NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
NorthwesTel's "scaled-back" $233-million modernization plan still means all NWT and Nunavut communities are expected to have access to next-generation wireless by the time the plan is completed, say company officials.
A NorthwesTel fibre optic cable, which spans the Deh Cho Bridge, connects Yellowknife and the North Slave region to Edmonton. - NNSL file photo
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Over the next five years, NorthwesTel plans to invest the money in its telecommunications network, which covers the NWT, Nunavut, the Yukon, and some of northern British Columbia.
NorthwesTel president and chief executive director Paul Flaherty said the current plan will bring next-generation cell service to all Nunavut communities and, as a result of a recent partnership with Falcon Communications, all NWT communities by the end of the five-year plan.
Flaherty added that no one currently makes a 3G satellite-served cellular service, which means getting the services to satellite-served communities may take time. However, NorthwesTel started a trial in Iqaluit last September and said the system currently being tested could be upgradeable to 4G services in the future.
"We're still working our way through that but our plan is to put in next generation (service)," he said.
Flaherty said some communities in northern British Columbia will not get improved cellular services and improvements to Internet connectivity in communities served by satellite are scaled back from the $273-million plan that had been released last July.
Conversely, communities not served by satellite will have two to three times better Internet service than currently, he said.
One of NorthwesTel's most vocal competitors says the plan doesn't touch on what is really important, namely the integrity of an aging system.
Cameron Zubko, vice-president of Ice Wireless Inc., a sister company to Iristel, said the system doesn't address a lack of redundancies in the network, outdated equipment, or the affordability of competitors to use the system.
He said the improvements which are suggested are geared toward expanding NorthwesTel's client base by providing in-demand wireless services.
He added that telecommunication competitors, including Ice Wireless, have been open about plans to bring their wireless services to remote communities already and NorthwesTel's focus on such services in the modernization plan, instead of strengthening the network already in place, only tightens the telecommunication giant's grip on the Northern grid.
Zubko pointed to the advancements NorthwesTel has already made to its network as an indication of how beneficial a competitive market is for Northerners and any plan the CRTC supports should be conducive to generating "healthy" competition.
Flaherty said the network improvements that have already started are a result of NorthwesTel's interest in simply getting started on work that needs to be done.
"Our position is, we're continuing to move forward while all of this happens," he said. "Right before Christmas we opened next generation cell service in Fort Simpson and Norman Wells ... and we're going to continue down that path as well. Probably within a couple months or so we should have a couple more announcements of services going into communities as well. We're not waiting, we're continuing to move."
In the modernization plan, NorthwesTel states the plan may change if revenue is less than expected.
NorthwesTel refers to the effects of competition and upcoming CRTC decisions, such as its ruling on V-Connect tariffs, as events that could effect the plan.
The commission is holding public hearings in June as part of a framework review on NorthwesTel expected for release in 2014.
Comments on the modernization plan, regulations for NorthwesTel, subsidies for Northern telecommunications services, and the state of competition in Northern telecommunications will be accepted from the public until May 9.
