The white wireless transmitters attached to street posts in the neighbourhood will come down by the end of the month.

That's because Thorold city council has made a decision to pull the plug on their one-year pilot project with ReliaClear Canada Inc., to provide free wireless broadband Internet service to the neighbourhood.

The decision was made at an in camera meeting at the end of June but the details were not announced by council.

Mike Weir, the city's chief administrative officer, told Niagara This Week that Thorold had no legal obligation for the decision to be announced publicly.

Since the decision was made in camera, the city is citing privacy laws as to why it is unable to say why it pulled out of the agreement with the company just three months after voting in favour of the wireless project.

When the city signed on earlier this year, Mayor Henry D'Angela had cast the tie-breaking vote to give the project the go ahead.

The agreement that was made between ReliaClear and Thorold stated that the city could pull out of the contract at any time during the term and at its sole discretion, with 30 days notice given to the company.

D'Angela said he was disappointed with council's decision to pull the plug.

"I was disappointed that we're not moving forward to work with this business in the city," said D'Angela.

D'Angela had been supportive of the project to make Confederation Heights the country's first wireless neighbourhood.

He had said in the past that the project had much potential to explore how the technology could be used to benefit the residents and the city and to showcase the technology.

Earlier this year, Jean-Michel Itoua, consul of Congo Brazzaville, came to Thorold to see an example of how the wireless technology could benefit his country.

The African country that is trying to restore itself from the devastation of a civil war had hoped the technology could restore the phone system since the country does not have the means and manpower to repair the infrastructure for a regular system.

ReliaClear had said that Thorold being Canada's first wireless city could showcase the technology to other municipalities as an example and in turn colud garner more business.

A cost to taxpayers, however, forced ReliaClear to scale the project to include just Confederation Heights, to the dismay of some residents.

Stephanie Soccio-Marandola had expressed concerns to council after learning the wi-fi project was emitting radiation onto her family.

She expressed her relief after learning the project was to be pulled.

"I'm not sure what the reason is why the city decided to pull the plug, but in terms of my research on the boxes I think its good news for the residents of Thorold. Obviously no one wants to see a business fail.

Our discretion was never about the company but the technology," she said.

Missi Miller, communications director for ReliaClear, told Niagara this Week that although the decision was a disappointment there is still lots going on at ReliaClear.

"ReliaClear's not going anywhere," she said.

Despite 28 workers laid off last month when the telemarketing aspect of ReliaClear was scrapped, Miller said the company has many other options.

"We are re-launching new product lines as we speak."

She also said ReliaClear never got an explanation as to why the project was pulled.

"They didn't give us an explanation, but I know there was a lot of back and forth and indecision recurring," said Miller.

"Throughout the whole procedure ReliaClear did find a lot of information second hand after council meetings, oftentimes we weren't contacted directly," she said.

Miller also said despite the decision D'Angela told her it has not swayed him from getting involved with the company in the future.

"We would certainly work with ReliaClear again if the city chooses to do so," said D'Angela.