Cell tower in the works for Big Grassy First Nation

Ken Johnston
Editor

There was good news in the air for much of the Rainy River District last Wednesday when FedNor announced it will invest $449,000 for the delivery of high speed internet services via microwave towers.

Norwest ConX is a new division of Thunder Bay Telephone and is affiliated with Northwest Mobility. The latter's manager Kevin Burns is really excited about the announcement. Northwest Mobility has been anxious for Norwest ConX to turn on its microwave transmission system, which has been placed on all Northwest Mobility's cellular phone towers from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances. To date Northwest Mobility has had to rent T-1 lines from Bell Canada to transmit its phone signals. A microwave transmitter at all major towers on the system will see them save $10,000 per month, per tower (six in total) for a total savings of $60,000 per month. With that in mind, Burns said they have been holding off on turning the final cell towers on between Rainy River and Thunder Bay until the microwave system is ready to go, which he said will happen this week or next.

The microwave transmission system has received funding to help get boards of education and health care providers access to high speed T-1 lines at an affordable cost. Burns said that he sees the system eventually giving the general public that access, but for now it will be limited to education and health sectors.

The other downside of this announcement is that the initial start up will see the service only available from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances.

However, Timo Hiiback, Manager of Business Development and Strategic Planning for Thunder Bay Telephone said the company will likely extend the service to Rainy River some time this fall. As for public high speed access, Hiiback told the Record Monday that Norwest ConX is not in the business of providing such access. However, he said that they will be meeting with all regional Internet Service Providers to see who would be interested in purchasing T-1 access from them. "We hope to provide it (T-1) at an affordable rate," said Hiiback who feels that ISPs may be able to purchase more band width (T-1s) from them for the same money they paid Bell Canada. That he said would allow local ISP users to have better and faster access to the internet. He did however note that people are still limited by antiquated phone lines in some areas. If no ISP's are interested in purchasing T-1 from Norwest ConX, Hiiback said the company may look at providing access to the general public.

Once the microwave system is in place, Northwest Mobility will begin looking at implementing improvements to the existing cell phone service.

Rainy River's tower has been operating at more than full capacity and in order to put a tower in the Morson area it will have to be upgraded.

Vernon Tuesday, the Economic Development Officer at Big Grassy, said Monday that his community is currently working on a proposal to FedNor for funding to erect a data tower which would bring in high speed internet for education and medical purposes. "Cell service is secondary but once the tower is up it can be put in place," said Tuesday.

Tuesday said the tower would be located in his community but would service an area that until now has been without service. With things still in the planning stages he is optimistic that they can start construction this fall.