ERIN – Xplornet Communications provided a report to Erin council on July 22, outlining a plan to erect a 45-metre communications tower on Erin-Garafraxa Townline, between Orton and Belwood.
The presentation by Cyrus Ghassabeh of Forbes Bros. Telecommunications was for information only, since the town has no zoning authority for this type of federally-regulated project.
Neighbouring property owners have been notified.
“A continual growth in demand for wireless products and their associated services has created a need for increased wireless network infrastructure,” said Ghassabeh.
He told council that while the tower has a theoretical range of 25km, the primary benefit is for customers within 10km. The tower is tall enough to maintain line-of-sight contact with other Xplornet towers.
He said any existing customers in the area that currently use Xplornet’s satellite internet service would be better off switching to the tower transmission.
Ghassabeh said the new tower will be capable of delivering broadband service with an average speed of 25mbps, and will be built with the capacity to handle 5G internet service once it becomes available.
No completion date was provided for construction of the tower, which will be located on agricultural land about 500 metres from the nearest residential property.
Such towers provide the opportunity of co-location with other licensed cell phone and internet providers, reducing the overall number of towers.
