ORCnet Update - City's Partnership with Barrett Xplore to Complete Rural Broadband

On Thursday, July 26, I received this email from Chris Cope of OrcNet. In it, Chris provides a general update on the state of rural Ottawa Internet affairs, including an update on XplorNet's deployment across the region. For example, 11 of XplorNet's 30 tower sites should be active by the end of July, with the remaining 19 active within two months.

I obtained Chris' written permission to post the message on this blog.

I wanted to bring you up to date on progress on our broadband project. "In a nutshell Christopher, things are progressing very well."

As you may already know, on March 28, 2007, Ottawa City Council approved Barrett Xplore Inc. as the preferred private-sector partner to complete rural broadband coverage in Ottawa. Then, at a meeting of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee on 14 June 2007 the formal agreement with Barrett was signed. The proposed project will involve innovative wireless technology, designed to achieve the target 100 per cent coverage of the remaining gaps in broadband coverage in rural Ottawa.

Barrett Xplore will use two technologies to deliver 100% rural broadband coverage - fixed wireless and satellite. Barrett Xplore will rely mostly on fixed wireless systems, where a tower beams a signal to and from a receiver mounted on the consumer's property. But, in cases where topography or foliage makes this impossible (estimated to be less than 5% of rural households), a small satellite dish - 67 cm - will be used to deliver satellite broadband service to those hard to reach consumers.

Although the majority of Barrett's transmitters will be located on existing towers or other tall vertical structures, there is a need for several new ones. These are being installed over the next two months. The locations for new towers have already been chosen, being careful to minimize impact on the community while providing the best possible coverage. The towers are between 30 meters and 45 meters high. In comparison, many of the towers that cellular telephone companies use are much higher at 75 to 90 meters high. Barrett Xplore has tried hard to make use of existing towers, even silos, and more than half of the required sites will not require construction of a new tower.

The costs to the consumer will be very close to that of urban Internet service providers, but will depend somewhat on whether a resident can use fixed wireless, or will require a satellite installation. Fixed wireless packages start at $29.99 per month. Basic installation costs for the wireless service are $149 with a two-year contract and $99 with a three-year contract. Barrett Xplore will offer a heavily reduced fixed rate of $199 to cover the costs of satellite installation for the few customers who will require that service. Satellite packages start at $49.99 per month.

Barrett Xplore has an extensive dealer network across Canada and many of these dealers are located in or near Ottawa. Some of you may have already heard from them and those who haven't likely will soon. So far however, marketing has been targeted at a few homes that are within range of transmission nodes that are already operational. Most of these are on existing structures such as silos and existing towers and this pre-launch marketing is intended only to put a little load on the system as testing progresses. If you are not among those who have been contacted, or if you think the information you have received doesn't yet seem to coincide with what you've been told about the Ottawa project, I would ask that you be patient for the next few weeks as Barrett completes the technical deployment of its network and readies its marketing to be ready to accept sign-ups in the quantities that we anticipate.

Barrett has recently distributed direct mail pieces detailing their introductory offer to customers living in areas serviced by live sites. Over the next few weeks, all households within the City of Ottawa limits will receive that information. By the end of July, 11 out of 30 sites will be available to customers. The remaining 19 will come online, subject to site approval, over the next two months. Customers living in areas where service is not currently available will be given the opportunity to "pre-sign" so they can take advantage of the introductory offer, which expires August 31st.

For detailed information and dealer contact information, customers should visit www.xplornet.com and click on the Ottawa link. For those without Internet access, call 1-866-841-6001. The City of Ottawa's website is another useful resource: www.ottawa.ca/rural.

Please feel free to contact me directly should you need additional information. If this bulletin has been forwarded to you, and I do welcome this; and if you would like me to add your name to our email list to receive future bulletins on the rollout of the project directly, please send me an email providing your email address, street address and telephone number.

Chris Cope
Executive Director ORCnet
Email: Chris.Cope@ottawa.ca
(613) 580-2424 ext. 28991

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