Starting today the small community of Stewart in northern B.C. will have no access to Internet for at least a month.
The community of less than 500 residents have lost their Internet provider, One Way Out Society. The non-profit group of local volunteers who have served the community for the past 20 years out of the local library shut down its doors on Tuesday.
Stewart’s Mayor Galina Durant says Telus has never been able to provide Internet access directly to residents, so the community depends on a ‘middle man’ to deliver it to customers.
After One Way Out was forced to shut down due to lack resources and funding, Durant found a new company to step in, called SIENNA Networks. Unfortunately she explains, setting up a new tower and hooking up all clients will take at least a month, if not more.
“People are very angry, you know, you can only be resilient to a certain point, like we have power outages all the time, we don’t have an ambulance, or we don’t have cell service, now we don’t have Internet, like you can’t push people too far,” Durant said.
She said they’ve been working hard to grow the economy in Stewart, but explains better infrastructure needs to be in place in order for this to be possible. “A few families moved out of the community this summer because there are not enough services here.”
She explains smaller communities should also be taken seriously, she says there are many communities like Stewart trying hard to make a living up north.
“I heard for the first time about this declaration of high speed Internet coming to communities 10 years ago, and now 10 years after, never mind high speed, I don’t have Internet at all,” she says. “We need real help, not just on paper but with actions.”
Emily Hamer, a media relations spokesperson from Telus says they are working in partnership with the B.C. government under the Connecting B.C. Agreement, to ensure the community has minimal service disruption; however, the project will most likely take longer than a month to get completed.
“We’re going to expedite the project as much as possible, but it’s a big build and the process includes the design and scheduling of construction, along with the fibre build itself, so it may take between eight to 12 weeks to complete,” says Hamer.
Location of Stewart B.C.:
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