Broadband on track for Shelburne County

The Nova Scotia government has promised that by the end of 2009, every Nova Scotian will have access to broadband services. EastLink and Seaside Communications were awarded contracts to bring high-speed Internet to areas of rural Nova Scotia that don’t have it.

Recent Eastlink activity includes erecting four towers in the Caledonia area to bring broadband service to approximately 1,000 homes and businesses.

Eastlink communications specialist Paula Sibley empathizes with the anticipation that many Shelburne County residents feel but says she can’t specify when areas will receive the broadband service.

“There’s obviously curiosity around ‘when’. We hope to be able to speak to more dates specifically in the next several months,” she said.

“Right now we are heavy into the site acquisition part of the project. There’s a lot of activity going on behind the scenes. We’re out now actively looking to buy or lease land to be able to locate towers. This is in Shelburne as well as the other counties.”

Sibley says that the project is on target and that everything is going extremely well. The company is optimistic about adding more communities late this summer or by early fall.

Sibley says the project is a complex one due to several factors including land acquisition and geography.

“We have a design belt and we’ve identified where we need towers to be able to cover certain areas. If we can’t obtain a piece of land where we have a preferred location then we have to go back and look at the network design every time. We’re always looking at it from a high level view,” she said.

The towers are interdependent and the network blankets many hills and valleys.

Sibley says it’s a very exciting time for Eastlink to be working with the government, but even more exciting to the residents who will have access to broadband.

“I think probably a number of residents probably thought they were never going to have access to any type of high-speed service,” she said.

All of Shelburne County not already being served will be able to receive the rural wireless Internet. Customers can register online at www.Eastlink.ca or by telephone (1-888-345-1111) to receive updates of how the process is going.