Maria Canton
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Aug 02/99) - After years of being told cellular phones were not a profitable venture for the community, Inuvik has had its first system up and running for two weeks.

"Everything is moving along right on schedule," says Tom Zubko, owner of Inuvik TV and the person who brought cell phones to the community.

"We've been researching this for about three years now and the community has been looking forward to it too."

The new digital phone system, the first of its kind in the North, makes more efficient use of radio-wave frequencies and produces a clearer voice reproduction than the commonly-used analogue system.

"The digital system is leading-edge technology, it has only been deployed for about three years," said Zubko.

In an agreement that involves Cantel as the cell site provider, Inuvik cell phone users are able to use their phones in other Cantel areas.

Unfortunately, NMI Mobility, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NorthwesTel, has 24 cell sites in the North, including Yellowknife, Iqaluit and Whitehorse.

This is Cantel's first venture in the North and all of their cell sites are below the 60th parallel.

If Inuvik customers want to use their phones in Yellowknife or Iqaluit, Inuvik TV will have to enter into a roaming agreement with NMI Mobility.

"We don't see that happening any time soon," says Zubko.

"Right now we're working on establishing the initial phases of operation."

Inuvik, however, has been previously denied cell phone service by NMI Mobility because it was deemed to be not economically feasible.

"The first thing we look at is the size of the population base and how many people would actually be interested, let alone buy into a package," said Glenn Nicol, vice-president and general manager of NMI Mobility.

"Inuvik only has a population of around 3,000 and we could not justify setting up a cellular site without expecting to lose money."

Other criteria considered by NMI before making a move to establish a cell site that can cost up to $400,000, are the growth and drive of the local economy and the number of people travelling to and from the community with cell phones.

"We would love to go into many small communities in the North, but it just isn't feasible for us," said Nicol.

"We did, however, set up a system in Iqaluit with the primary reason being the new government and the number of people that will be travelling there."

Prior to initiating service, Inuvik TV conducted a survey to determine the level of demand for cell phone service and the types of billing plans people would prefer.

"We believe we've found a way to do it that is economically and technically superior and scales to the size of the anticipated demand that we'll have," said Zubko.