The Bell Wireline Lifeline - a fragile link

Ron Hodgson | Jan 06, 2016

The phone line was dead over the New Year’s holiday weekend for some residents of Palmerston Highlands, a small rural community in Snow Road Station, Ontario. Hundreds of people live in this area of eastern North Frontenac Township, either full-time or as cottagers. There is no cellular service here. When the Bell wireline service goes down, so does the communications link to neighbours and community services. Most important, access to 911 is completely cut off.

To illustrate the fragility of the link consider this picture, which was taken in December 2015 on the line east of McDonalds Corners (the serving central office for Palmerston Highlands & Snow Road). The area has experienced a history of line/trunk failures due to trees and ageing equipment. The recent New Year’s outage was but another example. Over the past year alone, over 25 Snow Road residents have reported degraded Bell service or outages. At least one of these outages lasted 7 days!

Snow Road residents, given the lack of cellular service, depend completely on their Bell telephone wireline service. But there is always the nagging doubt that, if an emergency situation should arise requiring a 911 call, the Bell service may be down. The unreliability of communications services poses a serious, unnecessary risk to our residents, some of whom are seniors with potentially more sudden health issues and therefore a need for fast access to emergency services.

We would like to think that Bell recognises the need to improve their services and will be willing to put its considerable force and capital into providing an alternate wireless link for wireline subscribers in this area on a priority basis. To date, however, this has not happened.

This is not a new situation but as time goes by, it becomes increasingly serious. Bell’s outside plant, like the trees that parallel the wireline link, grows older. So do many residents of Snow Road Station. Let’s do something to fix this problem before tragedy strikes.

Ron Hodgson, John Kittle