Recently, Toronto Star energy reporter Tyler Hamilton wrote:

Toronto Hydro launched Canada’s largest Wi-Fi zone yesterday in the heart of the city’s financial district, giving tourists, local businesses and downtown workers free wireless Internet access for the next six months.

Hydro has big plans for extending coverage to a 700 square kilometre area that embraces most of the metropolitan Toronto area. Priced at $29 per month (Canadian), the value proposition of the ultimately ubiquitous offering is even more compelling when other services (like a VoIP phone) based on Internet Protocol (IP) are factored in.

If metropolitan wireless gains mass-market traction, it’ll drive down the cost of convergence devices (like phones that can operate on cellular or WiFi networks), and continue to spur innovation.