Bell Canada, East Ferris wants to talk.
East Ferris council has waited long enough to see fiber optic internet installed throughout the community, and now, the municipality is calling on the government to terminate Bell Canada’s contract.
“We’re left wondering what’s going on with the project,” said Jason Trottier, East Ferris’ Chief Administrative Officer, “and we’re not the only community.”
Back in July and August of 2021, the province and the federal governments announced funding to connect many rural and Northern communities with faster, fiber optic internet. North Eastern Ontario was promised $170 million for the cause, out of a national universal broadband fund, which as of March of last year, is worth $3.2 billion.
About $12 million was earmarked for East Ferris alone.
See: East Ferris dialling up talks of fiber internet connections with Bell
The problem for East Ferris is that no work has been done to accomplish these goals. Trottier mentioned that Bell may be working hard behind the scenes to prepare for installing fiber optics throughout East Ferris, but as of now, no work has been done in the area.
All work was supposed to be complete by 2025. With only two short summers left to complete the connections, council has its doubts, and it wants the province and the feds to cancel the contract with Bell and give NetSpectrum the job.
East Ferris did not sign a contract for the work, the municipality is solely the beneficiary of the contract. The real deal is between the governments and Bell. As for the specifics, Bell is supposed to provide 50/10 Mbps service to around 8,566 locations throughout the Nipissing area.
What this meant for East Ferris is that about 98 per cent of homes would receive high speed fiber optic service.
“We did a lot of work leading up to these announcements,” Trottier emphasized, speaking of council’s advocacy for improved internet access. He also noted the work of The East Ferris Internet Advocacy Group has been instrumental in achieving these successes.
At least, it seemed like a success, but with no work underway, East Ferris is wondering if the quest for faster speeds has been knocked back a few steps.
See: Internet upgrades are coming, East Ferris group hopes they are enough
“Here we are in 2024, revisiting internet and advocating again for better services because nothing’s really happening,” Trottier said.
Also concerning for council was that Bell is reducing the scope of work within the region – less areas could be connected. Council invited Bell to discuss the project’s scope of work “but Bell has continuously declined our invitations and has privately communicated to the Municipality about its intention to descope the project,” the Municipality outlined in a release.
Council has passed a resolution asking the governments to terminate the contract with Bell Canada. In that resolution, they asked the government to give the contract to a “smaller, regional internet service provider who are ready to start and have a proven ability to deliver.”
Council suggested NetSpectrum for the job.
The motion was sent to MP Anthony Rota, MPP Vic Fedeli, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Francois-Philippe Champagne, the Minister of Infrastructure, Kinga Surma, and the other area municipalities that were included in the joint project.
Now East Ferris will await the word from above. Meanwhile, many residents want answers to Trottier’s question – "Why is the provincial and federal government not pushing Bell to go ahead and do this?”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.