Satellite Only for Arden &
Mountain Grove
By Jeff Green
Barrett Xplore, which won a contract
from Frontenac County to bring wireless high speed internet to
service gap areas in Central and South Frontenac, will only be
erecting one tower in Central Frontenac, at the southern tip of the
township.
Barrett originally planned to erect
towers in Crow Lake, Parham, and Arden, as well as a repeater tower
in Mountain Grove, but those plans have all been cancelled. Instead,
Barrett will be constructing nine towers to the south, and offering a
discount on satellite service to the 830 households in the K0H 1B0
postal region (Mountain Grove and Arden).
Frontenac County received an $800,000
OMAFRA grant to entice companies into bringing wireless Internet to
the townships, and the money will go to Barrett Xplore to cover half
of their capital costs for the project.
According to Maureen O’Higgins of the
consulting firm Actionable Intelligence, which has been managing the
project for the county, the Parham and Crow Lake towers ended up
being redundant “because North Frontenac Telephone Company is
already providing service to those areas”.
“For the Arden tower the design of
the network provided that the signal would go from McAdoo Lane in
Kinston to Parham to Mountain Grove to Arden. Without Parham
customers, we could no longer bring the signal up to Arden,
affordably.” She said.
“When did you find out that Parham
was already served by North Frontenac Telephone?” asked Deputy
Mayor Gary Smith.
“This summer” O’Higgins said,
Barrett Xplore is still fulfilling its
contract, O’Higgins said, by putting the extra towers in South
Frontenac and Wolfe Island. “Let’s just say it is fulfilled. It
is well fulfilled,” she said.
Barrett is also offering their
satellite service at a deeply discounted rate in place of wireless
service, “without any grant support” O’Higgins added.
The offer, which will be available
starting in the third week of November and will remain on offer for
six months, will provide a service package that normally costs $125
per month for $49, as long as the customer signs on for three years.
“The download speeds are comparable
to the service from the towers,” said Jason Tremblay from Barrett
Xplore, “although upload speeds are slower. But the service will be
more widely available than wireless was going to be.”
The service will cover Kennebec Lake,
which was outside of the range of the tower that was originally
proposed.
