Shaw TV wants to establish Shaw Go Wi-Fi  in Merritt to be used for free.

At last Tuesday’s regular council meeting council heard a presentation from Jeff Bray, Shaw’s manager of government and regulatory affairs in B.C.

Bray told council that Shaw wants to partner with the City of Merritt to extend its Wi-Fi access points to municipal infrastructure such as parks, city hall and other public facilities.

“In exchange for that access what we would do is we would provide the network for everybody, whether they’re a Shaw customer or not,” Bray said. “That would essentially allow non-Shaw customers who live in Merritt, along with visitors and tourists who are using those public facilities to be able to connect to the Internet at no charge.”

He said Shaw would look after all installation and maintenance of their Wi-Fi.

Users would have a cap of 500 megabytes of data per month to use.

Bray said offering this free service is essentially a customer retention strategy for Shaw.

Bray also said Shaw doesn’t ask for any exclusivity, meaning other companies who wish to offer this service in Merritt would be free to do so.

Gas money for Merritt

The City of Merritt will receive $335,770 annually from the newly signed federal gas tax agreement.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, council approved the Community Works Fund agreement associated with the gas tax.

The federal government entered into an agreement with B.C. to provide funding for municipalities to help build and revitalize infrastructure through the Community Works Fund program.

Under this program Merritt receives a share of the gas tax rebate the federal government provides B.C., financial services manager Ken Ostraat told council.

The previous agreement expired and a new agreement was signed. It expires in 2024.

The funds sent to Merritt can only be used for capital expenditures.

As of the end of 2013, the city has over $2 million available from the previous agreement.

Additionally, UBCM has accumulated $8 million of interest it will pay to B.C. municipalities over the next two years.