office wasn’t a great one. It was in the basement of what seemed like a residential house. At first glimpse, it did not seem like a place of business. When I went inside, I was greeted by the man in charge, Daryl Hobbs.

After he introduced himself, and gave me a brief overview of his plan and intentions for setting up free wireless in the neighbourhood, my image of the entire operation changed significantly. What this man was proposing was something that would benefit a lot of people, people who would otherwise not have access to the wonders of the internet due to several circumstances. He aims to gain funding by having sponsors post advertisements in a flash page that all recipients of the free internet would have to go through as soon as they open their browsers. Essentially, he wanted us to help him work on a business plan for his operation. He gave us a general set of tasks to complete before our next meeting.

In his words: "We need to develop a business plan for the city to install and maintain a wireless network in Toronto. We could start with how many buildings does the city own and support, community centres, libraries, and government buildings. What is the current WiFi coverage of these buildings? What would it take to install a wireless network including cost, area coverage, suppliers pricing and support levels etc...What are the expected results, social, economic, and cultural and how will they be measured.“

It was here that I met my team-mates. I had seen them in class several times before, but never really spoken to them before then. Mina, Haitao, Faraz and I established time slots that would suit everyone where we could meet online to discuss our progress, and work on the business plan.

Mr. Hobbs then took us to the building (200 Wellesley) where he plans to set up the network, where I witnessed the digital divide for myself. This was a 30 story building, and according to Mr. Hobbs, more than half of the tenants did not have access to the Internet. As a person who absolutely can not function without the Internet, this came as a huge shock to me. I mean, I know there are tons of people without Internet access in this word, but did not expect that to be the case in a seemingly metropolitan building located in a modern city like Toronto. Mr. Hobbs told us that the building's occupants were not particularly affluent, and hence could not afford the luxury of the Internet. This was preventing them from fully exploiting their community, and growing as one.

I felt the trip to the building was essential, as I was able to witness the phenomenon, first hand.

Online Meeting:

That week, the four of us met online to start working on gathering relevant information for the business plan. We set up a document on Googledocs, which we all had access to. We managed to find a list of the buildings in Toronto and particularly in Cabbagetown, which was the area CAP was focusing on.

We also managed to find a rough estimate on how much it would cost to set up the wireless network. We mustered up any information we could find. By the end of the session, we had collected sufficient raw data from which we could further progress after Mr. Hobbs' input.

Throughout the remainder of the project, this was primarily how we managed group work.

I feel that working online was only fitting for a group of students claiming to be on the more knowledgeable side of the digital divide.

Second Meeting:

Our second meeting took place the following week. We went in at about 10 am, and gave Mr. Hobbs a report of the work we had done. Happy with what we showed him, he proceeded with giving us specialized tasks. I was told to get find the cost of setting up a wireless network in a 30 story apartment building (200 Wellesley). Other tasks delegated to my partners included providing a detailed listing of all buildings, libraries, community centers in Toronto, and comparing the pricing of different internet providers. This was essentially an elaboration of what we had already done.

Mr. Hobbs talked about the steps involved in making a successful business plan, and the key elements required to make it complete.

My Task: (Finding cost of wireless network in a 30 floor building, with 4 access points on each floor)

Finding the cost of setting up a wireless network in a building included finding the price of the routers, cables required and the price of the internet itself. Additionally, I was required to find the price of getting someone to install the network.

To go about this, I initially did an online search into the matter. I found several resources with relevant information. These included:

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/computers/wireless-network.html

http://www.rogers.com/web/link/hispeedBrowseFlowDefaultPlans

As you can see, a general pricing of the entire process is given in these sites.

Next, I called Rogers to gain more concrete information on the pricing. I figured that Rogers would have all the information I would require, and would at the least, be able to confirm the information I had already gathered. They told me to come in to the main office at 777 Jarvis Street.

When I went there and asked one of the representatives how much it would cost, he was initially unwilling to help, stating that installing a network in a building is a complex issue that requires the inclusion of a large amount of variables (such as number of tenants, material of walls etc). However, after several minutes of pushing him to tell me, I told him that I just needed a general cost and had already done some research into the matter. He looked at my numbers and told me they were more or less correct.

Third Meeting:

This was definitely the most informative meeting. Mr. Hobbs took us to 200 Wellesley, and introduced us to Ms. Vicky Rennie, who is the Toronto Housing Corporation’s (TCH) tenant representative for the building. She was well informed on the demographic composition of the building, and was equipped with information regarding which of the tenants had internet access.

She said that this building is amongst the largest residential buildings in North America, housing close to 1400 tenants. Most of these tenants are not as well off as they would like to be. The building houses mostly senior citizens (people above the age of 60), as well as single mothers struggling to maintain their household. This was seconded by observations I had made of the building. There were 3 elderly women sitting in the lobby when we entered. Every other tenant that exited the elevator while we waited in the lobby was a senior citizen, (most of them on motorized carts).

She told us that out of the 700 apartments, approximately 300 already had access to the internet. That meant that a staggering 400 apartments were void of internet access, either because they could not afford it, or did not have the know-how of how to go about installing it.

She then proceeded to show us the electric room and the Bell room, both of which we would require access to during the process of installing the wireless network.

We also conducted a scan of the general layout of each floor, and decided on strategic locations to place the routers.

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Future Meeting:

Next week, we will be going to 200 Wellesley again, where Ms. Rennie has agreed to let us use her apartment and office to test a Meraki wireless access point. The point of the experiment is not to test the internet itself, but to test the range of the wireless router. We will be placing it about 2 meters away from Ms. Rennie’s apartment and will check to see if we get a signal in her room. Then, we will do the same in her Office, which is located on the same floor, but 2 flats away. This will be of great help to us, as we will be able to tell if our earlier estimations as to how many access points per floor we would be required were correct.

The project ends next week when we will finish the business plan after reviewing the results of the router placement experiment.

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Digital Divide:

My outlook on the digital divide has been widened after this project. I have always thought that elderly people would not be interested in the internet, and related technology, but working with Mr. Hobbs has shown me otherwise. The people in 200 Wellesley would definitely benefit from the internet, much in the same way that we all do. However, the lack of money and technical support has prevented these people from obtaining these benefits. The single mothers who struggle to maintain their families could search for better jobs online; the elderly folk can stay in touch with their friends and families via email and social networks like Facebook.

The longer these people function without the Internet, the wider the digital divide becomes. It is for this reason that I commend Mr. Hobbs for taking the initiative to provide not only free, but unrestricted Internet access to the tenants of this building, and I consider it an honour to have worked with him.

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