North Frontenac announces Narrowed broadband project

Jeff Green | Jan 07, 2010

When all was said and done, more was said than done.

Omniglobe Networks has signed an agreement with North Frontenac Township to expand high-speed Internet services in the western part of the township.

“High speed internet access will be available in the hamlets of Ardoch, Myers Cave, Cloyne, as well as surrounding areas including Mazinaw, Mississagagon, Kashwakamak, Shabomeka and Marble Lakes,” according to a press release from Omniglobe that was released in late December.

Omniglobe was the successful applicant to a request for proposal process that was funded by a government grant that the township received from the province early last summer. The grant offered up to $335,000 in matching funding for towers and equipment to provide broadband service where it has been unavailable.

The original proposal submitted by Omniglobe called for towers and repeater towers that would provide service to residents in the vicinity of Cloyne and Plevna as well as the vicinity of Ompah, Canonto, Mosque and Big Gull Lakes. This equipment was to augment service already provided by smaller towers at North Addington Education Centre (Cloyne) and Clarendon Central School (Plevna) that Omniglobe put up as part of a previous program for the Limestone District School Board.

In a telephone interview on Monday, North Frontenac Mayor Ron Maguire said that something changed late this summer. “We never really had a contract with them in the first instance. Sometime last summer they hired a new chief financial officer and he decided they did not have a very good business case for the entire project, so they began pulling back,” he said. “It kind of cheesed me off at the time because they didn’t do a very good job of market research by only canvassing people at the end of August and in September, when most of the seasonal people were already gone.”

When the township met with Omniglobe in December, “they wanted to downsize the project some more.” Maguire said.

But Maguire said that the reduced project would only use up a portion of the grant money, and he thinks they will be willing to respond to the demands for service from Brule Lake, Buckshot Lake, and Canonto.

Maguire said he is “pleased actually that at least we have got started and I am hopeful that the project will expand in the coming year and beyond that time.”

Council, and their consultant, Maureen O’Higgins from Actionable Intelligence, met with Omniglobe in a closed session on December 17, and signed the contract giving partial service. Without going into details, Maguire offered that there was some division among council at that closed meeting.

In their press release, Omniglobe said, “The project scope has been modified as a result of Omniglobe’s decision to deploy infrastructure money more cautiously under current economic conditions and in light of the general consumer decline in spending in 2009. However, the company plans to embark on a second phase in the summer of 2010 to further expand coverage.”

“We are still committed to serving the remaining region,” said Omniglobe Vice President Nigel Maund, “and we will continue to work with the township to identify and fill broadband gaps in the community.”

The township, and their consultant, will also be exploring other options in seeking service providers.

North Frontenac Telephone Company, which serves the south-eastern portion of the township, is committed to extending their service on the Ardoch road, and other funding is being sought as well.

But for residents in the Ompah and Snow Road area and the surrounding lakes, those service “gaps” still seem pretty broad as we enter the second decade of the new millennium.