Home > Highspeed project back on track.

NORTH BAY: A wireless broadband system for the Almaguin Highlands may provide highspeed communications, but there's nothing high speed about getting the proposed service up and running.

Southern Almaguin communities, including Novar, Emsdale and Kearney, previously promised highspeed access by the end of this year, are now being told it may be next fall before they are linked to new broadband service under the Blue Sky Net project.

On September 23rd, Blue Sky Net announced that it had signed a new agreement with the Sudbury-based Spectrum 2000 Communications Group Inc to continue the deployment of Project Skywire. It is a multi-phased highspeed Internet infrastructure project anticipated to cover the entire Highland's area from Bonfield to Novar.

"We are excited about this new direction," said Blue Sky Economic Growth Corporation General Manger Susan Church. "Spectrum Group has a solid reputation and my confidence that they are able to take this project and move it in the right direction. They are committed to our collective goal of getting highspeed access out to as many people as possible and do it in an economical and expeditious manner."

Church's announcement came after months of rumours and speculation about delays in the completion of the highspeed project announced to include the southern Highland's last winter by Minister of Northern Development and Mines Rick Bartolucci.

On January 18th, the Minister promised highspeed throughout the Almaguin Highlands would be up and running within 12 months thanks to a $1 million commitment from his ministry.

Since then, a pilot project in East Ferris Township hooked 15 homes and businesses to the new system before Project Skywire hit a snag. Lack of further highspeed community access point announcements caused many communities along the proposed highspeed corridor to suspect the project may well have been dead in the water.

Church now admits that the project ran into difficulties as early as last February when W3 Connex, the company installing the necessary highspeed infrastructure found it had over-extended its business commitments, and was unlikely to be able to complete the Skywire project. Describing W3's situation as "a hiccup" in the highspeed plans, Church said "there was never any doubt in our (Blue Sky's) mind that we had to continue with this project. We realized that for the citizens and the councils in the area highspeed was paramount."

During the intervening months, Church said, the decision was made to sell the assets in the project to Spectrum "which has the financial capabilities to complete the project. The fact that they are a well established company with offices in North Bay is a huge benefit," she said.

The Spectrum Group was one of the original bidders for the Skywire project, first contracted in 2003, coming in second to the winning bid of W3 Connex.

Admitting that the rumour mill was rife with speculation over the past few months, Church said "it was very difficult to make public statements while we were in the middle of negotiations and I want to thank our partner municipalities for their patience during this transition period."

Spectrum Group is a wireless solutions company that integrates communication technologies and products to satisfy mobile voice, data, and video requirements, providing paging, radio communication, satellite and broadband wireless for commercial, industrial and government services throughout the north. The company has recently completed several smaller wireless internet protocol networks and sees their involvement in Project Skywire to be "an exciting new opportunity," said company President Eric Kannen.

Kannen promises that his company will deliver "leading edge technology to communities, businesses and citizens that have been anxiously waiting for them. Highspeed Internet is just the beginning," he said. "We'll be delivering virtual private networks for schools, telehealth clinics, and ATM's for businesses and professionals."

However, when specifically asked about when communities in the southern Highland's might actually be able to hook into the new system, he said, "we are a few months behind schedule (for end of this year completion) due to the transfer of assets, but the basic plans have not been altered. We want to get into as many communities as possible as quickly as we can. Our commitment is to see the entire system up and running within a year, and we're going to work very hard to meet that completion timetable."

Kannen said the community names of Novar, Magnetawan and Kearney "are familiar names on several of our documents and I can assure you that no one has been forgotten (in this transfer)."

W3 Connex President Brian Walters apologized for "the unfortunate sequence of events that have occurred over the past eight months," saying that "as a small company we just spread our resources over too many projects."

Walters added that he was "pleased that we can pass the torch to Spectrum and we will be very supportive of their activities from this point forward." Network re-designs for the highspeed system are "near completion," said Church "and roll-out of the service is expected to continue at a much accelerated pace over the next few months."

Blue Sky Project Manager Scott Mannering said "We're back on track and ready to build on our current progress. A rather thorough test phase in East Ferris has brought around some changes in our approach and how we proceed from here. This new partnership, that has solidified over the last few months, is definitely a good news story for our part of Northern Ontario."

Trucks were due to arrive in North Bay on Monday, September 26th with equipment needed to continue the Skywire project, "and although its been a long time coming, highspeed really is here," said Church. The project, once completed, will include 35 main towers covering over 25,000 square kilometres and servicing 115 communities.