There are six of 11 areas throughout town that have had fibre to the premise installed thus far, with crews working on the remaining five, according to Nathan Kusiek, sales and marketing manager for O-Net.
There are six of 11 areas throughout town that have had fibre to the premise installed thus far, with crews working on the remaining five, according to Nathan Kusiek, sales and marketing manager for O-Net. About 60 per cent of the community should have their installations completed by the end of the year, with the remainder to be completed sometime in 2013.
Certain portions of the south central, southwest, northwest, and northeast sections of town have had conduit installed, with those areas now ready to take customers and have their homes and businesses connected to the network. Sales for the completed areas of town began August 4, with the company also launching its web-site at www.o-net.ca to get people signed up for service.
Signing up to get the service is free.
"We’ve been sending some guys out … talking to people, letting them know that, in the areas that …we can service right away, … that we’re done putting in the feeder network. If they opt in to service, we can run a fibre conduit into their house, install it and get them hooked up right away," Kusiek said.
While sales have been opened up to all areas of town, in those areas that haven’t got the network completed yet, Kusiek said whichever areas show the greatest interest in having service will be next on the priority list to have their feeder network completed.
"Whoever has the highest interest (of those areas not yet with feeder network) in getting O-Net … we’re going to go there first," he said.
For people who have signed up and get their homes or businesses wired to the network, services will start in September. Those that get hooked into the network will be able to have access to the basic package including ultra high-speed Internet, phone service with unlimited North American long distance, among other features and television with 40 channels, including 25 in HD.
"With that light up package, we looked at all the viewership data in Olds, and we looked at what channels people were watching, and we put 40 of the top 50 channels that people actually watched in our light-up base package," Kusiek said.
Kusiek said from the residential sales, "it’s been overwhelmingly positive," adding that businesses are also being approached.
"It’s a pretty exciting time because … there’s been a lot of planning over the past eight years to get this going," he said.
