Broadband Slow to Cover Nova Scotia

Broadband linkup falls behind schedule
EastLink, Seaside Communications may face $2 million in penalty charges
By JEFFREY SIMPSON Provincial Reporter
Thu. Dec 10 - 4:46 AM


Chuck Porter, Conservative MLA for Hants West, says he often gets calls from residents of his riding asking when they can get broadband service.





The province’s ambitious plan to provide high-speed Internet access for everybody is well behind schedule and probably over budget.

Ian Thompson, deputy minister of Economic and Rural Development, told a legislative committee Wednesday that the project won’t meet its end-of-year deadline. That will leave thousands of rural residents relying on dial-up service for their businesses and homes well into 2010.

"We’re not going to be 100 per cent complete," Mr. Thompson told the public accounts committee.

"I understand there are Nova Scotians who are disappointed they’re not going to have it."

There remains about six per cent of the province waiting for broadband access, which should be available by May, he said.

Mr. Thompson also suggested taxpayers could be on the hook for more than the original $19.6 million it was supposed to cost the province.

"We won’t know the cost until it’s completed," he said. "It could be thousands; it could be millions. The important thing . . . from our perspective is that we get this done."

Mr. Thompson said there are penalty clauses in the contracts that penalize the private firms working on the project for failing to finish by the end of this month.

He told the committee that EastLink faces a $2 million penalty, but outside the chamber claimed to have made a mistake. He refused to clarify what punitive measures the firms behind schedule — EastLink and Seaside Communications — are facing and even suggested the province may decide against using that clause.

"The penalty clause is sufficient to give us the sort of commercial leverage that we believe we need to have," he said. "We’ll use the penalty clause to the extent that we believe it’s helpful."

A spokeswoman for his department later confirmed that each firm faces penalties of up to $2 million for being behind schedule.

Seaside was responsible for providing service for about 48 per cent of the rural parts of the province in need — it’s about 94 per cent complete. EastLink was tasked with covering 51 per cent of the area without broadband and is only 48 per cent finished.

The other company involved is OmniGlobe, which is on target to meet its deadline.

Vanessa Lentz, who runs a photography business from her home in Hillsvale, Hants County, was disappointed to learn she’ll have to wait a lot longer for broadband service.

"I am upset," Ms. Lentz said. "It’s frustrating. I’m trying to provide service to my clients."

She has to make a 50-kilometre round trip to use computers at a library in Windsor to upload her photos to a Toronto company that processes them for her, because it won’t allow her to tie up its server using dial-up.

That’s time consuming and costs money, making her business less efficient and cutting into her family time, she said.

Ms. Lentz said she feels cheated because she began her business two years ago with the understanding she’d be connected to broadband by now.

"That was a huge consideration in me actually opening this business," she said. "If something is promised to me I expect it to be delivered."

Chuck Porter, the Conservative MLA for Hants West, said the project was on schedule when his party left office and he’d been assured until recently from Mr. Thompson’s department that it’d be wrapped up on time.

Mr. Porter said he receives about five phone calls a week from residents and business owners in his riding who are wondering when they’ll have access to broadband service.

"They’re quite frustrated," he said. "I would like to think we’re doing everything we can to be on time."

But he’s not convinced the project will be completed by May as Mr. Thompson suggested, he said.

Mr. Porter said the Internet providers should have to pay the penalties outlined in their contracts.

"Ask the taxpayers — they’d be more than happy to get $2 million of their money back," he said. "We’ve invested hugely as taxpayers in this."

In 2007, the province announced the $74.5-million initiative to bring broadband to all parts of the province by 2010. The province committed $19.6 million to the initiative while the federal government contributed $14.5 million, with the companies putting up the rest.

( jsimpson@herald.ca)