Media Coverage — August 12, 2012
Bloomberg — August 12, 2012 — View original article at Bloomberg
Bloomberg reported in August 2012 on the continued growth of WestNet Wireless's city-wide Wi-Fi network in Calgary, Alberta. The article highlighted WestNet's position as Calgary's pioneering municipal wireless internet provider, documenting the network's ongoing subscriber growth and geographic expansion during Calgary's oil-boom era.
At the time of the article, WestNet was operating in its sixth year of commercial city-wide Wi-Fi service (launched 2006), had grown from 17,500 subscribers in 2010 to well over 30,000 by mid-2012, and was in the process of upgrading its base station infrastructure to 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) across the Calgary network. The company was entirely self-funded and debt-free, operating 6 full-time and 11 contract employees.
The Bloomberg coverage marked a significant moment of national and international business press recognition for WestNet, following the Business in Calgary feature in August 2010 and the London Free Press coverage in June 2011. The Bloomberg article confirmed WestNet's standing as one of Canada's most-covered independent wireless internet providers.
Context: Calgary in 2012 was at the peak of its oil-sands economic boom — the fastest-growing major city in Canada. WestNet's subscriber growth tracked closely with the city's population surge, with new residential and corporate clients added weekly across the expanding network.