In a push to complete its fibre-optic network in the community, O-NET has hired a squad of new employees in the last two months.
In a push to complete its fibre-optic network in the community, O-NET has hired a squad of new employees in the last two months.
Using cash from the town-backed $8 million loan it received from the province earlier this year, the Internet, television and telephone service provider has hired roughly 20 employees to work in "all facets" of O-NET's operations, from fibre infrastructure installation to customer service to sales, said Nathan Kusiek, the service provider's director of accounts.
Some of the employees are seasonal and some are full time, he added, and the move to bring in extra help is a change of course from O-NET's "traditional" policy of outsourcing much of its work.
"As we've gone through the past two years, outside contractors are a little less reliable than we wanted so we've brought a lot of that in house," Kusiek said.
Most of the new employees are from Olds and the surrounding area, he added, and the bulk of the fresh manpower is focusing on network installation.
Along with the larger labour force, O-NET, which is the service provider and marketing brand for Olds Fibre Ltd., a company owned by the Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development, has also expanded the number of companies working to finish the installation of fibre infrastructure in the town.
Last year, Kusiek said, one company was working on the installation of "drops," which are plastic conduits allowing for the connection of the fibre network from a residential property line to the home standing on that property.
Now, there are three companies, including one brand new local outfit, working on drops as well as two companies working to complete the larger distribution network in the community.
"So the scale of this project this year, with the number of people and the number of companies working on it, to actually work to get everyone hooked up, is huge," Kusiek said.
O-NET has divided the community into 11 service areas and as of now eight of those areas are fully connected.
Problems such as weather and a lack of labour led to a delay in completing the project last year and those problems meant O-NET's sales were ahead of installations, Kusiek said.
"So we had people signed up that didn't get hooked up where they were promised a connection."
But the service provider used the winter to rework its installation process and craft a new business plan and Kusiek said he is optimistic the final three areas will be hooked up and ready for service before the end of 2014, despite losing valuable work time in May due to lingering winter weather and frost.
Crews are currently working to complete installation of the fibre infrastructure in Service Area 7 in the Winter Lake area, he added, and that work should be completed in the next two to three weeks.
The smaller Service Area 2, located west of 50 Avenue and north of Highway 27, is expected to be completed the third week of August with Service Area 6, located in the neighbourhoods north of Ecole Deer Meadow School, scheduled for completion in late October.
Kusiek said crews are installing drops on residential properties in a "non-linear" process where the conduits will be in the ground before winter so that a fibre connection to a home can take place even if there is snow on the ground.
Despite the drive to finish the network installation this year and better "brand recognition" for O-NET in 2014 compared to its post-launch period last year, Kusiek said the service provider is slightly behind on its sales targets.
"There's a lot of people that want to sit on the fence and wait to hear about how someone else's experience was," he said. "We launched too soon, I'll be the first to admit it, with O-NET, with a TV product that wasn't solid and a phone system that was a little glitchy."
Once the "fence sitters" are persuaded to sign up, he added, "they're going to be the difference makers for us."
The service provider's launch of one-gigabit bandwidth service last summer, however, was a "game changer" for O-NET, Kusiek said, and he has actually had to alter O-NET's webpage to state the service is only available in Olds after a flood of interest from other communities.
So far, "a couple hundred" people have signed up for that service, he said.
[email protected]
CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK!
