At the annual meeting of the North Queens Board of Trade, held April 1 in Caledonia, Paul Bugden, Manager for Major Accounts for EastLink, addressed concerns expressed by the business community of North Queens.
EastLink was selected by the Government of Nova Scotia to deliver fixed wireless high speed internet service to residents and businesses in underserved communities in southwestern Nova Scotia.
After EastLink acquired the assets of TDC Broadband last year, a commitment was made to launch services by last fall. Bugden apologized for the company’s failure to honour this commitment and explained the scope of the project and the learning curve required by EastLink, a company that has not traditionally been involved in wireless technology. There have been some problems with signal strength and some trials conducted under a reciprocal agreement with Kejimkujik National Park. Bugden stressed that the EastLink people pride themselves on their quality of service and the delay is a result of a determination to rectify all the problems before offering the service to the community as a whole.
Now, however, he said EastLink is prepared to make an announcement within the next three or four weeks and that, “In confidence, we expect to launch our first fee-based service in the Caledonia area in May or June of this year.” A publicity campaign will be conducted through advertising and mail-outs.
The service fee will be $46.95 per month and this rate will be frozen for four to five years. Where needed, installation charges will be $100 per site. This will be an always-on system with download speeds of 1.5 MBps, similar to other broadband systems. Basic business service will be at the same rates and speeds as residential service and special business requirements can be investigated on a case-by-case basis.
Individuals and businesses can register by calling 1-888-345-1111 and by doing so will get notification immediately that service is available. As well, the website
www.EastLink.ca contains a column for rural broadband.
Bugden concluded by saying, “We are excited by the project and very much looking forward to having it in service. While we would all wish it could be turned on immediately, it is a large project with a lot of up front work required to implement it, and it therefore takes time. However, once complete Nova Scotia can be proud that we will be one of the first jurisdictions anywhere to have universal access to high speed internet.”
