Eastern Ontario Regional Network – Cell gap and high speed Internet projects

Jeff Green | Nov 04, 2020

When the Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus (EOWC) began meeting early in 2000's, their main purpose was to form a lobby group in order to secure more provincial funding for highways and other fixed infrastructure, in the wake of provincial downloading under the Mike Harris government.

The research that the EOWC undertook revealed that the long term cost to keep up the roads and bridges in rural Eastern Ontario municipalities, far outstripped the revenue that the municipalities receive through property taxes.

The lobbying started then, and continues to this day.

As time went on, the EOWC began to look at new forms of infrastructure, information infrastructure.

They decided to establish the Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN), a not-for-profit corporation devoted to bringing better Internet and cell service to their communities.

While the major players in the information business, Bell, Telus and Rogers, were happy to invest in larger communities where consumers are concentrated, the up-front cost in rural areas, to build out cell and internet capacity, outstripped the potential for profit.

What EORN did with its first project was to leverage provincial and federal funding commitments with commitments from its member municipalities, including Frontenac County, to create a pool of money. This money was intended to create an incentive, for the three major corporations, to look again at rural areas they had bypassed.

The first EORN project was intended to bring what was then considered high speed internet, 10megabits per second of download speed and 1 megabit of upload speed, to 95% of Eastern Ontario residents. For a competitive price.

Using a variety of technologies, including a subsidy for satellite service in some cases, the project was completed.

But EORN was just getting started.

As Lisa Serverson, EORN stakeholder relations officer, outlined to a meeting of Frontenac County Council last month, the cell-gap coverage project that Frontenac County has supported, is proceeding to the next phase, early in 2021. The goal of the cell-gap project is to: achieve 99% cell coverage in the Eastern Ontario region where people live, work and travel, so they can make and receive cell phone calls” she said.

The project also has a goal of 95% coverage for a higher level of service to support email, web browsing and social media, and 85% coverage with a level of service necessary to support video conferencing, streaming and other more data intensive applications. The project includes $151 million in government money ($71 million each from the federal and provincial governments and $10 million from EORN members) and $61 million from the telecom providers. The project will result in build outs over the next 5 years.

The next project that EORN is taking on is to achieve the aspirational goal, identified by the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), of 50 megabits of download speed and 10 megabits of upload speed per second in 90% of Canadian households.

The EORN goal is to achieve that level of speed in 95% of the places where people live in Eastern Ontario.

Currently, according to Serverson, 46% of rural homes and businesses have access to 50/Mbps (megabits per second).

The estimated cost to accomplish the 95%goal is $500 to $750 million, and Frontenac County's estimated cost is over $30 million.

Looking even further ahead, EORN is also considering what would be necessary to bring 1Gbps (1 gigabit per second) service to households and businesses. That project is estimated to cost $1.2 -$1.6 billion regionally and almost $92 million in Frontenac County.

Frontenac County has been supportive of EORN's efforts thus far, being one of the first to commit funds when requested. Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith has been a member of the EORN executive for a few years and is starting her second year as Vice-Chair of the Board, overseeing its operations.

At the meeting in October, Serverson pointed out that municipalities can help the cell gap project move into its active phase by identifying suitable locations for tower construction.

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins asked about a tower project in his municipality that has raised controversy in recent months, in Snow Road.

“How long will we have to wait until that tower is bringing service to local residents?” Higgins asked.

Serverson said that the Snow Road Tower is not related to the EORN cell gap project, which is not at that stage yet.

“I do know there are some cases where companies secure land, then it sits on the land for 2 or 3 years and sometimes the towers don't get built, but I don't know any of the specifics about that project,” she said.

Frontenac County Council expressed its continued support for EORN.