Many urban residents take high speed internet service for granted, but large regions of rural Alberta still cope with connections that are unreliable and frustrating.
CCI Wireless of Calgary is working to change that.
Rural groups banded together in 2009 to create CCI and now provide more than 110,000 rural homes and businesses as well as 7,000 First Nation households with internet service.
The company’s 17 shareholders include a rural electrification association, 14 natural gas co-operatives and two rural municipalities, which formed a board and found financing for the venture.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Jim Cooper, who farms west of Medicine Hat and is a member of the Forty Mile Gas Cooperative in southeastern Alberta, was among the original organizers pushing for better internet reception.
The gas co-op wanted to improve gas metre reading and needed a reliable internet service. The co-op’s 1,900 members were surveyed to see if they also needed and wanted better internet service.
“It was an overwhelming and positive response for those who responded,” Cooper said.
He said large companies are not interested in serving sparsely populated areas with challenging geography.
“Telus dial-up was the only thing available,” he said.
“Before that, you could get a satellite (service).”
The province has established a supernet service providing internet to all government buildings, but individual households did not have equal access.
“We as farmers do a lot of business online. It is critical,” he said.
The shareholders managed to raise $45 million through private investment, government grants and debt. The business turned a profit by the end of November 2013. Monthly fees from subscribers cover costs, and government grants help the business expand. Profits are re-invested to keep pace with changing technology.
“As shareholders, we wanted to make sure we had the best technology as well as the best infrastructure for the system because we are here for a long time,” Cooper said.
Chief executive officer Amir Bigloo said the venture continued to face skepticism even after construction on towers began.
“This is a very capital intensive business, and every tower that you put up costs around $250,000,” Bigloo said. “We have about 200 sites, and if you do the math, it becomes very capital intensive.”
The intention is to grow, but only if it is affordable.
The recent federal budget announced $500 million over the next five years for improved rural internet service, but the details are not finalized.
The company has grown into Canada’s second largest rural internet provider, next to Xplornet. It has 100 employees. Half of them work in a new office in Calgary and the rest are based in rural Alberta communities from LaCrete in the far north to Milk River in the south.
The company offers a call centre for sales, marketing and customer care, but running a grassroots company has taught executives such as Bigloo a bit about rural culture.
“Sometimes when the network doesn’t work, I get the call myself,” he said. “If we don’t deliver, we get direct calls. They want what they are getting in urban centres,” he said.
The system is working well, and there are expansion plans into southern Ontario. The company has also had enquires from other jurisdictions such as Nigeria and Dominican Republic, but Bigloo said the mandate is to serve Alberta first.
CCI chair Ted Pound said the service can also be essential to rural development.
“Businesses need that communication, and if they don’t have it they are not going to locate in rural Alberta,” he said.
