If Mike Howes had known just how bad the Internet connection in North Riel Business Park really was he never would have relocated his business.
Last year Sparklean Restorations moved into the space next to the bottle depot. The business now operates on a bandwidth of 1/3 megabits per second — and that’s with only one computer hardwired into the modem.
While Internet speed may not be a problem for all businesses in the park, it has significantly impacted the way that Sparklean does business.
As a restoration business, employees need to send pictures for insurance claim purposes within a 12- to 24-hour timeframe. The current bandwidth doesn’t allow for this work to be done on site.
“When you hit send on an email it spins and spins. And if two or three people hit send at the same time in our office it kicks you out,” said Howes. “This isn’t daily; this is an hourly occurrence for people in my office.”
He got so frustrated that at one point he tried to install an antenna on the roof for a monthly fee of $300. Unfortunately, there was too much interference in the area.
“We would have gladly paid $300 per month, because I would save more than that every week in time spent watching that computer spin,” said Howes.
Bandwidth is an issue throughout the city, but business areas continue to be underserved.
Recognizing current service levels could affect business attraction and retention, a portion of St. Albert Smart City Master Plan, approved in October, aimed to improve Internet services to the city’s business areas.
On Monday, standing committee of the whole discussed the options going forward and decided the city should not play a direct role in the provision of telecommunications services.
Instead the city will continue to advocate for bandwidth and service area improvement from service providers and provide licensed access to spare fibre strands from its municipal network.
“The intent is to facilitate competition, but not be a direct competitor with the private sector,” said Gordon Coulman, city director of innovation and technology services.
The city is currently in its third year of developing a municipal fibre-optic broadband network that would connect to all current and future facilities, as well as all the traffic lights along St. Albert Trail. The network will be faster than one gigabit per second.
This is about 20 times better than the best DSL connection and 1,000 times better than Howes’ current service.
The in-camera presentation to council, obtained by the Gazette, states that a licensee could be an Internet service provider, a business, a non-profit or an individual. But Coulman said it is more likely that service providers will be interested, given the associated costs.
Not only would the licensee have to pay for the last mile build cost, but it would also pay a connection fee, as well as a monthly fee. In Calgary, where a similar program exists, this amounts to $1,060 per month, plus capital costs, which are later reimbursed.
Coulman said that Internet service providers have been receptive to the idea.
While the city’s fibre-optic network will be extended to Servus Place and the public works building in Campbell Park this summer, the city does not own any significant infrastructure in Riel.
Howes understands why the city wants to avoid direct competition with third parties, but he says service in North Riel needs to be improved.
