Sparklean Restorations owner Mike Howes is looking forward to the day when his company has a faster internet connection in St. Albert.
Last week, Telus announced it would be spending $100 million to connect 90 per cent of the city’s businesses and neighbourhoods to its fibre optic network starting in June. The company also plans to do the same with some neighbourhoods in Sturgeon County.
With Riel Business Park to be one of the first to receive this upgrade, Howes said he’s been waiting a long time for the city’s bandwidth to improve.
“It will level the playing field for us,” Howes said. “(The internet) is absolutely brutal. We hired a company to put an antenna on our roof to beam (the signal) over to, I think, Pro-Western Plastics and then from there out to a tower by Spruce Grove.”
Howes said his business relies heavily on an internet connection and mentioned how everyone turns off their Wi-Fi signal on their phones in order to use less bandwidth.
Jennifer McCurdy, president and CEO of the St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce, said in an email to the Gazette that she was pleased to hear the news.
“Internet service in parts of St Albert, particularly in parts of Campbell and Riel business parks, has been less than sufficient for many years,” she said. “It is imperative that businesses have access to fast and reliable service in order to do business. We know that the city has been working on this for a long time so it is great to see it coming through.”
Mayor Cathy Heron said new parts of the city already have fibre optic in place but old sections of the city like Grandin and Mission weren’t so lucky.
Increasing the city’s broadband access has been a priority of council for some time. In 2017, council approved $650,000 to expand the city’s fibre optic network. Faster internet speeds are also a key component of the city’s Smart City strategy, which recently ranked third in the world by a German-based company.
Heron said the Telus announcement allows the city to check that priority off their list.
The installation is expected to take a year and a half.
“Riel Business Park has horrible connections up there so this is going to be a huge relief for them,” she said. “The business parks are having a really hard time, and as more innovation type businesses come to St. Albert they’re going to need this connectivity, or otherwise you just won’t survive.”
In a media release, Telus says its gigabit-enabled fibre optic network is the most advanced communications infrastructure available in the world at the moment, which allows residents to use up to a gigabyte of internet speeds. The company says residents can expect to see Telus trucks rolling out throughout the community as constructions get underway. Telus employees will knock on doors to ask for permission before connecting any homes to the network.
Heron added that even if a homeowner is with another internet provider, Telus will still be able to connect the fibre optic cable.
