Broadband_09-30

Jeff Green | Jul 30, 2009

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski revealed that Barrett Xplore has abandoned plans to locate a 100-foot tower in Arden to deliver wireless high speed Internet service to the hamlet.

“Barrett received a grant to provide service throughout the area where possible. Barrett has now determined they cannot do that for Arden,” Gutowski told council on Tuesday (July 28). “They will be providing affordable satellite service to the area instead, but that has nothing to do with the grant,” Gutowski added.

Barrett had been poised to put up a 100' tower on the shores of Big Clear Lake along with towers in Parham and Crow Lake, but at a public meeting to discuss the towers last month a number of people from Big Clear Lake came out to oppose the tower.

In addition, Barrett Xplore later learned that the Crow Lake and Parham regions already have service available through the North Frontenac Telephone Company, and all three towers have now been dropped from Barrett's plans, which are instead focussing on the Piccadilly region and the Perth Road corridor.

The high speed Internet grant, which was received for South and Central Frontenac by Frontenac County, cannot be spent on satellite Internet service, because the province does not consider satellite service to be strong enough for the designation “high speed”.

It was better news for the 70 householders who live in the Clarendon/Ardoch Road area. North Frontenac Telephone Company has just expanded their DSL (digital subscriber line) service to that region through the phone lines.

North Frontenac Telephone Company did not seek any of the county grant money. Their service is limited to the 279 and 375 phone exchanges, however.

For most of the 830 households in the 335 exchange of Arden and Mountain Grove, high speed Internet remains an elusive dream.