“As the internet lags so does life”
To be well connected to the world so that we can all successfully work, get educated, be entertained and, to be honest, just live, has never been as important as it is now been during the COVID-19 pandemic, though the frustration that all of us have experienced trying to be connected in the greater Bragg Creek area, has been longstanding even pre-pandemic. The pandemic has just highlighted how essential it is to be connected and have the reliability and speed required to facilitate our day to day lives.
The Bragg Creek Connect Committee was formed over two years ago with representatives from the Bragg Creek Community Association, Bragg Creek Chamber of Commerce, Greater Bragg Creek Trails Association, the Bragg Creek Revitalization Committee and augmented with some experts in our community. The groups met back then and identified the lack of or poor connectivity through the internet and the cell network as one of the major issues facing our community. The internet is slow and unreliable in the greater Bragg Creek area, frustrating our ability to run home based businesses, support our children’s education, take courses, search for information, stay connected with family and friends, facilitate e-commerce and competitively participate in the digital economy, just to name a few activities. The end result is that lack of Internet access is negatively impacting real estate values, reducing investment in our community and ultimately the area population will decline.
Our community residents currently get internet service through a variety of different means largely dependent on where you live. The hamlet is served by Telus by DSL through the old copper phone lines and as you go beyond the Hamlet, residents are served by a combination of cellular “hub” services, dependent on sightlines to cell towers or by satellite internet services. Frustratingly there is a fiber optic transmission cable running down Hwy 22 right by the town- site and a SuperNet connection point adjacent to the Community Centre.
The Bragg Creek Connect Committee’s objective is to determine how to obtain improved and more reliable high-speed service for the Greater Bragg Creek Area with target speeds matching the CRTC’s target minimums of 50 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload. As we all know our current level of service does not meet these objectives. The CRTC has stated that the internet is a basic service and “whether you’re at home, at work, or on the road, … you should have an Internet connection with access to broadband speeds of at least 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload and access to unlimited data.” The underserviced rural areas are well known to governments and the CRTC and there is potential funding available if local governments partner with technology providers to build out the infrastructure. The Committee’s long-term goal is to see every residence and business in the greater Bragg Creek area connected to a fiber optic network so that we can enjoy the same benefits as our urban neighbours.
The Committee has met with telecommunication providers, telecommunication planning consultants, and toured the fiber optic system “O-NET” built as a community initiative by the town of Olds, who has been successful providing high speed fiber optic based internet, telephone and television programming services to their community since 2013. We have been working with Rockyview County to both make sure that they are aware of the challenges our residents face to have reliable internet and cell access as well as to understand what support the County could offer our community. We have learned that the combination of our foothills terrain and dense forest coupled with the low population density creates major challenges to providing economic telecommunication service to our community. It is going to require an “outside the box” creative solution to solve our problem. This situation reminds us of the days not so long ago where governments funded and built out electrical and phone infrastructure to ensure rural communities received the same access as their urban neighbors.
The Committee has met with Telus who stated that they recently built a new cell tower in Bragg Creek that doubled the capacity and cell coverage in our area, a potential advantage for those that have a sight line to the tower. Telus did do a study recently to determine the cost of providing fiber to a majority of the residents in our area and determined that it would be uneconomic for them to execute. They stated that they will continue to look for opportunities to improve the existing infrastructure.
The Connect Committee was looking forward to the results of a study that Rocky View County was going to do with a consulting firm that has done similar work with other communities. The objective of the study would have been to deliver a broadband “roadmap” that would provide feasible options for the different areas of Rocky View County. Unfortunately, the project was contingent on receiving 50% funding from the Province of Alberta and the Province recently denied the funding request thereby causing cancellation of the project by Rocky View County Council. In the meantime, the Committee has met with two companies recently who are currently active in providing service to our area; Mage Networks and Xplornet. Xplornet is a company that will be familiar to some of you. They are actively looking at options to improve their infrastructure and service in our area. Mage Networks is a relatively new company with a different technology. They have a project plan to connect the Greater Bragg Creek Area by the end of this year. They also have plans in Redwood Meadows and areas south of Bragg Creek. You may have already seen Mage Networks’ website, postings and advertising in our area. They also now have a “hotspot” in the Bragg Creek shopping mall.
The Committee would like to engage in a dialogue with the community to better understand everyone’s connectivity needs and challenges as well as provide a vehicle to share ideas and success stories. Ultimately the Bragg Creek Connect Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Bragg-Creek-Connect-109921437408806) could be a way for residents and businesses to get information on services that are available in our area and get questions answered. Please connect with the Committee and say hello and we will keep you up to date on all things Internet in our community.
The Bragg Creek Connect Committee
