Wireless Nomad

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Wireless Nomad is a non-profit cooperative based in Toronto, Canada providing subscriber-owned home and business internet along with free Wi-Fi wireless Internet access to Toronto residents. Free Wi-Fi web access is available at each of the 100+ nodes, making it one of the largest free Wi-Fi networks in the country.

Instead of using Bell Sympatico's or Rogers Cable's high-speed Internet access services to provide service to their wireless access points, they are their own Internet Service Provider (ISP) under CRTC rules that compel large providers like Rogers and Bell to resell their cable and DSL circuits to smaller ISPs at a regulated (tariffed) price. As of 2006, WN charges C$33+GST per month to members who sign up for home internet service (3mbps down/720kbps up), which is less than Bell and Rogers charge for their high-speed Internet access service. WN Business service is $55 a month.

A Wi-Fi network coverage map is available at the Locations page. The service covers many areas, mainly in the Toronto downtown area. In October of 2006, the co-op deployed a large antenna in Toronto's Kensington Market area, covering about one third of the neighborhood with free WiFi Internet.

Wireless Nomad also allows subsribers on residential accounts to operate servers. It is one of the few ISPs in Canada that allows this. WN also uses completely open-source software for its servers, website, and wireless routers. The servers run Gentoo Linux, and the Linksys WRT-54GL routers at each location run OpenWRT, ChiliSpot, and OpenVPN.

Wi-Fi mesh networking is also part of WN's deployment, with several small mesh networks in use in Toronto.