County realizes importance of TIM KALINOWSKI
hen you live in the city, or within a larger community, you take broadband access for granted. Our lives, both
is it all of a sudden it becomes another distinguishing feature between rural and urban. We want to see our rural folks get that high speed.”
for personal use and work, are seamlessly interwoven into the world wide web through our communications, home entertainment systems, and within the broader internet of things.
If only it were so easy. There are several unique challenges to providing rural broadband, says Cypress County planning supervisor Jeffrey Dowling, which most simply don’t think about when these discussions arise.
internet access W
Imagine if you didn’t have that access? What would you say if someone offered you a good job which included an affordable home in the countryside, but the price is you would have to move into an area where high speed internet is just not available? Cypress County councillor Richard Oster doesn’t have to guess what the answer would be for most young people today. He has asked.
“I have asked kids in their twenties, would you ever consider moving someplace where there is no internet service? And they have said no. Wow, that’s a wake up call right there. Not having the internet is a disincentive for people considering a move into a rural area like ours.”
“It creates two classes of citizens,” confirms Palliser Economic Partnership (PEP) president Jay Slemp. “Our concern
“It’s not a matter of, if you build it they will come,” states Dowling. “Because we are prepared to build it, but we haven’t had any takers so far.”
Some of those challenges include the cost of building signal towers, the need to get fibre optic cables out to remote areas, difficulties associated with rugged terrain, and a general reluctance on the part of internet providers to stretch their operations too far out of already established communities.
Cypress County has tried to give several financial inducements to overcome those providers’ reluctance. For instance, it has pre- approved a $600,000 budget to build three new towers in its most remote areas, and has expressed its willingness to do even more to secure internet service for all residents. Companies still aren’t charging in.
“It’s proven to be a huge challenge because our municipality is so large geographically, and we have a lot of constraints with hills and topography that make line-of-sight tower transmission somewhat challenging,” explains Dowling. “The other thing is our area is so sparsely and remotely populated that there is just not enough population in some areas for the internet service
providers to put up high speed service
16
towers in certain locations. There is just not enough
Cypress County planning supervisor Jeffrey Dowling says despite the local council's attempts to entice internet providers with huge incentives to establish broadband in deep rural areas, there have been few takers so far.
customers to make it economically viable from their business case perspective.”
Slemp agrees with Dowling, but says these types of justifications only serve to continue to deprive rural residents of basic internet service.
“It’s all about trying to overcome the economics; that is always the thing in rural Alberta,” confirms Slemp. “But there is increasing recognition high speed internet is a basic service, the same as water, power and gas. At one time, people would have said we can’t have natural gas throughout rural Alberta; it doesn’t make sense. Now, however, it is on every farm. I think if we really decide we want to do it, we can do it.”
Slemp foresees a day when broadband will have to be provided in municipalities to all residents like every other necessary utility.
“Swimming pools don’t pay for themselves,” he says. “Other services in towns don’t always pay for themselves. But we recognize the importance of them (as municipal leaders), and the taxpayer says we recognize the importance of them, and we are ready to put some money in to make the economics better. Then we have to find a way to do it.”
Cypress County has not reached that point Oster. Councillors would still like to see if a public/private deal of some sort could be worked out, and if additional federal and provincial grants become available, before going all in to make local broadband another expensive public utility.
“We don’t want to get into that part of it because that just means more challenges and more administration going forward,”
says Oster. “We’re going to keep trying to work with the internet providers, and get into sharing agreements with neighbouring municipalities along our borderlines. If more people could use (a tower) than just our area, and we could share the costs, it is more feasible.”
The next step for the county, explains Oster, is to survey all citizens to see what kind of internet service they are currently getting, and what still needs to be accomplished to ensure decent broadband access for all. From there, council will take whatever steps in deems necessary to close the gaps.
“It’s not going to happen unless we (on council) do it,” acknowledges Oster. “We’re not going to back off on this. We’re going to keep moving ahead. It’s so important for our ratepayers.” ❚
Cypress County councillor Richard Oster says local government has a motivating role to play in helping to bring broadband and high speed internet to its deep rural areas.
41241855•03/28/2017
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