Municipalities offering internet

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This article was published 02/08/2017 (2450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three municipalities in Westman are pushing aside the telecommunication giants to become an internet service provider for their residents.

The move is an acknowledgment of the importance placed on high-speed internet access.

“Over the course of time, communities have looked to utilities, like water and sewer” as their responsibilities, Hamiota Municipality Head of Council Larry Oakden said. “The internet, in the future, will be likened to those — it’s a must-have.”

Hooked up to the fibre-optic line installed at Park West School Division, Hamiota Municipality, the Municipality of Yellowhead and Prairie View Municipality will soon latch onto the network to provide super-fast internet for subscribers.

The three municipalities joined Park West School Division last year in forming a co-op so neighbouring communities can take advantage of the immense high-speed connections that are necessary for school and business.

Co-op members were only aware of one other Canadian community providing internet to its residents: Olds, Alta.

Hamiota is undertaking the largest expense of the Westman municipalities. Estimated between $2.5 million to $2.7 million to install, individual buildings are being hooked up to the service this summer. Sixty per cent of the 500-600 households and businesses in the municipality are expected to subscribe.

“This is going to put Hamiota at the leading edge of economic benefits,” Oakden said, alluding to home-based businesses and entrepreneurs being enticed to the region for the fastest internet around.

The gigabit-per-second bandwidth planned for Hamiota is the equivalent to 1,000 megabits per second, which is much faster than the 10-100 megabit per second download speeds provided by telecommunication companies. In rural communities, internet speeds are sometimes below 10 megabits.

Officials in Hamiota — where the town motto is “Leaders in Community Innovation” — have concluded becoming a conduit for internet access makes sense.

“We could basically provide this fibre service for the same cost as what people are paying now for the current service, and it would be many times better,” explained CAO Tom Mollard.

He said 60 people, hauling laptops, smartphones, tablets and video game consoles, tried the fibre internet themselves at a demonstration event in June.

“Everybody was so fixated on their device, nobody took a picture.”

The service, which will cost $60 per month for residential connections and $75 per month for businesses once it goes online this fall, is designed to be self-sustaining. Money earned will go back into the outstanding construction costs and future maintenance.

The municipality will be hiring an internet installer, whose employment is expected to continue past the installation of the fibre-optic line.

The Municipality of Yellowhead became the first government in Manitoba to become an internet service provider, connecting its first subscribers in May.

Fifty-one subscribers signed up as of August, with 18 hookups currently online, said Debbie Eastcott, chair of the Yellowhead Broadband Committee.

Unlike Hamiota, Yellowhead will provide fibre-optic service wirelessly, decreasing installation costs but providing slower speeds that are still faster than what ratepayers previously enjoyed.

The municipality is treating fibre-optic communication as a pilot project. They first connected residences in the former RM of Strathclair, before seeking subscribers in Shoal Lake and beyond later this summer.

Yellowhead council is committing one mill rate for the service, the equivalent of $130,000, toward installation. Additional costs will be derived from subscriber payments, at $50 per month.

Eastcott, who is also a councillor, feels it’s exciting for the municipality to be a trailblazer.

“Council itself so excited to be able to step forward and be able to offer something to the ratepayers that’s actually going to serve them and the money comes back to them,” she said. “It’s a win-win.”

After a public meeting to gauge interest, Prairie View Municipality began its own pilot for fibre-optic service in Miniota. Fifteen ratepayers will be hooked up in the next few weeks.

Roger Wilson, a Prairie View councillor who sits on the fibre committee, is “extremely confident” the proof of concept will work. Afterwards, the municipality will offer wireless service in and around Miniota, while discussing how to expand the service to other communities.

“It is our desire in Prairie View Municipality to connect everyone,” he said.

Don Cochrane, president of the Park West Fibre Optics Co-op Inc., explained plans to bring a fibre-optic cable to division schools and communities was hatched in 2009, but the effort only got started last year when the co-op formed.

He said there’s a lot of potential for fibre communications, with regional health authorities, First Nations and Hutterite colonies potentially choosing to lease space on the fibre line.

Cochrane said it’s gratifying to see governments of different levels work together on this project.

“Sometimes you see these school divisions and municipalities at odds with each other, with them both having taxation powers,” he said. “In our case, I haven’t seen that. We’ve been really good about working together.”

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