Open City Wi-Fi is a free public Wi-Fi Internet access service provided courtesy of the City of Edmonton to patrons of some of the City’s publicly accessible facilities.

Did You Know?

Currently more than 14,000 devices connect to Open City Wi-Fi every week, resulting in more than 2TB of data traffic. The service also routinely accepts over 4,500 concurrent sessions during peak periods daily.

Accessing the Open City Wi-Fi Service

Mobile device (smartphone, tablet, laptop) users visiting an Open City Wi-Fi enabled City facility must first find and select the Open City Wi-Fi network using their mobile device’s setting menu. When users open the browser on their mobile device, they will be prompted to accept the “Terms and Conditions” before being granted access to the service.

Given this is a publicly accessible service, users should note:

  • To ensure the service remains available to a maximum number of active users, there is a 12-hour connection timeout
  • It’s not a secure network connection and caution should be exercised when conducting confidential or business transactions, such as online banking, in order to avoid any potential security breach of information
  • Filtering has been applied to block access to inappropriate websites that contain Child Abuse Content, Extreme Content, Filter Avoidance, Gambling Content, Hate Speech Content, Non-sexual Nudity Content and Pornographic Content
  • Web Browsing (HTTP and HTTPS), E-mail client access (IMAP4, POP3, MSA) and Apple Push Notification Service traffic is permitted
  • “Peer to Peer” program (BitTorrent, KaZaa, Gnutella, and Morpheus) traffic is not permitted
  • The City of Edmonton does not provide mobile devices for public use

Service and Support Commitment

The City of Edmonton is committed to ensuring Open City Wi-Fi remains a reliable, sustainable and supported service. Patrons visiting City facilities equipped with the Open City Wi-Fi service can expect to receive free Wi-Fi internet access.

In the event of service availability issues, facility patrons should contact the appropriate facility staff to report the service outage. IT support staff will respond to the reported outage during regular business hours (8:30am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday, excluding statutory holidays) and aim to have the issue resolved within 4 hours.

Please note: Mobile devices themselves are not supported, unless they are City of Edmonton owned devices.