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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Cottage country getting connected
THE days of heading out to the cottage and escaping the online world are coming to an end.
It was just a few years ago computer junkies were forced to use dial-up connections to get their Internet fix at the lake, but telecommunications companies -- even smaller players -- are spending millions of dollars on towers and other infrastructure to connect cottagers as well as city folk.
Brandon-based NetSet Communications recently flipped the switch on a handful of towers on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, bringing its provincewide total up to 148.
"Our goal is to reach rural Manitoba and provide the same service that you can receive in a metro area. We have the ability to give it to you in Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie and Brandon but where we want to be is in the rural areas," said Derek Radics, NetSet's vice-president of sales and marketing.
For customers concerned about paying for a service when their cottage is covered in four feet of snow, Radics said they can "idle" their subscription for up to six months.
NetSet is a consortium made up of five different telecommunications companies, including I-NetLink Wireless, Your Internet Access, Rainy Day Internet, Lakeside Broadband and Gene's Telecom.
Telus Communications is also expanding its operations outside of the Perimeter Highway. It recently spent $9 million on 13 new towers across the province. Michael Sangster, the company's Ottawa-based vice-president, said Manitoba's cottage country is definitely a target.
"We've got to get to those areas. If you're going to get the customers in Winnipeg, you've got to get to Kenora, Gimli and Victoria Beach," he said.
Sangster is quick to add its wireless service is not meant to be shut off during the winter.
"It's a mobile service, it goes wherever you want it to go," he said.
The concentration on cottage country makes perfect sense, according to Iain Grant, a Montreal-based telecommunications analyst with the Seaboard Group.
"A lot of money moves out of the city for the summer, whether it goes to Victoria Beach, Gimli or Kenora. All of those cottages represent families who are used to using the Internet (the rest of the year)," he said.
"You want the convenience of having the Internet available wherever you are, and that includes your cottage, so the providers are saying, 'OK, follow the money.' "
Grant said while the investment in cottage country has increased exponentially in recent years, the speeds with which customers can work online are still significantly slower than in urban areas.
MTS is still the largest Internet service provider in Manitoba, with a high-speed Internet footprint covering 85 per cent of the province and 4G wireless access to 97 per cent of Manitobans.
Jessica Poitras, manager of corporate communications at MTS, said its customers can access the Internet via wireless sticks and smartphones.
"Some of our smartphones can even create a mobile hot-spot for other Wi-Fi capable devices to connect through," she said.
geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 28, 2012 A13
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