VanWifi by Shaw

[jlousa]

Surprised this hasn't gotten more press, given my indirect involvement in this I figured I'd post about it.

The City of Vancouver, in partnership with Shaw Communications Inc., has expanded free public Wi-Fi throughout the city, making #VanWiFi one of the largest free public-Wi-Fi networks in North America.

The Granville location is now live with the remaining sites becoming active over the coming months. In addition to the 15 locations requested by the City as part of the phase two #VanWiFi expansion, the Shaw offering also includes an additional 500 plus Wi-Fi locations spread widely throughout the downtown core and surroundingareas, including the following highly-concentrated spaces:
•Broadway (Oak to Cambie)
•Commercial Drive (Venables to 1st Ave)
•Davie Street (Jervis to Burrard)
•Denman Street (from Davie to W. Georgia)
•Downtown Eastside
•Gastown
•Granville Street (from Drake to Cordova)
•Main Street (Broadway to E. 16th Ave)
•Robson Street (from Denman to Burrard)

It also includes 125 Mobi by Shaw Go bike station locations, of which 49 are
currently enabled with #VanWiFi provided by Shaw.

Free public Wi-Fi is also available at all Vancouver Public Library locations, 27 community centres, four outdoor pools, four civic facilities, three public golf courses, three theatres, two marinas and the City Hall campus.

Bandwidth speed will generally be 10 Mbps and there is no limit or cap on data usage. No personal information is required to access the VanWiFi network.
To connect to VanWiFi:
•Select the VanWiFi network name from your device’s Wi-Fi settings menu
• Open your browser and you will be automatically re-directed to the Wi-Fi terms and conditions page. Read and then click the button to accept
the terms and conditions.
•You will be re-directed to the VanWiFi home page(vanwifi.vancouver.ca) and are then connected to the internet.

[Nites]

If I can recall correctly isn't ShawGo wi-fi only availible free to Shaw customers? Or is this service completely separate? I know the Telus wifi hotspots are free for everyone.

[jlousa]

VanWifi is open to everyone, don't need to be a Shaw member like you do with ShawGo. And the TelusOpen is also only open to Telus clients expcept for some locations such as bc place.

[Nites]

Originally Posted by jlousa

VanWifi is open to everyone, don't need to be a Shaw member like you do with ShawGo. And the TelusOpen is also only open to Telus clients expcept for some locations such as bc place.

Didn't know the TelusOpen was only available for Telus clients. At my gym the TelusOpen is free and I've used it at quite a few restaurants in downtown. All you are required to do is to sign in with your email address and activate a guest account through an email that is sent to you.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Question: how far does each signal extend - one block? Two blocks? Half a block? I applaud the City for setting this up (and jlousa for helping), but as it is now, I doubt it'll be useful to anybody outside of downtown, Olympic Village or central Broadway.

[logan5]

When I try to use Shaw Go wi-fi, I have trouble getting a signal even if I'm standing just outside the store or restaurant that carries it. The signal doesn't seem to travel more than 30 feet. Or maybe my old G4 phone 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵.

[jlousa]

Depends on how many accesspoints are installed in each location. But for now it's all about creating hotspots at locations where locals and tourists would converge not so much about blanket coverage yet.

[SpongeG]

so if one lives downtown they can get free wifi now? oh the rich get richer

[Migrant_Coconut]

^ Now that you mention it, 10 Mb/s is pretty damn generous; what's to stop residents from quitting their provider and just leeching off the Mobi station below them? Not hating, I'm genuinely curious.

[WarrenC12]

Since Shaw bought WIND, I've gotten free access to all of their hotspots, it's pretty slick and connects in the background to all Shaw wireless access points.

I'm wondering if they are just adding the VanWiFi SSID to existing wireless routers. That would be a quick win for them.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Since Shaw bought WIND, I've gotten free access to all of their hotspots, it's pretty slick and connects in the background to all Shaw wireless access points.

I'm wondering if they are just adding the VanWiFi SSID to existing wireless routers. That would be a quick win for them.

Well some of them are on the Mobi bike stations and on the street so they are brand new. I assume some of them are piggybacking off their existing WiFi network.

[Nites]

Originally Posted by logan5

When I try to use Shaw Go wi-fi, I have trouble getting a signal even if I'm standing just outside the store or restaurant that carries it. The signal doesn't seem to travel more than 30 feet. Or maybe my old G4 phone 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵.

Its not your phone. Shaw purposely manages the wireless signal strength on their AP's so that the signal doesn't go beyond the premises of the business/area they installed at.

It's actually kind of annoying because sometimes my phones Wi-Fi will automatically connect to an AP if it can manage to get 1 bar. Then I'll get confused on why my data isn't working only to notice that I'm now on a unstable Wi-Fi connection. This also happens when I'm driving and stopped at a traffic light. The smart Wi-Fi capabilities on the phone also don't really do a good job switching between mobile data and Wi-Fi. I'm using the Note 8 but also experienced the same with the Nexus 6P.

[Pinion]

I subscribe to shaw but don't use go wifi because it's terrible outside of some pockets around downtown. Rogers LTE can get 100+Mbps down in the same places and I can't play many videos anyway, even with 10 gigs of data, so I'll take LTE.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Well some of them are on the Mobi bike stations and on the street so they are brand new. I assume some of them are piggybacking off their existing WiFi network.

Are those solar powered and linked to a 4G hotspot? I can't imagine it's worth running services.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by skymaster

Its not your phone. Shaw purposely manages the wireless signal strength on their AP's so that the signal doesn't go beyond the premises of the business/area they installed at.

It's actually kind of annoying because sometimes my phones Wi-Fi will automatically connect to an AP if it can manage to get 1 bar. Then I'll get confused on why my data isn't working only to notice that I'm now on a unstable Wi-Fi connection. This also happens when I'm driving and stopped at a traffic light. The smart Wi-Fi capabilities on the phone also don't really do a good job switching between mobile data and Wi-Fi. I'm using the Note 8 but also experienced the same with the Nexus 6P.

There is a setting in android to manage crappy WiFi signals, and prefer mobile data instead. Even if your flavour of android doesn't support it, 3rd party apps exist to do the same thing.

[SpongeG]

the way the media are touting this story makes it sound like downtown has been blanketed by free wif, but if its only installed inside stores etc that not much general coverage.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

There is a setting in android to manage crappy WiFi signals, and prefer mobile data instead. Even if your flavour of android doesn't support it, 3rd party apps exist to do the same thing.

On iOS it’s a setting under cellular called Wi-Fi Assist.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Are those solar powered and linked to a 4G hotspot? I can't imagine it's worth running services.

Seems doubtful that they could run on solar power or battery. The Mobi Wifi was announced at the end of 2016 so its sort of old news:

https://www.straight.com/news/840706/sha...-across-vancouvers-bike-sharing-zone-new