If all goes according to plan, an Alberta-based company could potentially be poised to begin deploying broadband high-speed Internet infrastructure in Sundre starting next year.
Jon Allan, the municipality’s economic development officer, presented council with an update on the project during the Feb. 19 meeting.
“Just a quick reminder to the audience, last year council decided to go in a different direction and tasked me to try to recruit a private investor,” he said referring to the abandoned publicly-owned model, adding there has since been hundreds of emails between the municipality and multiple companies.
Some of the companies include CCI Wireless, 3C Information Solutions Inc., LightCorp, Canadian Fiber Optics, O-NET, Shaw, Telus, Axia and Bell, he said.
“Throughout the summertime, these conversations occurred, and in the fall is when the rubber started hitting the road with two of the companies expressing a serious amount of interest into potentially investing into Sundre,” he said.
“I keep using the word ‘potentially’ on purpose because of course nothing is for certain.”
However, CCI Wireless is investigating the possibility of making Sundre the company’s first, fully wired serviced community, he said.
“They understand the writing on the wall and that they need to move forward,” he said, adding, “it would allow them to generate a significant amount of revenue.”
O-NET is the other company that has also expressed a serious interest, and has been attempting to identify a financial model that would allow it to branch out into Sundre, he said.
The economic development officer said his impression was that CCI is the more serious of the two in terms of the potential to proceed with investing in deploying the Internet infrastructure.
“In January, they got back to me with a report that indicated that it would probably cost significantly less than they estimated it would cost to deploy in town, which is really good,” he said referring to CCI.
Although there are some other considerations in terms of how to get fibre optic conduits in the ground, Allan said Sundre’s manager of operations has been involved in the project to identify some options.
“They are hoping to have a detailed deployment plan completed, if possible, hopefully by the end of the year,” he said.
“If they are serious and this goes forward and everything all lines up, then we’re hoping for them to be able to deploy in early 2020.”
Meanwhile, conversations with O-NET have involved sharing information gathered throughout the prior process started in about 2015 to investigate a publicly-owned approach to the project. About $150,000 had been allocated to study that project, he said.
“There’s been infrastructure conversations with both sides. I believe everything looks positive right now. It’s just a matter of assisting CCI and O-NET and continuing to be a liaison in providing them with the information as necessary to ensure that they can complete their planning as required,” he said.
“The easier we can make it for them to get the information required to deploy, the — hopefully — more quickly they would be able to come into town and actually make this happen.”
According to the company’s website, CCI Wireless is a co-op owned by rural Albertans that caters specifically towards providing Internet and phone services for rural and remote parts of the province.
O-NET is the retail arm of Olds' community-owned one-gigabit broadband network and offers a variety of packages up to and including phone, Internet and television services.
Coun. Paul Isaac asked why the process has dragged on for so long. Mayor Terry Leslie reminded him that following public engagement over the past years that showed support from residents, council decided last spring not to proceed with a publicly-owned model.
“Council was risk averse…even though the public said it’s OK to go spend $3 million, council said we’re not ready with all of our other infrastructure projects,” said Leslie, adding staff was then tasked to pursue a different path.
“This is a new project,” said Allan, adding the publicly-owned approach would probably already have been underway had the different direction not been taken.
Progress in pursuing a private investor has been substantially facilitated by already having the information collected from the investigation into municipally-owned infrastructure, he said.
Isaac also asked whether there was a way to keep residents informed rather than waiting for updates to come back before council.
“I will certainly do everything I can to promote where we are,” said Allan.
But the economic development officer said he is hesitant to share information if details are not firmed up and concrete.
“I don’t want to over promise.”
Council unanimously carried Coun. Cheri Funke’s motion to accept Allan’s report for information.
