Photo courtesy dreamstime.com

By Erika Rolling

County of Grande Prairie

County exploring alternative wireless connectivity options

Nov 4, 2022 | 11:21 AM

Better cell and internet service coverage may be coming to the County of Grande Prairie through a potential pilot project.

The County of Grande Prairie Committee of the Whole has passed on County Administration to work with a Canadian organization, Shared Tower, that works to address network coverage in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

Shared Tower made a presentation to the Committee of the Whole on November 1, where the Committee decided to recommend to Council to identify locations to launch a pilot project with the organization for one 4G and one 5G monopole in the County.

Reeve Bob Marshall says there are a number of areas in the County where it is very little to no cell reception.

“If this pilot project seems to work, then hopefully we do something to alleviate some of our residents’ concerns.”

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Marshall says he is “pretty positive” the council will approve and support the pilot project going into its initial stages.

“They have their own tower (Shared Tower) and then say Telus would come in and put on their antennas, Rogers… Bell… it would basically be up to the cell phone providers whether the rates would increase, decrease, or stay the same.”

He says the theory behind the concept is that more monopoles could be put up for better coverage overall.

“There’s a lot of unknowns at this point, it sounds good on paper but until we actually can prove it out… we don’t really know.”

The next regular council meeting will take place on November 14, where approval or disapproval of the pilot project will take place.